OnePhatMan
They say that shoes make the man, and right now I have to say I agree.
Yesterday, I had to stop using the elliptical seven minutes into my workout because of the pain in my left knee from the chondromalacia I wrote about. I ended up walking around the neighborhorhood, somewhere between 2 and 3 miles, wearing the workout shoes I’ve had for over a year. Normally I don’t wear shoes that long, but I’ve been working out indoors on them so it’s not like they’re getting torn up.
All day long my knee hurt, despite the ibuprofen and acetominnafin acedaminiphine Tylenol I took. I was never in agony, or anything like that, it was just bad enough to keep it in the forefront of my mind. A little Googling told me that some people get relief from keeping their leg straight, because sitting at a desk with your legs bent keeps pressure on your knee. They were right; straightening my leg alleviated a lot of the pain. Another site suggested that good shoes could help.
So I went on a quest after work. First I tried Dick’s Sporting Goods, where the Asics shoes that caught my eye only came in sizes 10 and 14. I’m right in the middle of that. The next best shoe they had—I was looking specifically for high-end shoes, not $40 Reeboks like I was wearing—was the New Balance 991. It was comfy, and I liked it, but I wanted to check out another store before I committed the $115 for them. I spent an hour in Shoe Carnival, trying shoes on and not finding any. They had the 991, and it was on sale for half-off, but they only (seriously) size they didn’t have was 12.
I went home in a huff, and spent the night wearing a neoprene knee brace and complaining.
This morning I walked outside again, somewhere around four miles, and again spent several hours hurting. Finally I bucked up and went to the local shoe shore that’s owned and operated by runners, a place where they have knowledgeable people who are able to study your stride and see what your feet are doing. People who know what chondromyalcia is. I walked up and down the store in my ratty socks, feeling like a big dork, while a crowd of guys squatted and watched me. I explained the problem with the cartilage in my knee, and how it was hurting now even when I walk. They muttered to one another for a bit and one went into the back of the store.
He came back with a pair of New Balance 1122MC shoes and had me try them on.
I walked through the store as if I were on a cloud, with no pain at all in my left knee. None. Nada. Zip.
It was like a little piece of heaven.
Deciding to press my luck, I asked about trail shoes because I hike so much. After more discussions, the same guy went into the back a second time. He returned with five boxes. The very first pair he pulled out, Cascadias (made by Brooks), felt so good I didn’t even try any others on.
I realize it’s a little soon to be so happy, since I haven’t actually done any real footwork in either pair of shoes, but it’s so nice to walk around without my knee hurting on each step that I can’t help but talk about it. The Cascadia shoes have an added benefit—if I ever get lost while hiking, they should have no trouble spotting me from the air.
Should.
It’s an ugly word, really, because it’s so weak.
You get the idea. Have you ever noticed that thoughts or sentences that begin with “I should” never seem to happen? It’s because you’re not making a commitment to doing something. You’re passing a thinly veiled judgement on yourself, acknowledging that maybe there’s a problem but that you don’t really feel like fixing it. Expand the thoughts above a little:
Sound familiar? I can’t tell you how many nights Robyn and I would be laying in bed talking, and I’d get all maudlin thinking about how fat I was, and say, “We really should do something…” Without fail, it would ruin a perfectly good conversation, not only because of my mood change but because I was dragging someone else (someone innocent) into it.
Until you scrap the “should”, you’re not going to change. You either do something, or you don’t, to paraphrase Yoda. As long as you tell yourself you “should” change, you’ll keep feeling bad because talk is cheap. It’s easy to tell yourself you should, especially when you’re talking about doing it tomorrow, but unless you make the “should” a “must”, you’ll continue to stay the way you are.
Most likely, you’ll still complain about it, too.
You have a choice. You can talk, or you can do. Remember, for most people it isn’t a matter of ability, but a matter of action. What’s your choice?
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