October | 2016 | Tigger Mania

Post Views: 0

I’ve been in running shoe shopping mode for a little while now.

Isn’t that the worst? You find your favorite running shoe and then all of a sudden, BAM! they quit working for you. I think this is one of the more dramatic things that can happen to a runner. 😉

A little before this past spring I started having trouble with my most favorite running shoes in the world, Altra’s. LOVE those shoes!

What happened is, I started getting some pretty awful hip discomfort. I was popping Advil like crazy and at night I had to prop up my hips with extra pillows so they wouldn’t keep me awake at night. I thought for sure I was getting or had hip stress fractures.

I was a sad panda.

As a last resort, I tried a shoe that wasn’t a zero drop. I tried On’s. Almost immediately the hip pain went away. How strange is that!?!

This summer, however, my left foot was becoming irritated by the On’s. As soon as I came in the door from a run, I had to take them off immediately. My left foot would swell and I could barely walk for 24 hours. With the kind of miles I needed to run, my left foot was pretty much always angry.

After the Berlin Marathon, my sister and I tried to walk around and do some sightseeing but I had to call it quits after a while because my foot was killing me. It was time to try again for different shoes.

This past Tuesday I drove down to Jackson, Mississippi, to the Fleet Feet store. Good people at Fleet Feet!!!

I took my On’s with me so they could see the wear pattern. There was a very specific and distinct wear pattern on a pair of shoes that I had been wearing just 2 weeks. I figured that if they could see that it might(?) help if trying to figure out what shoe I should be wearing.

The person who helped me, bless her heart, she did such a good job! I left the store with two pair of Hoka’s~Bondi4.

The next morning I had 25 miles to run and bounced out the front door at 2:00am to grab those miles.

My left foot was soooo happy!!! It was doing the Happy Dance. My right foot was sooo UNhappy. It wasn’t doing any dancing at all! I managed 8 miles in those shoes and had to throw in the towel. I stopped by the house and put on an ancient pair of On’s to finish up my 25. The next morning, same old pair of On’s for another 13.

My feet were so sad!!!

This morning I only had a few miles to run (5) so I thought I’d give the Hoka’s one last chance. I thought maybe those Wednesday miles were just my imagination?

Nope.

*sigh*

MFH and I hopped in the car and drove back down to Jackson to Fleet Feet again.

Today I met a Twitter/FB friend for the first time IRL and he helped me with my shoe dilemma.

I was able to return the Hoka’s and brought home some new, wait for it…..

Altra’s!!!!

Yup! I’m going back to my first real love in running shoes. I’ll be rotating my shoes, like always, but I’m also going to be rotating models as well. Fingers crossed on the hip stuff!!!

These top two models are for road running. This bottom is my favorite Lone Peaks. I love these for trails!!!

So, I’ll be working on transitioning back into the zero drop this week. We want happy Achilles and so will take the time to make sure we do this right.

Happy Running!!!

#IRun4Aiden