Blistering Speed

I love my new Asics shoes, which I've named the Green Mambas.  Wearing them, I feel fast.  It could be purely psychological, but I'm looking forward to trying them out on race day, to rule that out.  I've designated them my racing shoes for this year.

This month, I've already logged 60 miles in my quest for 200.  Coming into this weekend's long run, I was nervous because towards the end of the week, my legs felt very fatigued and Saturday's run was a 20 mile run.  The last time I was nervous heading into a long run, I laced up the Green Mambas and had a record run.  The GM's need some miles to get broken in and the written (or unwritten made up rule that I follow) is if you can run 20 miles, you can run 26.2, so I decided to get a feel for them as my marathon shoe.

Twenty one miles later, the Green Mambas didn't let me down.  Yeah, I said twenty one, I happened to take a wrong turn, it's all about going the extra mile anyway.  While I ran in control and never really pushed it, I easily had five more miles in me and my pace was exactly where I hoped to be come marathon time.  But, as you can see from the picture, my Green Mambas bit me!  The toe box is smaller, I probably didn't wear the best sock, and doing that kind of distance my foot swelled enough to cause this blister.  Everybody always asks me do I still have toe nails with all my running, never had an issue before.  For the first time in addition to the blister, the nail on my big toe is also very sensitive, I finally learned the toe nail thing.

This is going to be an interesting week. For the first time since the last marathon I've got injuries.  This coming weekend I have a 5K race.  While I really wasn't going to prepare for it, I had hoped to do some speed work this week to get an idea of what I'd be capable of.  Hoping my Green Mamba bite isn't too serious and can get over the pain.