I'm back, baby!

I forget if I've written about this or not, and I'm too lazy to go back and look. Back in July I got new running shoes. I've been running in the Saucony Grid Omni since the Omni 3, which I loved. I went through two pair of those, then the Omni 4, which I didn't like as much. The Omni 5 was awesome and again I went through 2 pair of those. That's about 1500 miles in the Omni series. Naturally when I needed a new pair and they were selling the Omni 6 that is what I went with. After about 20 miles I was developing blisters on my left foot (I NEVER get blisters on my left foot) and I had some discomfort in my right knee. I thought I was just breaking the shoes in so I kept going. Another 20 miles and the discomfort had turned into pain. Another 20 and I was having to take 3-4 days between runs. I knew at that point that the shoes were bad.

I went to Boulder Running Company and had them videotape my stride and sure enough my over-pronation was exaggerated in the Omni 6. It turns out that Saucony softened the in-step and that is where I need the most support. My foot rolled over too far and the knee was taking all the stress. I got fitted for the Asics Gel Foundation, which stopped the foot roll in the right spot.

Still, it's been a slow road back. I've been slowly increasing my mileage from a low week of 4 miles to this week's high of 15.5 miles. I've done two consecutive runs of greater than 5 miles for the first time since July and my knees, feet and shoes feel great.

It's such a relief to know that I'm back because this is my favorite time of year to run. Morning temperatures are in the high 40s or low 50s, it's light enough to run but dark enough that the world is still largely asleep. This morning I timed it perfectly so that I was at a high point and could see over all of the houses across the field just as the first blaze orange sliver of the sun rose from the embers glowing along the eastern horizon. It was a beautiful, singular moment and goes into the bag of reasons why I like to run. Now that I'm back on friendly terms with my knee I will have many more like that this fall.