health note June 9

Sunday morning I weighed 212.7. Woohoo! Monday morning I was back up to 214.1. Rats! But that is what I predicted. Tuesday morning, 213.0. This morning, 212.3. I'm still 1.1 pounds ahead of the schedule I set up nine days ago.

Shoes. New $95 running shoes, that is. I started running last week in my old Adidas. After three days they started falling apart. I bought them probably 4 years ago to play volleyball. Knee surgery and chronic pain stopped me a couple years ago from continuing to play. They're still comfortable to wear, and my feet, toes, ankles, shins don't seem to be any worse now for running in them. The chronic knee pain is no worse. The minor pain in the calf, ham, and quad I attribute to the fact that I ran a little and exercised some different muscle groups.

The old Adidas labels say Naler Classic and TENNIS, so I believe they are a true tennis shoe. That's probably why they are comfortable on the feet and worked fine for volleyball. But they weren't engineered as a running shoe for an overweight person, and their age is showing. Pieces are literally falling off outside and inside the shoes.

The new shoes are Saucony ProGrid Ride 3. The pair weighs about 4 ounces less than the Adidas. Kudos to Portland Running Shoe Company in West Linn for taking the time to watch me run in at least six different pairs of shoes. Once we narrowed it down to two competing pairs, they had me put on one from each pair and told me to go outside and run around the building. Half-way around the building the difference was night and day and the decision was easy. At least the decision about which shoe was best for me to run in was easy. I think they were the least expensive I tried on, too, but I didn't know that when I was running around the building.

I told them I would take them home, but wanted to be able to return them if I got home and checked my finances and found I just couldn't afford to keep them. $95 is a lot of money to me. They said no problem, that their return policy is very generous, so I took them home.

I struggled with justifying keeping them. I found the previous year's model of the same shoe online for as little as $60 (including shipping, with rebates, etc.) I have not found the current year model online any cheaper than the store. So, now I'm justifying the $35 difference.

My son warned me that just because they are the same model and have the same description doesn't mean they will feel the same when you run in them. The $60 online option I found had a "no returns" policy. I haven't found the older model in a store in the area where I could try them.

Here's my strongest argument for paying the extra money. I feel Portland Running Shoe Company worked for and earned the extra $35. They took time to work with my wife a couple weeks ago when she got new running shoes. She loves the shoes they put her in after going through their selection and elimination process. They had the previous year model of the shoes she wanted and we were able to get that discount in the store. They spent the better part of an hour working with me when I went back a few days after buying my wife's shoes. Back in my technical heyday I charged as much as $250 an hour for my consulting services, so $35 for an hour of their advice and service is cheap by comparison. I want that store to be profitable enough so their expertise will still be there when our shoes wear out. There are sometimes good reasons for buying in a local retail store.

I tried running in a couple other old pairs of shoes I had collected over the years. Indoors soccer shoes. Basketball high tops. I discovered my feet are not the same size they were ten or fifteen years ago. And apparently I wore them and broke them down more than I had realized. Running in them hurt a lot, especially the toes since the shoes are now a full size too small. You cause pain in your toes, and your whole body recoils to try to protect itself, causing pain in many places.

Three days after buying the Saucony shoes, I finally took them out of the box to test them on my then-smarting feet and toes. It was 9PM Sunday, the sun had just set, dusk was going to quickly turn to dark. I ran 1.5 miles in 13 minutes (give or take a few yards and seconds). My first reaction to actually running on the road was how good they felt; like moccasins on carpet. I guess I am a convert to good running shoes.

I ran three miles yesterday morning. That was my longest run in many years, probably decades. I walked three more miles with my wife last night. I walked and ran 2.5 miles this morning. I was going to do three miles, but I discovered even the tiny version of what Oregonians call hail stings when you run in it. (My brother got a lump on his head when he got caught outside in a hailstorm in North Dakota.) I also learned how heavy even good shoes feel once they get waterlogged. A lot of rain and hail came down on me in that last mile today. One more notch in becoming a "real" runner?

Reality check: my mile times are still more than double what they were in 1972. But, I'm feeling better than I have in a very long time, and my weight is down to where it was six or eight years ago.