Sometimes i feel as if people are trying too hard to sell me on something i want to believe in and as a result they end up turning me off rather than convincing me. This was definitely the case while browsing the MadeToRun website/blog.
On the other hand, i'm not sure humor is the way to go. There were two videos that i saw today that amused me very much but didn't help answer questions, either. For instance this Anti-Shoe Infomercial:
which makes fun of itself so much that it compromises the point that it's trying to make (if they are pro-barefoot) and The Barefoot Runner (warning: NSFW from :25-:30):
in which very little running actually occurs.
I don't want to hear/read studies or common sense be referenced. I want people to relate their personal experiences. I want to know what others feel and have felt so i can guess what i would feel if i were in their shoes. That is why Leah's KomodoSport review and Justin's ...Power of Bare Feet have sold me more than anything else i've read in the past few hours. They are real, they ring true, they give voice to things i've known and felt (if only in my gut) but couldn't manage to put into words myself.
The rest...well i'm still hating the fact that i'm working somewhere that mostly carries merchandise made in China and remembering what someone said today in Sunday school. Americans today feel entitled to things that they shouldn't, that have no worth when we don't have to struggle to obtain them. I know that fits into my life somehow.
I've been working as a cashier again as seasonal help. When i did this before i was in better shape and am pretty sure that i had shorter shifts. I know i did after it became part-time and no longer seasonal because i was still in school. This is even how i funded the training for my first triathlon. But now...i have gained weight and am working nine hour shifts. It was brutal for the first 4-6 weeks i'd say. I think that i have lost a little bit of weight and now i usually only get really sore on Saturdays...after working 2-3 of these shifts in a row.
I really want to start training again. I have been wearing my latest pair of running shoes while at work and have been considering alternative methods of shodding my feet once i start working out again. In fact, i started thinking about it just as soon as i had bought these shoes. Oh the irony, but now these shoes do have a use and i have a little cash influx i'm wondering if i should splurge on some Vibrams or just wait a while and see what the new year brings to the shoe market. I tried some on at REI and did like them a lot, but of course i haven't run in them and they only had black in my sizes. I don't want black shoes because that would be horrible in the summer. I do live in the desert after all. Now i'm being crazy and even wondering if i should be wearing shoes like Vibrams 24/7...at work and casually, if not at church. I am so over high heels and quickly discovered that taking my shoes off for a while does help when your feet are screaming at you.
So my resolution for the new year...is to start training again and to actually write about it. I am also seriously considering making a transition into barefoot running. To that end i think i'll probably at least try the 100-Up challenge (for some reason, 43 Things won't let me add this as a goal, but it's still one that i'm making) as detailed in an article written by Christopher McDougall (author of Born to Run). I think that the biggest challenge to my training right now is simply finding time to do it. Forget money, or even a place to swim (which i figure i can largely ignore for the time being as it is my strongest event), i am working five days a week and have no source of independent transportation. I feel like i have even less free time now than i did when i was still in school. Besides my cashiering 30-35 hours a week i am teaching knitting classes one day a week. I hardly have time to game, and usually only make it to the grocery store to buy lunches about once every two weeks. Most of all, i don't know if i should hope to be unemployed (save the teaching position) come January or try to keep this job. I don't know what i should be doing. Hopefully i have it figured out soon.
