Cleaning Out My Closet

I had two main projects to complete during those two weeks of Christmas and New Year's where there's not a lot going on at work, and the training is a little on the light side.  Two things.  My wife wanted me to clean up "my" area of the closet.  And I wanted to do my annual cleaning/reorganization of the bike shop.  Guess which one I got done?

Of course, it was the closet.  Gotta keep the CFO happy, or I won't have a bike shop at all!!

Cleaning out the closet reminded me of the ridiculously difficult time I had finding a pair of running shoes that worked well for me.  By "worked well" I mean a pair of shoes that I felt confident in and that I could run in worry and injury free.

Consequently, I spent years switching from one brand and model to another.  Below is a pile of shoes that was hiding at the bottom of my closet from 2008.  I tended to switch them out before I really needed to because I was never happy with them after a month or so of running.  But I also never got rid of them because I was afraid I might want to try them again if they were "better" than whatever I tried next.

In February 2009, I ran the Austin marathon in one of the blue Brooks shoes pictured above.  In March, I started running in Newtons.  And I haven't looked back.  I have never run more consistently and more injury free since college (i.e., before I started listening to the "pros" in the running stores tell me what shoe I "needed.").

Consequently, below are the only three pairs of shoes that I have run in since February 2009. 

The pair on the left were my first pair.  The yellow pair were for racing and some interval training.  And the pair on the right are my current training shoes.  The most shocking part to me is that I only had two pairs of training shoes in 2009.  Two.

Last January, Tory at Newton told me that she couldn't promise that I would be faster, but she did promise that I would recover faster.  That's really what convinced me to give them a try.  And I am happy to say that I ran COMPLETELY injury free in 2009.  I have also been running much more often and more consistent than I ever have in my life (including college).  Oh yeah, and I'm faster than I was last year. 
 
Gone are the days of stressing about what shoe to try next.  Thank you Newton Running!  After years of foot problems, you have drastically changed my running life.  And for that, I am forever grateful.

Cleaning out the closet will be a lot easier in 2010!  Now, if I could just convince the Newtonians to come help me clean out the bike shop!