New Shoes, Thou Name Art Gabriel

And yet ANOTHER good run. Where are they all coming from?

The second day of the end of Daylight Savings started at 6am when the alarm went off. By the time I was getting dressed it was light. I love watching the sun rise over the mountains in the morning...

I took advantage of Duck's permission to go hard this week by upping the weights on the leg press and increasing the reps on some of the other leg exercises. As much as I hate Frog Jumps I'm a heck of a lot better at them than I used to be. I didn't feel shattered at the end of the workout, and was able to get through the day without feeling tired.

I ate well today too, which helped. Breakast was a nice bowl of Special K with fruit salad, and I munched on fruit over the morning. For lunch I had a serving of the Minestrone I cooked yesterday, then at 3.30 I made up a mug of miso soup. I've just eaten a bowl of pasta with a tomato-based sauce for dinner, along with a huge bowl of salad with a little balsamic vinegar tossed through. So today wasn't as big on the protein as it could have been, although there were chickpeas in the Minestrone.

The Jog Squad met as usual at 6.00 at Xtreme, and it was still light. I was nervous about running in my new Addidas, having had such a bad experience with the last pair. It took around two months to break the last pair in, and I was never happy with how heavy my feet sounded in them. This new pair seem like a whole different kind of shoe. They look smaller, and feel lighter and more flexible. I'm not sure what they've changed, but I like it.

Those of us who'd already done the fitness test were sent off on a run along Manners Street, Lambton Quay, up Woodward Street, down the Terrace, up the incline that is Bowen Street, down Tinakori to Thorndon Quay, then back to the gym along the waterfront.

I started out running with Sarah and Karen. Even as we ran along Manners Street I could tell something was different. I could barely hear my feet, and I felt like I was gliding on air. Can a new pair of shoes make someone run faster? Ok, so I could tell I was running faster than I would normally run, but I never felt like I was going to have to slow down. I kept wondering when I was going to start to run out of juice, but it never happened.

All the way around the run I kept pace with Sarah and Karen. Could I be turning into a front of the pack runner? As we got to Bowen I fully expected the other two to race off ahead of me, but I managed to hold my own. I even lead for part of the way down Thorndon Quay. As we crossed the last set of lights back to the gym we even sprinted, and I made it back to the gym in first place.

I'm absolutely thrilled with how tonight's run went, but I have to admit to also being a little confused. According to Karen's stopwatch we ran for just under 40 minutes. MapMyRun shows our distance tonight as being 7km. That means I ran at approximately the same pace I ran the Round the Bays, even allowing for a little bit of traffic-light time tonight. I can't work it out, because I plodded around the Bays, and I flew tonight. I know we ran a hill tonight, but we still ran up Bowen at a good pace, and there was the downhill stretch on Tinakori to compensate. I'm not sure I trust MapMyRun after all...

Anyway, all that aside, tonight was a brilliant run. My old shoes were indeed the devil's spawn, my new shoes are my redeeming angels. I am fit. I am fast. I totally rock...