Need to talk

But can't talk long tonight. It's already 10:45 and I'm tired. And I have to be at the lake at 6:15 tomorrow morning to fill my volunteer slot before the race, in which I am running. But it's just a 5K so I should be fine. I'm going to try to go sub 24. I don't know if I'll make it. We'll see. My ankle is sort of bothering me. That's never really gone away completely. And I haven't really eaten right for a race. Plus it's supposed to be really windy, which slows me down. Not necessarily relative to other people, but that's not the point. I'm not worried about anyone else.

Someone asked me the other day if it bothered me having "girls" beat me. I just looked at him as if he was crazy. I just said "No. Girls have been beating me all my life at one thing or another. Since I started riding the bike, I've ridden with lots of "girls" who can leave me in the dust. Running may be even worse, though it's hard to compare." (Or that's something like what I said.)

I don't know why I went into that little tantrum. That was kind of out of nowhere. It's not what I was going to write about at all. But when I start writing sometimes it's that way. What comes out is not what I expected or intended. I believe listening to novelists talk about how they write, I've heard some of them talk about how they have to wait and see where characters or plots take them, as if they were not in control of themselves when writing. I think I believe that. I'm no writer, but I've experienced a sense of "Why am I writing this?" before.

I don't understand something. Mississippi John Hurt is singing "Shake That Thing" and I don't know what "that thing" is. "Bought my babe a diamond ring, went back home and told her "Baby shake that thing."" Oh well, it's a mystery.

Anyway, what I'm thinking about is my shoes. As you know, I've struggled with shoes since the beginning. I think I'm starting to have issues because my shoes are worn out. I just checked and I've run about 410 miles since I started uploading from the Forerunner on Sept. 22. That day was a 16.8 mile run. I'd put a lot of miles on the shoes before that. Most of those miles have been on 3 pairs of shoes, though I have a 4th pair I stopped wearing because (close your ears if you are too delicate to hear this) (or skip the next 27 words) they stink so badly I can't stand to be near them. My other shoes don't smell like roses, but they are pretty innocuous. Very innocuous by comparison.

The rule of thumb (Does that phrase bother you out there? Some people at least pretend to be offended by it. Silly, I think.) is that one should wear running shoes between 300 and 500 miles at the outside. After that they are too beaten down. And one should not wear the same shoes every day. I don't know how much I've worn any one pair of these shoes, but at least some of them are getting up there. Say I've done 700 miles or so altogether. That's a WAG. But probably close. 3 pairs of shoes would be 233 miles per pair. If I did 50 miles in the stinkies, then the average would go down to 215 or so per pair. But since my Burns (one of the pairs -- my "racing flats") have seen fewer miles, there's a chance one or the other pair is over 300 now.

I guess this is not as bad as I was afraid it would be when I started this post. But it is definitely time to buy a couple more pairs of shoes.

I did not do New Year's Resolutions. Did all of you out there? I was thinking today I should set a goal or two for myself for the year. Run 2 marathons? Do a triathlon? (long sprint? Olympic? 70.3? Full Iron?) Goals are not the same as resolutions, are they?

But now I've got to get to bed. My eyes are burning. Do yours do that when you're tired?

I want to talk about writing, Tour de Georgia, and other stuff. But not tonight. Have I ever told my unreliable memory story? I was telling it tonight at REI. It's bad when I can't remember things I've talked about in the blog.