New Shoes, Again

I went out to the running store today to look for a running skirt and actually found one! Actually, it turns out that now that I've reached a very reasonable weight and am not overweight at all anymore, things like running skirts actually look okay on me now. Fancy that. It really is a lot of fun though!

Here's the skirt I bought:

It has a little pocket on the inside that will be perfect for my GU or fig newtons or other little calorie boost. I'm excited to try it out!

While I was there, I decided to ask the salespeople about running shoes, since the new ones I just bought have not been feeling quite right. Especially after my run this morning, during which my hip AND my inner ankle were both having problems, and it was only a 5 mile run. They did a new gait analysis for me, since things can change after having babies and other things (like running more and being more experienced). Just like in my last gait analysis, she said I have "a lot of flexibility" in my ankles and "some pretty significant pronation", but rather than put me in a heavy duty motion control shoe, she thought a higher end stability shoe would work better. The first shoe she brought out for me to try on felt like HEAVEN. I swear I could hear the angels singing the second my foot slipped into the shoe! Really, really, truly, that shoe felt SO MUCH better than my other new shoes. I walked around in them, then we went outside and I ran a few yards in them and they felt so good!! My sister in law mentioned in a comment that she has Sauconys and loves them and said something to the effect of "Enjoy running on clouds!" about them. When she said that, it made me really wonder if I had the right shoe, because I felt more like I was running on top of cement blocks. Anyway, the shoe the saleslady brought out to me was the Brooks Adrenaline GTS 11, and since I'm running lots of miles and training for 2 BIG races, I dropped the dough and snatched those puppies up. Here's a picture of my new shoes, which will hopefully stay the real new shoes:

For one thing, I feel more like a normal person when I wear these shoes. (Granted I've only worn them for about 5 minutes so far...) I like being normal in some things. After this shoe experience (this is actually the second time I've had this happen in my short just over 2 year running career), I've decided that even though I can take the info they give me in a gait analysis and get a cheaper shoe from my own online searches, from now on I'm going to support the little running stores and have them put me in a perfect shoe. The awesome thing about doing that is that they have great return policies. If I ever decide this shoe is not the shoe for me, I bring it in and return or exchange it. Then I'll feel more confident with my footwear.

Apparently when you have a motion control shoe on that has too much support under the arch, it causes you to supinate, so after she told me that, I supinated on purpose and I could feel the hip pain, so that totally jives with what the lady was saying. So, wish me luck with these shoes. Hopefully they'll be the ones! I think tomorrow at the gym I'm going to do an easy short treadmill workout with my new running skirt and shoes, and if they work, I'll give them a REAL run on Saturday when we run 13!