Mizuno Wave Rider Love

Once upon a running Jerbear, I used to be a Asics nimbus lover. And then they started to just not work for me, so I went out searching for greener pastures. I had a brief stint with Saucony Kinvara. In fact, I think I ran most of my PRs in those shoes.... hmmm... However, I had some form issues I was working through and the lesser cushioning coupled with a mega heal strike led me to some injuries.

Around this same time I also started running in the Mizuno Wave Riders, which I loooooooove.

I'm currently on my eleventh pair of Wave Riders, and this doesn't include the small stockpile in my closet that I got for Christmas presents. I love that my training log includes a place for equipment, so I can easily see how much I spent on the shoes, how many miles I got out of the shoes, and the average cost per mile.

Most I've spent on the shoes: $115
Least I've spent on the shoes: $60

The most miles I've ever gotten on the shoes: 475 when I was training for my first marathon and at my lightest weight.
The least miles I've gotten on the shoes: 340 is what I tend to get now. I have actually retired two pairs at the exact mileage at 351, which is kind of crazy.

I can usually tell when a shoe is ready to be retired, and am always shocked when I look at the total mileage on there and usually realize I'm right. Due to my lesser running the last two years, I'm currently running in shoes that I bought in 2014/2015. Ahhh!! I will confess that I've been stockpiling cheap Wave Riders for years, so if I bought them in those years, they might have hung in the closet a bit before they were unveiled. My new training log doesn't list the purchase date, and my old one did. Sniffle. Extra data. :( Hah.

Another thing I love to see is the average cost per mile. The least cost was 18-19 cents with a couple of pairs of the kinvaras (mostly because they were cheap to start! they aren't very high mileage shoes). The highest was 31-34 cents per mile (mostly shoes that I paid full price for).

What's your ride or die shoe? Do you ever waiver?

**I haven't been compensated for this post in any way.

New shoes...new shoes.... Jerbear's got some new shoes...

Did you guys ever sing the new shoes song in grade school?  Apparently my classmates did in kindergarten (I didn't move to the town I graduated from until 4th grade) but we still would jokingly sing the song every.single.time someone was sporting some new kicks to school/gym/games/etc.

While I was out sick with the ninja death star flu, I had a package delivered to work.  Because I live in an apartment, I tend to have everything shipped there.  The receptionist who received the package is from a different part of my agency, so I don't work very close with her so she doesn't know me very well, yet when I walked in the office after being sick, she handed me the package and said, "I didn't bother calling you because I figured it was just more running shoes."  Hahah.  Awesome.  And she was right.

Not only that but they are the exact same running shoes I'm currently sporting.  After Vegas, I had a minor running shoe snafu.  I had a pair of Mizuno Wave Rider 14s (I'm currently wearing the 13s) sent to me with a pretty swell discount (Thanks LC!) except that the shoes felt like bricks on my feet and were huge!  Of course we didn't have the shoes yet in our town, so I couldn't try another pair on to see if I just had a wonky pair or what.  Finally weeks later we got the shoes in and I realized that the shoe I had was normal and it just ran big.  And the next half size down was too small.  And both shoes felt like bricks.

No biggie, thinks my brain, I'll just find some of the 13s to tide me over.  Except..... THERE WEREN'T ANY!!!!  SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS!!!!!!!  Panic attack grand freak out would be an understatement.  First I was being picky about the color selection.  Purple and gold?  Eew.  I'd rather run on glass shards barefoot (sorry Vikings fans.... wait.... no I'm not! :p)  Blue?  Already had those.  Red... meh.  But then I quickly realized that there were zero size 8s left on the entire planet.

Luckily since I'm a super internet sleuth, I did manage to track some down from a company I had never heard of.  They were super cheap, and I got free shipping on them.  Score!  They still feel a bit rock like compared to my nice broken in pair, but they'll get the (long run) job done.  I feel a little sad retiring the blood soaked pair because they make me feel like a super b.a. so I'm still wearing them for muddy runs. :)

I was really trying to show off how much of the tread I had worn down over the last 400+ miles, but my photography skills leave something to be desired.  Ho hum.

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Saturday I had a 16 mile LR on deck for training for Fargooooooooo.  Based on the current weather 1 degree, wind chill 10-15 below, I opted for the treadmill.  Not to mention that our city has been a solid sheet of ice all week long and it's snowed Friday and Saturday to hide the slippery ice.  Sooooo not cool, weather.  ::shaking my fist in disgust and outrage::

Let's just say I had zero motivation to head out for my long run.  Someone woke me up by tearing my sleepmask off my face (someone else = Jerbear was furious about this FYI).  Then someone was kicked out and told to come back after I had garnered the rest of my beauty sleep.  So procrastination #1 of the day:  naptime immediately following wake up time.  From there I ate 1/3 of a bag of soft batch cookies, watched Real Housewives of Miami, Top Chef, gave myself a manicure, and created a new long run playlist.  Finally I had nothing left to procrastinate with other than cleaning (and you know that isn't happening) so I got crack-a-lackin' for my run.  "Oooh!  I want to measure how long my hair is!!"  Guess I wasn't out of things to procrastinate with.... (16 inches in case you were curious.)

Don't act like you're not impressed.  That's WITH my haircut from last week.  P.S.  Check out my manicure.  :)

Upon arriving to the gym, I was stoked to see that Tom was knocking down some mileage on the treadmill.  Yayzies!  Tom is one of my running buddies (we've only really ran together once on accident, but he runs, and he's my buddy soooooo running buddy... yup).  I plopped down on the treadmill with him and chatted away 3 miles.  As soon as he was done (after knocking out a monster 14 miles on the treadmill, heck ya!) I realized my stomach was feeling.... wonky.  I preceded to stop the run about every mile from there.  I drank some water, thinking that might help (I was sweating buckets).  I ate some sharkies thinking that might help.  I decreased the incline on the treadmill.  Finally after 6 miles I called it good.

I got in my car and I was pretty defeated.  There's a sense of pride in finishing a super long long run, and I was bummed that I had given up on it (although not without multiple attempts).  When I glanced down at my dashboard at a stop sign I perked up a bit.  This is super cheesy, but it reminded me that a botched long run is not the end of the world and to focus on the big picture:  26.2.  [cue cheesy inspirational music a la Full House]

Check out the Studly Runner Marcia's Zensah bra giveaway here!