Justifications

 

It's fall.

That means that at the beginning of your early morning run you have your sleeves on, and by the last mile you’re ready to de-vest yourself of your coldtech gear and streak down the trail because you’re sweating bullets.

And then we all get pneumonia.

Hey. Some things are worth it.

This morning was a fairly decent run. 4.5 miles in 45:45…I really wanted to do sub-10’s, but there’s this small incline steep hill-of-death  (ok, ok…flat-as-a-pancake stretch) at the end that slows me down every time. But I’ll take it. 4.5 miles in almost 46 minutes is way better than what I was doing this summer.

You know, sitting on my rear, wishing it wasn’t a million degrees outside, stressing about school and generally eating everything in sight. I was such the motivational girl, wasn’t I?

Speaking of school, I get done at 10am every Thursday. That means that I have almost an entire day to do whatever I want. I should probably use that time wisely to study, but, well, more important things usually come up instead.

Like finally making it a priority to find Fleet Feet.

A couple months ago I lost my precious little can of jogger’s mace, and, using that as an excuse went to buy another one at FF. I walked in the door and there they were right in front of me.

I grabbed one and headed to the cash register…where I met one of FF’s finest customer service reps.

They are good. A little too good.

An hour and a half later, I’m out the door with custom shoe inserts, the jogger’s mace and Todd the Sales Guy’s (actually, he’s a FIT Professional) business card with my brand-new custom-fitted shoe information on it.

Sucker?

Yes. Yes I am.

I'm usually an Asics girl, but the Fleet Feet guy said that Asics are "soft" shoes and that my form is better in Mizuno's. Apparently I have saggy arches (not really the body part I was highly worried about sagging) and he was particularly in awe of the mechanics of my right knee.

That’s the beauty of going to a place like Fleet Feet. They measure your feet, use some sort of software to tell you all about your arches and pronation, and then they have you try on a bazillion different shoes and take you outside to the parking lot so they can scrutinize your footfalls.

When I turned around to run back towards Todd, I saw his mouth hanging open. I was all ready for him to say something like, “Wow! You have great form!” or “Wow! Have you ever thought about quitting whatever you’re doing to become a professional marathoner??”

Instead, what I got was, “Um, wow! You’re entire right knee turns inward when you run! Did you know that? I’ve never seen anything like that!!!” Then he yells to his sales partner inside the store to come check out the freak of nature who at that particular moment wanted to rip out her knee and throw it at his face.  

In all honesty, it was actually a good thing to find out. Five years of running, six pairs of Asics, four cortisone shots and countless bottles of Aleve later, I find I’ve been running in a shoe that’s perfectly awful for me.

He put me in some Mizunos, which up until that point I had only assumed were baseball shoes since that’s M’s footwear of choice. However, the Nirvana 6’s fit me like a glove.  And they were pretty. And they help my saggy arches and will cushion my freaky knee.

And I want them.

And they cost more than my nursing school tuition.

I felt really, really bad – this guy had spent an hour and a half fitting me for shoes, and here I was just not going to buy anything. Seriously, I’m a sucker. I feel bad for taking up people’s time, so then I end up buying something from them so that they feel like their time wasn’t wasted.

M gets a little frustrated at me for that.

Maybe because that’s the justification I used for bringing home a new car several years ago.

But anyway. I listened to M’s threats words of wisdom bouncing around in my head, and I told the guy to write down the info and that I would put the shoes on my birthday list and send my parents in after the shoes.

So mom and dad, there it is. Don’t let Todd the Sales Guy down.  The ball’s in your court. I wash my hands of his commission. It’s up to you to help him make a sale. No pressure.

Wow. Is that sad and pathetic? An almost-30-year-old still begging her parents for shoes?

All I wanted was some jogger’s mace.

Honest.