June 1, 2005 ...New Shoes (cute salesman)

Today I bought a pair of REAL running shoes. Very exciting. I’m used to buying my athletic shoes at Big 5 or Sportsmart where I always have to beg someone to help me and I don’t know why I even bother because no one knows anything about shoes anyways. So, I was told very clearly by all my coaches and everybody else I know who runs that I should avoid those places at all costs and go to Fleet Feet. That’s because shoes are like the only required piece of equipment and if you get the wrong equipment- horrible things can happen. What kind of horrible things? Black toenails, toenails falling off, huge blisters, hurt knees and lots of other things I would like to avoid.
Before everyone informed me about the importance of running shoes- I had been proud of my $9.99 shoes I got at Big 5 last year. I thought it was normal that if I ran more than 4 miles at a time my toes went numb. Well, let me tell you- Fleet Feet was a whole different story than Big 5. My salesman talked with me about why I needed shoes and what shoes I’ve used before. I avoided telling him the $9.99 story and just told him my current brand and that my toes go numb. Then we picked out socks. Which is very important- (do not wear cotton socks when you run, you might as well just ask for blisters!). After we picked out some very cool socks, he sized my foot (remember the one size bigger rule!) and then he watched me walk and run so he could pick out a shoe that would work best for me. I felt like an idiot running around the store, but I learned that when I run my feet roll to the outside, so I need a shoe that wont pull me further to that side. This will save my knees. My salesman (I forgot his name but not only was he very nice and very cute) is a long distance runner. I thought 26.2 was a long distance- but my salesman told me he used to do marathons but he now runs 50 mile races! Marathons were not enough of a challenge for him. I don’t even like to drive for 50 miles. He runs 50 miles. That’s like over 10 hours of running consecutively. Wow. So I trusted his opinion on my shoe selection. Together, we found the perfect shoes for me. It was a big decision since these are shoes I will run at least 500 miles in over the next few months. Anyways, now that I have my shoes I am ready to run!