Heaven is a New Pair of {Running} Shoes

I used to think that Clemson was heaven on Earth.

Then I was pretty sure that it was Kiawah.

Now I'm positive that it is a new pair of running shoes.

The last couple weeks of running have been fairly discouraging. Between working later, the poor weather, and traveling, I haven't had much time to run. The times that I was able to run were miserable. I could feel every single stride from my foot up to my hip.

I kind of thought it might be the fact that my body isn't cut out for running and that I wasn't going to make it until my half marathon.

But then I thought that maybe it was my shoes. I purchased my very first pair of "official" running shoes last November and I had remembered that the sales guy said the shoes would probably need to be replaced in 6-8 months or after a certain number of miles.

I took my shoes into Fleet Feet in Columbia and asked the sales associate to check them out. She kind of laughed and was like, uh, yeah, you should be in pain if you're running in these. I barely had the new pair of shoes on my foot in the store before I could tell the difference.

Lesson learned: listen to your body!

Apparently it'll let you know when your shoes suck and you need a new pair.

By "new" pair, I mean it's a new pair of the exact same shoe I already had, just in a different color. What can I say? I'm a creature of habit. I find something that I like and I stick with it.

I ran last night for the first time with the new shoes and y'all, I literally could not stop running. I thought I was going to run 4, maybe 5 miles. Got to 4 and kept going. Got to 5 and kept going. Got to 6 and kept going. Got to 7 and my common sense kicked in and made me stop since it was pretty dark out.

7 miles!

AND it was a 9:58/mile pace which is 0:37 faster pace than my last run. Told y'all running had gotten pretty painful in the last few weeks!

Kiawah is in less than two months and I'm feeling so much better about it again. I'm over halfway there in distance now and I only have 6.1 more miles to go.

Bring. It. On.

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Linking up with Sam over at Pancake Warriors for Fitness Friday!