Just a hunch
My orthodics are long past due for replacing as well, but they're insanely expensive. I'm looking to get away from needing to wear them if I can. A friend told me about a store that would be hosting a race. Any store that hosts a race must have a few employees with solid running shoe knowledge, so I opted to check it out. My assessment was dead on. I could tell by the shoes that they carry that somebody there knew a thing or two about running shoes. The selection was mostly Asics and Brooks but consisted of their top models. I already knew my foot type and strike pattern, but I let the guy check me out anyway. After trying on few different models I was pretty much sold on one pair. The guy helping was trying to put me in a lesser known model from Brooks, but I wasn't having it. Having read some reviews of this shoe, I knew what they were all about and they just didn't compare to the other models I had tried on. It was a recent release that Brooks more or less decided to drop after it didn't receive the feedback they were looking for. They have a great selection of running shoes and this didn't really add much to their line-up so they took it off their website. I figured this guy was trying to get these shoes out of his stock so he could bring in a different model. It's not uncommon for shoe stores to do this. They will never put you in a shoe that isn't right for you, but if it's pretty close to a shoe that is right for you then they're going to push that one a bit harder to get it off their shelves. No harm done, I just didn't want that shoe. I walked out with a pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS 10's. I've run in several older versions of this shoe so I was familiar with the fit and feel.
While at the store I couldn't help but sign up for the race. Sure, I wasn't in very good shape having not run for a month or better because of that ugly hamstring injury, but this was just for fun. Hmmm, fun. I didn't get much training in during the following week because of work. A bunch of Netzsch employees, and distributors, from America came to Germany for a water treatment conference. I went to the conference on Wednesday and got invited to dinner with our guests on three days out of out of the week. Saturday came up fast and I had only run on Monday. Oh yeah, I'm so ready for this race. I woke up at 7AM to get ready and decided to take a glance at the race flyer. The race was on Sunday. After double checking the date against my watch and my cell phone, I hopped back into bed for a few extra hours of sleep. I made sure not to waste the day and went out for a few miles later on.
7AM came again Sunday morning and I made sure to eat and hydrate well before the race. My friends came to pick me up an hour before the gun would go off, and asked which distance I was planning to run. A bit confused, I justed looked at them. I had been thinking this was a 5k and found out that the race was set up for 7k, 14k and 21k. I should pay more attention to what I sign up for. I settled on running the 7k but wondered why the obscure distance. I realized the logic once I did the conversion to miles. 21k is about 13 miles or a half marathon. We got to the start with about a half hour until the start and the friends I'd soon be running with didn't appear too concerned with warming up. Short on time, I went to get a few laps and some drills in before the gun. I was really just planning to treat this race like a normal training run but when I heard that gun, instinct took over. I strode out with the leaders for a while before settling into a rhythm. About a mile in, the first hill appeared. It didn't look all that bad so I approached it with liberal speed and shortened my stride a bit. When I got the to top I realized no one was opening up on the downhill. This was my chance to let gravity take over and move up a bit. I kept with this strategy throughout the race and managed to work my way up quite nicely. At the 1km to go mark I started eying up the runners ahead of me. They didn't look much like kickers which left me wide open to pass on by. I silently closed the gap before hittin' the throttle at 200meters. I crossed the line at 33 minutes and feeling great. My friend who wasn't racing told me that I had finished in 8th place. Hmm, not too shabby. I suspect that most of the serious runners opted for the 14 and 21k races. My time wasn't anything to brag about but the race was fun and I was happy to be running at my normal pace again. More training and more racing await. Next year I'm going after the 21k!
7AM came again Sunday morning and I made sure to eat and hydrate well before the race. My friends came to pick me up an hour before the gun would go off, and asked which distance I was planning to run. A bit confused, I justed looked at them. I had been thinking this was a 5k and found out that the race was set up for 7k, 14k and 21k. I should pay more attention to what I sign up for. I settled on running the 7k but wondered why the obscure distance. I realized the logic once I did the conversion to miles. 21k is about 13 miles or a half marathon. We got to the start with about a half hour until the start and the friends I'd soon be running with didn't appear too concerned with warming up. Short on time, I went to get a few laps and some drills in before the gun. I was really just planning to treat this race like a normal training run but when I heard that gun, instinct took over. I strode out with the leaders for a while before settling into a rhythm. About a mile in, the first hill appeared. It didn't look all that bad so I approached it with liberal speed and shortened my stride a bit. When I got the to top I realized no one was opening up on the downhill. This was my chance to let gravity take over and move up a bit. I kept with this strategy throughout the race and managed to work my way up quite nicely. At the 1km to go mark I started eying up the runners ahead of me. They didn't look much like kickers which left me wide open to pass on by. I silently closed the gap before hittin' the throttle at 200meters. I crossed the line at 33 minutes and feeling great. My friend who wasn't racing told me that I had finished in 8th place. Hmm, not too shabby. I suspect that most of the serious runners opted for the 14 and 21k races. My time wasn't anything to brag about but the race was fun and I was happy to be running at my normal pace again. More training and more racing await. Next year I'm going after the 21k!
