I’m going to tell you a story and maybe hop back three-ish years in the process. I’ll try to warn you ahead of time about the jump back in time so you don’t get lost.
Yesterday MFH (My Favorite Husband) and I were driving from our house in Mississippi, to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. We head over that way often seeing as #1 Son is in Grad School over there. We point our car east and it kind of gets us there on it’s own.
While MFH was driving, we were chatting and I was poking buttons on my cell phone. On a lark, I decided to check my email. Usually I just try to keep up with FB and Twitter when we’re driving so for me to check my email was a little bit out of character.
All of a sudden, my hand flew up over my mouth and my eyes got BIG and I couldn’t say anything!
Those of you who have met me know that if I can’t talk, something is very, very wrong. My mouth does not have an off button.
MFH saw this and was alarmed. He asked me, “Do I need to pull over? Are you okay?”
I was still stunned! My hand was still over my mouth and the only thing I could do was shake my head and finally say, “YAY!!!!! Holy Cow!!! I can’t believe it!!!” and other such things.
MFH was so confused by this time. I mean, I get excited about stuff and do the Happy Dance around the house on a fairly regular basis but for me to be rendered completely speechless and then finally only be able to sputter out sounds like I’m super excited? Very NOT normal!
I took a deep breath and seeing as we were at a stop light, I held up the email for him to see:
His eyebrows went up and he said, “Congratulations! You’ll be a great Ambassador for them!”
High praise from MFH!
Let’s backtrack to when I started running 5 years ago and a little bit of shoe drama:
When I started C25K on Labor Day in 2011, I started off in a pair of shoes I had purchased at a “Box store.” You know the kind of store. It had bunches of different shoes and clothes and nobody who worked there knew a thing about any of them.
I had gone into that store about 2 years previous and purchased those shoes. They had hurt my feet from day one~I didn’t know any better but boy, I was in for a huge learning curve!
MFH took me to a store to get “fitted.” He’d been running since we were first married (almost 32 years now!) and he knew the importance of wearing the right shoes. We left the store with a pair of shoes. I was a happy girl!
I ran in those shoes all through C25K, the 5K race at the end of C25K, a 12K 5 weeks later and a few more months of running. Then things started going south with those shoes. Back to the store to get re-fitted.
This time they put me in a different brand but pretty much the same shoe. Since I had been put in a stability shoe the first time, the person fitting me the second time assumed I still needed the stability shoe.
I didn’t.
Oops!
Long story short, I bounced back and forth between those two shoes for a few years. My feet hurt constantly and I lost 8 toenails. Something wasn’t right.
Then I heard somebody talking at Altra’s.
I was intrigued!
After some online homework, MFH and I went to a different running store and I tried on a pair of Altra’s. The Olympus.
When my feet slid into those shoes they said, “Ahhhhh!!!” My feet were sooo happy! I bought two pair.
I’ve been running in Altra’s ever since! These days I wear the Torins for road and I’ve since switched from the Olympus to the LonePeak for trails.
You know what? Three years in my Altra’s and every time I put them on, my feet still say, “Ahhhh!!!”
Happy Running, all!!!
#IRun4Aiden
#teamZensah
#AbbottWMM
#ChafeX
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#irun4Ultra
