I used to be a runner, but not by choice. My endurance sufferfest of choice has always been cycling. However, for a few years, the Army had me running around like I was being chased or some shit. It came to a head at Fort Bragg, when a short day was a 5-miler, and we were running five days a week. At one point, I was down to being able to string together a couple of 5:15 miles whenever a PT test rolled around. And then I got out, transferred the Reserves and to college, and running became a thing of the past.
Something happened recently, and I decided I was going to get back into it. I think I was kind of sick of waiting for warm weather, sick of the song-and-dance preparation that bike rides always seem to entail, and I decided that I wanted to get back to it. So I ordered up a pair of Nike Air Zoom Pegasus 36 Shield shoes (and holy shit what a mouthful of a name — someone at Nike took their cues from early-2000’s Microsoft), and I got down to business.
I used to have pretty good running form, but it all kinda fell apart at some point. I was running with a lot of heel-strike. A good friend that I’ve known since high school had been extolling the virtues of running using the ball of your foot, and I went out and started doing some research. I ordered The Running Revolution from Amazon, and set about reading it, and realized that I needed different shoes.
Fine. Back to the Nike site. Nike Free RN Flyknit 2018 (again, not much better with the Microsoftian naming schema), and got back down to business. Holy shit. Very weird difference both during and after the run. For starters, I was definitely a little faster and a little better, and had no back pain while I ran, but I hurt a lot more afterwards. No back pain after my first run in them, but goddamn, it feels like someone has been beating on my legs with a baseball bat.
And I’m super excited about it. I’m happy to be a runner again. Today’s a rest day, but I’ll be back out there tomorrow. Today, I’ll be watching videos on running form and figuring out a training program.
The goal is to be ready to do a half marathon in the latter half of 2021. Seems like a doable proposition if I keep my shit together.