New shoes, pepper socks, baby sandals

These are my old running shoes:

Please excuse my pepper socks.  I would like to say those are the socks I wear when all my professional socks are dirty, but I won't pretend. I am wearing socks with frogs on them today.  

Anyway, those were my super old running shoes. I bought them two years ago and ran the Marine Corps Marathon in them. I wore them through pregnancy.  I wore them after pregnancy. I wore them on my first run as a mother.  And I wore them out.  And by that I mean they have too many miles on them and they must be retired (good thing my husband doesn't feel that way about me because I am pretty exhausted right now...and I would sure hate to be retired!).

Since I am so frugal, I kept putting it off.  There was always something else that I needed to buy. However, the last few times I've run I've had a serious pain in my buttock (that's a funny word, but in my head I said it with a Forest Gump accent so it sounded cooler).  After diagnosing myself, I decided that I had periformis syndrome (I took anatomy last year, I am practically a doctor) so I am trying to follow these guidelines from Runner's World.  Although I don't think mine case is that serious, I decided I needed a little rest.  I am trying to do some serious stretching to open my hips and stretch my muscles in hopes that my symptoms will go away.  However, I knew that I really couldn't return to running until I got some new shoes because bad shoes are a common cause of running injuries.  

So last week I dragged myself to my favorite running store and picked up these beauties:

They are Saucony Hurricanes.  I have been running in the Asics GT series since I started training for my first marathon back in 2003.  I went to Phildippides in Atlanta (this will always be my favorite running store ever) and they made me run around the store and put on a bunch of shoes and I walked out in ASICS GT-somethings (I can't remember the number - it was 10 years ago).  And I never looked back.  Every time I need a new pair of shoes I just pop in to the running store and buy the latest version.  No questions asked.  So what was different this time? First, my painful periformis muscle; and second, I wanted to make sure my foot/gait hadn't changed after pregnancy.  The guy made me stand on some fancy machine and then brought out the Asics GT-2170 and Saucony Hurricane 15. I tried both on but for some reason my gut was telling to go with the Saucony Hurricanes. So I did.

I wish I could tell you how amazing it is to run in them, but I can't.  Why?  Because I haven't found the time to run in them yet.  Actually, I ran to my sister's house the other night to babysit her kids but that was a short mile.  Not much to judge shoes on.  

I will get out soon though.  My husband said we could do a family run tomorrow but I'm not holding my breath because he hates running and is 95% likely to change his mind.  It would be fun though!  As soon as I get more than four hours of sleep I will go.  I have a half marathon to train for!

Speaking of, my good Peace Corps friends invited me to run the Philly Half Marathon in November with them.  We used to run half marathons each fall together and it would be SO fun to do it again...except it is $115.  Plus hotel.  Yeah, a bit out of my budget, but I am tempted. We shall see!

And don't worry, I bought Evan a new pair of shoes too:

They didn't have running shoes in his size at the consignment store though so he got sandals instead. I'm not sure if he'll ever wear them because I never put shoes on him, but I figured that now that he is pulling up he might need shoes on occasion.

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When was the last time you bought new shoes?

What are you favorite type of shoe to buy?

      I love buying running shoes but hate shoe shopping for anything else.  The worst type of shoe for me to buy is new work shoes.  It takes me days to find the right kind and then I end up returning them for something else.