I was born without the shopping gene. Don’t get me wrong - I love to buy stuff. I especially love to buy stuff in two particular categories - cooking and working out. I realize these are probably two hobbies that cancel each other out, but both come with such great accouterments that you can never really have enough stuff or the latest stuff or the coolest stuff or whatever. I recently did an analysis of my spending and found that I spend just as much every month on crap from TJ Maxx/Marshalls/Ross as I do on groceries. The only things I buy from TJ Maxx/Marshalls/Ross are cooking toys and workout stuff. This is clearly a problem.
When I say that I don’t have the shopping gene, I mean that I don’t enjoy the act of trying things on, choosing just the right color of an item, or even looking in the mirror. Mind you, the desire to avoid the mirror is probably more tied to my first hobby than anything else, but that’s a whole different story altogether. I actually really hate this part of shopping. There is a reason that I only buy clothes from 3 stores - I know exactly what will fit and what styles I can wear. Even when I was a size 6, I was exactly like this. Here is me shopping: Is it on ridiculous clearance? Check. Is it a solid color? Check. Could I wear it to work and to a social event? Check. Is it a size that wouldn’t cause embarrassment if someone saw the tag? Check. Into shopping cart.
Little did I know that when I decided to run a 5k, there would be a LOT of shopping involved. Shopping in stores, shopping online, talking to sales people, asking questions, trying on millions of things, having multiple people look at me at the same time. They need to post on the Couch 2 5K website something about the commitment required to not only run 3 days a week, but to painstakingly analyze the difference between two pairs of incredibly expensive socks.
When I say that I don’t have the shopping gene, I mean that I don’t enjoy the act of trying things on, choosing just the right color of an item, or even looking in the mirror. Mind you, the desire to avoid the mirror is probably more tied to my first hobby than anything else, but that’s a whole different story altogether. I actually really hate this part of shopping. There is a reason that I only buy clothes from 3 stores - I know exactly what will fit and what styles I can wear. Even when I was a size 6, I was exactly like this. Here is me shopping: Is it on ridiculous clearance? Check. Is it a solid color? Check. Could I wear it to work and to a social event? Check. Is it a size that wouldn’t cause embarrassment if someone saw the tag? Check. Into shopping cart.
Little did I know that when I decided to run a 5k, there would be a LOT of shopping involved. Shopping in stores, shopping online, talking to sales people, asking questions, trying on millions of things, having multiple people look at me at the same time. They need to post on the Couch 2 5K website something about the commitment required to not only run 3 days a week, but to painstakingly analyze the difference between two pairs of incredibly expensive socks.
For those of you who don’t know, I now have a Droid, which I love very much and want to be happy. I know that if I had not gotten involved with this fantastic piece of equipment, I would’ve crumbled in my first hour of running-shopping. You see, if I can turn something into a project, with research and steps and note-taking and organization, then I will not only dive into something, but I will actually enjoy it. I was sitting on my parents’ couch on the day after Christmas, cooing at my Droid and whispering sweet nothings into its voice search box, when I ran across Evernote. I’ve seen Evernote several times, but it always felt like I’d be cheating on my old stalwart OneNote. Now that I’m running Android, however, using a truly mobile organization system makes sense, and Evernote is just right. You can turn just about anything into a “note,” or a little bit of information that Evernote organizes for you based on chronology, tags, or however you decide you want it to organize things. So far it’s been an incredibly useful tool and I can’t wait to start using it when I’m actually really busy with work - right now everything in life is so laid back and holiday and sleeping in.
In Evernote, I clipped the addresses to running stores in Columbia and went on my way. The first store I went to, Strictly Running in 5 Points, was tiny and cute and staffed by children. I’m not sure how these 12-year-olds were allowed to work, but they were doing such a nice job of chilling out and playing on the computer that I couldn’t help but humor them. One of the boys (an English major at USC…should I have warned him about his job prospects??) claimed to be an expert at cushion-stability-mobility issues with running shoes, so he promptly had a pair picked out for me. They felt strange and different, which I took to be a good thing, and I almost bought them. I then got the feeling, though, that if I was going to take running seriously, then I needed to take the shopping seriously, too (ugh), and look at more than one place. I chatted with the children for a few more minutes, took a snapshot note with my Droid and went on my way.
The next shop, Fleet Feet in Harbison, was an entirely different experience. At Fleet Feet, the first step was to put me on a treadmill with a video camera attached to do a gait analysis. I am no stranger to gait analysis; when you break your back and it heals incorrectly, there are all kinds of problems with the way that you walk. Crooked hips leads to all sorts of joint issues and foot pain and strange numbness and muscle ache and everything else you can imagine. This was the first time it was strictly video, though, and no computer probes or other uncomfortable devices or insurance refusing to pay.
Seeing my little ankles up there on the screen was so sad. I used to be this powerful person, strong and fit and seemingly invincible, and here I was looking at the two wobbliest ankles anyone’s ever seen. The helper lady was calling people over to watch me walk and marvel at how I wasn’t falling over right then and there. They were oohing and ahhing and saying things like, “weebles wobble, weebles wobble.” It’s a good thing I’m so darn committed to this thing, or else it would’ve all ended right there. She showed me how much I pronate and how much everything is completely out of line. She even showed me a poster with an example of horrible alignment and pronation and how mine was worse. Luckily, once the freak show was over, my show assistant was very encouraged that we’d find a shoe to help stabilize my poor little ankles.
8 or 9 shoes later, which meant 8 or 9 jogs up and down the sidewalk in front of a bar and a mexican restaurant on a Saturday evening, we found some shoes that actually did make me feel stable when I was jogging, instead of the frightening, “this could end at any time” feeling I usually get when I run for a few seconds.
It turns out, though, that my ankles aren’t the only unstable things I’m working with. Sorry, guys, it’s about to get awkward. When the lady spied me looking at the sports bras, she asked me what kind I wear. I said, “um, the regular kind?” and she shot a quick glance at my rack and cleared her throat. You see, my ta-tas tripled in size a few years ago, and I’m often quite unaware of how ginormous they are. Sometimes I’ll see one of my bras lying around and laugh - that’s how humorously large they’ve become. I was a nice, petite 34B from 13 until 25, and then BAM!!! BOOB EXPLOSION!!! The lady demonstrated with a weight that represented a typical hooter of my size in a “regular” sportsbra. I was AGAPE. It was like the jug-weight was bungee jumping in this thing. ”Oh. Right. I guess that might be uncomfortable if I’m running.” She then showed me the kind that I should be wearing, and it was like the Ft. Knox of titties in there. Locked down, solid, and apparently full of gold according to the price.
I STILL didn’t buy anything at store #2, convinced that I would be able to find a better deal on all of this stuff online or at a major retailer. I really do like to support local stores, but all of this gear was WAY over my budget, which of course up to this point has been $0. I spent that night scouring the internet, webclipping to Evernote, and wishing I had a social life because this was kind of a lame way to spend a Saturday night. In the end, though, I found that generally speaking, running gear does not go on sale, and if it does, it only comes in a size so absurdly opposite of mine that I’d have to buy two and glue them together.
I went back to Charlotte on Sunday and formulated a final shopping plan:
1. Buy stuff
The shopping experience in Charlotte was much less painful - another quick treadmill video session (clearly unnecessary but kind of fun), a painful swipe of the card to buy shoes, and off to a final destination for the rest of the gear. Socks - very complicated things, these little pieces of fabric, a sportsbra that looks EXACTLY like something I would’ve made fun of my mom for owning, body glide (embarrassing in its own right), and elastic shoestrings (no more tying, EVER! YES!!!). If you’re a runner, Run For Your Life has a pretty decent sale going on now - lots of socks are buy one get one free.
So now I’m all kitted out, ready to run. Let’s go!
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