Running Shoes

     When Travis (bigger, younger brother) left on his mission, I decided one last time that I was going to gain weight. This was nothing new, in fact it was something that I tried every few years starting back in the 11th grade. But this time I had greater resolve, did more research and had a two year goal: weigh more than Travis when he comes home from his mission.
     Everyone knows that weight gain is just like banking; you have to put more in than you take out if you want your account to grow. However, if you want that weight to be muscle, it takes a lot more time and dedication than if you don't care what the weight is. I borrowed "Body for Life" from my mom, took a few days reading it, modified it for my goals and went to work! "Body for Life" is actually very informational. In all my reading, studying, and working out, I've found that it probably has the best philosophy, exercise routine, and nutritional information all in one place for the average person. I guess that there are a few basics things worth pointing out:
   1. Weight train 3 times a week, alternating upper and lower body.
   2. Run three times a week, focusing on cardio vascular - 20 min.
   3. Eat 6 meals a day: 1 protein, 1 carbohydrate each meal.
     Generally speaking, Body for Life is for losing weight and maintaining the change. With a slight modification, you can use it for weight gain. The modification is to eat 2 carbohydrates and 1 protein for the first 3 meals of the day. That sounded good to me - extra food! It turns out that eating that much food was a lot of work. I started eating EAS Myoplex with a banana and 16 oz. of milk for breakfast (after working out.) For a mid-morning snack, I ate 1/2 cup of cottage cheese (considered a protein by Bill Phillips - the author) mixed with 1 cup of Yoplait yogurt every day (something I continued doing over 3 years, 'til I started training for a marathon...though I reduced the yogurt to 1/2 cup.) I also used EAS Creatine that was supposed to aid muscle growth as well.
     At the same time, BJ (smaller, younger brother) was running with a friend at Kimberly Clark. They were going to compete in the TOU 5k and he wanted to know if I wanted to join them, since Logan is my territory. However, I had developed an interesting running problem - the outsides of my calves turned rock hard earlier and earlier in my runs. The last mile or so of the 5k I ran 2 blocks, walked 1, and repeated. My brother suggested that it may be my shoes and suggested that I go to Striders to be fitted for running shoes specifically made for my foot type.
     One weekend later (and a couple hundred dollars) Jeri Dawn and I had new shoes. Mine were Asics GT-2090s - "built for the moderate over-pronator who requires a combination of cushioning and enhanced stability." They worked great. However, they didn't fix my calf problem...only time and trial and error could help me resolve that, not money - unless I had an operation. It turns out that the creatine helps muscles recover from workouts by absorbing fluids. It also turns out that there are two muscles contained in a sheath on the outer calf. The sheath doesn't really grow, but that doesn't stop the muscles form retaining fluid when the blood starts pumping, resulting in immense pressure in the sheath and rock hard outer calves. I have quit using creatine and never had a problem since.
     I did end up gaining 15 lbs. - I got to 161 lbs. I wish I could say that all the gains were muscle, but it's really not easy to gain a lot of muscle without putting on fat. That's why body builders got through a cutting phase every so often. I guess that I kind of gave up on the weight gain after a winter camp with the scouts. It took me nearly 1/2 hour to get all my snow gear on because it was made for someone smaller than I was at that time. Two years after his mission, and 4 months into marathon training, Travis now weighs around 160 lbs. I drifted back to 145-147 lbs, until I started my marathon training. Now I weigh around 135 lbs.
     The title of this post is running shoes, though this post doesn't really seem to be about shoes. I decided to write about this earlier when I put my shoes on to do my morning run. On those original GT-2090s, I put over 630 miles between September, 2007 and the Ogden Marathon.
I've heard and read many places that you should replace your shoes every 300-500 miles, but I thought my shoes still felt great. Just in case, the week after the marathon, I got on Zappos to order a two-year newer model - the GT-2110, which is discontinued since it's last years model, so I got them for a much better price than this years model. They're 3 oz. lighter and felt great right out of the box. I've put over 340 miles on them and still feel great.
     I did wear my GT-2090s to run in the rain the other day and didn't really notice a difference between the two pairs. Asics are consistant, making it easy to buy shoes cheap - just go to Zappos and find a newer shoe in an older model!