Day 170: New Running Slippers!

On Christmas morning, I opened a box from Mr. T. Inside, I saw a little card with Road Runner Sports printed in orange and white across the front, and inside that, Mr. T’s loopy handwriting in black ink: “$100. For shoes!”

As he explained to my family about my painful blisters and how I could barely walk for a week after the Seattle Half, I felt tears forcing their way out of my lids.

He stopped. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m just so…” *sniff* “…just so happy.”

Today, we went as a family to Road Runner Sports at Kent Station.

A nice woman had me remove my shoes and socks, walk on a pad and then run on a treadmill. Next, we looked at my feet on a big screen and she scored the results on a sheet of paper.

Verdict: Stability.

I have high arches, but not extremely high. My achilles is mostly straight, but my feet point out a little when I run. When my foot hits the ground, most of the weight is landing on my big toe and the second biggest toe. That last little tidbit was no surprise. You’ve seen what Mr. T calls my “freakish big toe” before. Just in case you forgot, here’s a reminder and a little graphic of the location of all my blisters.

(Ditto for my right foot.)

What was surprising, however, was that my feet both measured a size 9. I thought my left was a half size bigger than my right! I was shocked.

Maybe that all changed during pregnancy, maybe it’s all in my head!

But when I tried on my first pair of shoes in a 9-1/2, my big, right freakish toe poked the fabric. Those weren’t going to work. The woman ran to the back and then returned with new sizes and brands of shoes over and over again.

The Nikes had a seam inside that rubbed the top of my right foot. Turns out it was the seam from the swoosh. This made me chuckle. All that money pumped into brand recongition and I won’t buy the shoes because the logo is causing me pain! I tried some Asics, which I liked, but the ankles were too high and rubbed my right ankle. What’s with my right foot? Nothing seemed to bother the left one.

Then when I put the Saucony ProGrid Omni 8’s on, I knew they were mine. I didn’t even feel like I was wearing shoes. When I ran in them, it felt like I was wearing slippers. I was stepping on clouds! Love!

And, get this! They are 10-1/2’s! I guess that shows you how much variation in size there is between the cold, metal foot measuring thing and different brands of running shoes. Here they are all snug in their box.

I wonder if they know that we are going for an early morning run tomorrow.