Starting over? Mind over feet ? Help!
I collected my real built-up running shoe from Bill Stone at RunTex yesterday.
The shoe itself doesn't weigh nearly as much as it looks( click to enlarge), or compared to the shoe I had built by Hanger Prosthetics, in this post. I tried it out in the shop, it feels good, has some bend when running. Bill looked at my hips and reckons they are nearly right, possibly only out by 1/4 of an inch or less.
Bill and I discussed strategy for starting using the shoe. Bill isn't one of those proscriptive types, so he wouldn't tell me what to do, I had to make some suggestions, ask questions. Bill seems comfortable for me to wear the shoe for a few hours a day and start running short runs straight away. Thats fine in principle, however, it's just over a month before my A-race.
I'm really caught between a rock and a hard place. I've been managing for 20-years without any real support, I've been running for 7+ years with only a built-up orthotic. So I'm concerned when I start on this I'm going to have back and hip problems. On the other hand, the reason I went to Bill in the first place is that I'm having problems with long runs already. Balance that with the fact that all my near term races are short distance, that isn't a REAL problem.
So, I'm thinking that I'll do Saturdays Texas Roundup 5k as hard and fast as I can with my old shoes. Then I'll start walking and jogging with a view to doing a 5k before the Rookie triathlon, and race the Rookie with the new shoe since it's only a 2m Run. That will give me a couple of weeks to get some speed before my A-race.
The alternative is, I could just leave the shoe alone, and pick it up after my June A-race, and carry on with my plan, to "go long"er with a view to being able to do a half marathon distance run, followed by IM 70.3 Austin in November. But then maybe I just be ok and would run faster with the shoe, even at short distance...
indecision rules...