It's Hard Work Keeping This Weight On

After an unintentional period of time when I've neglected a regular routine of exercise in favor of longer days at work, I start to court that "ass is following me" feeling again. As much as I enjoy having company, my ass would not be my first choice of companion. It's not that I've gained weight--I just feel soft. And not in a good way.

Hollaback Girl is also on a quest to get fit. Because we both respond so favorably to peer pressure and guilt, we've made a pact to run three days a week in the morning before work. We started last week. While the running has become easier, the painful aftermath left on our shins has not. No small wonder, considering she and I are wearing absolutely inappropriate footwear. I've been running in my old court shoes which are specifically for playing tennis and for hard court surfaces. I think Hollaback's shoes are the next generation of Crocs. She suggested we visit a sporting goods store and find real running shoes. I was exhilarated by the notion that I might actually own real running shoes. That's practically one step from being a serious athlete! Yeah--no.

We went up to Paragon Sports in the Flatiron district and perused the many shiny, colorful, embellished space age running shoes on display. There were a lot of salespeople there, although they all seemed far too interested in discussing their weekend than to be of assistance to us. Finally, a lumbering fellow approached us and we beseeched him for guidance; which of this multitude of pretty footwear would make us Bionic Women? He gestured toward a treadmill. Oh, shit, this answer requires audience participation.

The treadmill was actually attached to a gait analysis machine. We were asked to run for a spell while he analyzed (as it turned out) our tendencies to overpronate when we ran. "Don't worry," he said in a soothing fashion, "most New Yorkers overpronate." Oh, that's a relief. I live in a City of people walking badly.

He then recommended a shoe that corrects the tendency to overpronate when one runs. To my delight, it was a Brooks model. Brooks is THE running shoe. Real runners don't wear New Balance--they wear Brooks. The women's version was called Ariel. However, Hollaback and I have big feet (read: double digits), so we couldn't have the Ariel. We had to have a small size in the men's version of the shoe, appropriately called The Beast. Once shod in our respective pairs of The Beast, we ran again on the treadmill to see if in fact this stellar footwear was correcting our bad gait habits. Indeed, they were effective. We bought them, marveling at this unique shopping experience.

We hit the pavement again tomorrow morning. If this (combined with an increased schedule for my kickboxing classes) doesn't start to work some miracle on my evil Siamese Twin, I'll have to call Jenny.