Yesterday’s errands were a huge pain in the ass. I ended up buying an expensive air filter for my car with the oil change, wasn’t able to use my fro-yo Groupon because Golden Spoon is stingy, and I had to drive all over town. Boo-hoo… But one of my errands was a great success!

A few months ago I ran a 5k and placed 3rd for my age group. I have NO idea how that’s even possible since I’m such a slow runner, unless I was one of only 3 runners in my age group… In any case, I won a $25 gift certificate to Performance Footwear in Las Vegas. I decided to cash in yesterday.

The store was full of all kinds of running shoes, but I wasn’t able to browse. As soon as I came in, the owner had me get on the treadmill for gait analysis. I was feeling very self conscious about my barefoot plod, but it was cool to see the video recording in slow motion. He showed me that my left leg is shorter than my right, that I have slight pronation, and defined arches. Overall, he said my stride is even and good! Although I’m not a runner, he said I could be because my form is good. I was pleasantly surprised, especially since my husband always tells me how terrible my running style is ;)

Next, I found out the fronts of my feet are much wider than my heels. Even though my right foot is a size 7 and 1/2 and my left is 7, I have to wear size 8’s because of the width issue. Wow! And I always thought I was just a size 8 with issues finding a good pair of high heels.

The owner pulled 3 different shoes from the back room and helped me get them on. With a different shoe on each foot, I walked around the store until I could feel which one felt better. I narrowed it down to these:

They are Brooks Ravenna 2’s. I’ve never had a pair of Brooks before, but I hear they are a great running shoe! On the treadmill video recording, they appeared to correct my pronation a bit and produced adequate arch support. I can’t wait to try them out!

I must say, I have never had a sales person take such aggressive command of a shopping trip- I basically had no choice but to buy the pair of shoes he said were best! I don’t know how I feel about that, but I DO like that they only ended up costing me $70. If I don’t like the way they feel on my runs or in bootcamp, I can return them in the next 10 days. I highly recommend getting this kind of specialized gait analysis to match your feet to a perfect pair of shoes! I would have had no idea.

As an added bonus, I learned a special way to tie my shoes! The traditional method puts too much pressure on the front of the ankle, causing numbness in runners’ toes. If you make this special loop, you’ll remove some of that pressure and still have a snugly fitting shoe:

I tested my new shoes out a bootcamp this morning! They felt fabulous, but the true test will be running Pitman wash!