These are my new new running shoes, which I used for the first time last night. The Asics Gel-Tempo IIs that I started with are not bad shoes, but the intermittent pains in my right leg and both knees led to me think there might be better shoes for me, so off I went to an actual running store. The guy measured both of my feet, put my old new shoes on a stool and studied them closely, listened to me talk about my running and my pain, and brought out three pairs for me to try. The Saucony were a bit narrow through the forefoot, and the Brooks were a bit loose in the heel, but the Asics GT-2110s felt okay so I went with those. I was skeptical about the size–these are one size larger and one width narrower than what I usually wear–but I felt better when I looked them up on Zappos and saw that over half the survey respondents said this shoe “felt a full size smaller than marked”. Having worn them for one workout now, I’m still worried about the width–my right foot seemed just a tiny bit squeezed, though the left one was fine. These new new shoes did seem kinder to my knees, so that’s a good thing.

Last night was my first session in week 6 of the program; that’s week 8 as the calendar flies, because it took me double the time to master weeks 2 and 4. I’m thinking week 6 is going to be another double, because it’s just not reasonable to cut my walking intervals in half while adding two repeats. It’s just not. I tried last night and got through the first two repeats but after that backed off–when I can still hear the blood pounding in my ears when the kitchen timer (I still haven’t gotten a sports watch) goes off to tell me to start jogging, I keep walking. Still, I never walked more than two minutes in a row, so it’s not like I just gave up. I went back and read my day 1 report–four minutes walking and one minute running times four got me red-faced and breathing hard. I bet I could do that now without any trouble at all. Yay for making progress.

The cooler fall weather has been nice; I feel less like dying when the temperature is in the 60s rather than the 80s when I’m running. Last night it was warmer than it had been recently and I really noticed the difference; I was in a tank top and shorts and still got overheated. There shouldn’t be too many more days like that in the coming months. I’m hoping for good weather for Sunday–I’m going to participate in my first race. It’s only 2.5 miles, and I sure won’t be running the whole thing, but it’s still a big step. I haven’t run with a big group of people since high school gym class, so I’m not sure what to expect. Three of my coworkers are also going to be there–two of them are doing longer distances, so I won’t see much of them. I paid the extra money to get a race t-shirt, figuring if things go badly this might be the only one I ever get.

Still, I’m enough of a crazy optimist to have blocked out March 25th of next year on my calendar–that’s the day of the 2007 MORE Marathon. Me running a marathon is still the wackiest of wacky ideas, but doing a half marathon seems like it might be on the remote edge of what’s possible. Not running all 13.1 miles, of course, but running some of them and finishing within the six and a half hour time limit–I bet I could do that. If my joints hold up, that is.