Saturday, February 23, 2013

It's Been A While...


No, I didn't just drive around in the car!
Bless me, father, for I have sinned... It's been a year and a month since my last blog post! Among other life changes, if I've been out of the saddle for a while, I've made up for it by (**wait for it**...) becoming somewhat of a RUNNER.

I partially blame the cycling discipline of cyclocross for this mutation... and that endorophins-induced state known as "runner's high"... In fact, I was so "high" at one point, that I decided that I had it in me to train for and run a marathon, which, I did.

Myyy Mizunos!
(my version of Run DMC)
In the wake of my 26.2 mile death-march, I also switched my shoes of choice from New Balance to Mizuno. In my past life, I obsessed about New Balances because the models I tended to buy were 'Made in USA' and came in various widths to dial-in the fit, etc. Well, I came to find that after a thorough fitting and gait-analysis, Mizunos simply fit my feet and running style better. I seem to have been also running with too much 'stability' and 'motion-control' in the stiffer New Balance models I ran in, and decided to scale back to a slightly more 'natural' running approach, striking more on the mid-foot than on the heel. Amazingly, the knee pain that had been threatening, went away! Nice.

As if this madness wasn't enough, I've gone ahead and signed up for two full marathons this year and a couple of halves.. and I'm sure a 10K or two for good measure.

Okay, let's not forget that I'm still, first and foremost, a velo-maniac (crazy about the bike?)... So, I'll leave this first comeback-blog posting with an image of one of my very few moments on the bike in recent memory. In fact, this might be the ONLY time I've trained on two wheels in many, many, many months... Here's to hoofing it, and rolling on down the roads of 2013!