Illinois Marathon: Taper Down and Problematic Shoes

Yesterday was the 116th running of the Boston Marathon, the most prestigious of marathons, the race was held in record heat and was the slowest running of the race since 1985. The winner, Kenyan Wesley Korir finished the race in 2 hours, 12 minutes and 40 seconds, that was 10 minutes behind last years worlds best established at last years race.



In just 11 days I will take on my first running of a marathon, 26.2 miles, I'll be happy to finish in 4 hours and 15 minutes, however my dream finish is in 4 hours. As the race grows nearer and nearer all I can think about is "O-M-G I'll be running a marathon next weekend!".


Once hiccup I had this past week was with my shoes. The heal on my right shoe has been digging into me and cause quit a bit of discomfort, normally I just keep going and hope that it will just go away. However, I've been going with that mindset for about 2 weeks now with out it going away. I made the decision that I should go in for a second pair of shoes, that way I have two weeks to break them in. Luckily, when I purchased my Saucony's I had also really liked a pair of Brooks shoes, so I just made a quick stop into Running Central and got the 2nd pair. Adam, the owner, also showed me a trick I can do to the Saucony's to alleviate the pain, simply cut the heal of the shoe down a bit to relieve that pressure and I should still be able to use the shoes. He showed me his running shoes and he said he is always cutting them up and altering them. I never even thought of that. I haven't done this yet, I'm too chicken to cut up such an expensive pair of shoes, but I really need to do it so I can try them out and see if it helps. The Brooks in the meantime worked remarkable well on my 12 miles last weekend. I really need to do the alterations so I can figure out which shoes will be on my feet for the marathon. If the alteration works then I'll simply have two pairs of shoes that I can alter between on my runs. I've never purchased two pairs of running shoes to use in tandem, so this is a first for me.


In the meantime I am now on my taper down period, meaning I slowly back off the mileage leading up to the marathon, the photo you see up top is the calender (yes its a Rivermen calender) of my scheduled mileage. I'm ready, Illinois Marathon-here I come!