New Shoes

Something else that we did this past weekend...

If you'll remember, a few years ago I completed a 1/2 marathon.  Part of the after-effects of that marathon was I lost part of both my big toenails.  They didn't come completely off...just died and then grew out.  I thought that was the end of it until a few months ago, I finally took all my nail polish off myself (after many months of pedicures) and noticed part of my big toenails was dead again.  I did a 5k in December and thought maybe that was when it happened, but I wasn't sure why it kept happening.

So I decided to go to a local Athletics shop (Fleet Feet) and be measured to be sure I was in the right size shoe etc.  I have always gotten a horrible back ache when I am on my feet too long.  Anyway, the folks at Fleet Feet will actually watch you walk and fit you with the right size shoe etc.

Tracey helped me when I went in and told me to take my socks and shoes off and roll my pants up so she could watch me walk.  She told me something I wasn't too surprised to hear.  My arch collapses when I walk.  What she did tell me that surprised the heck out of me was that I need a full size and 1/2 BIGGER than what I was in.  For the longest, I wore a 6 1/2 shoe.  After Jenna, I grew into a size 7.  On rare occasions, I wears a 7 1/2.  She put me in an 8 1/2.  And she said I was a AA which is extremely narrow.  When I was a kid, I was always hard to fit because of my narrow feet, but I thought I'd gotten more average.  I ended up paying more than I've ever paid for a shoe, but they should last me a good long time.

You might be wondering why all of a sudden the interest in new running/walking shoes.  Well, at Jenna's school, they are training for the kids marathon for the Country Music Marathon.  While Jenna isn't doing the actual marathon, she is training 2x a week with her friends from school.  So, in an effort to participate in something with her as well as trying to get healthier myself, I thought the first step would be new shoes.  I'd like to do the Couch to 5k program using the app.  We'll see though.

After I got fitted and bought new shoes, I thought it might be good to have Jenna fitted if she was going to be running this kids marathon.  Nothing surprising came from her fitting though.  She doesn't have the collapsing arches like me.  She does have one foot about 1/2 size bigger than the other, but I've known that since she was little and apparently, it's fairly common.  They did size her up by 1 size, but by that time, I was expecting it.

Here are our somewhat matching shoes.

We were outside playing frisbee, but let's hope that's just the beginning of where these shoes will take us!