Out with the old...

Well, it was finally time to kick my good 'ol Asics Gel 1120's to the curb. Get it?? Shoes...kick. Ah, well. Anyway, they had a good 300 miles or so on them, and I decided it was time to upgrade. I had initially bought the Asics because they seemed like a decent started shoe, and I wasn't really sure if I was going to stick with the whole running thing.

After 300+ miles, with a 5k and half marathon under my belt, and several more "races" on the horizon, I guess I'm sticking with it. :-)

So I went to the local running store to see what they had as far as Motion Control shoes . I figured me being a bigger runner with flat arches, Motion Control would be the way to go. I ended up getting the Saucony ProGrid Omni Ultimate 6. They feel really light, the support seems good (don't even have to use my PowerStep inserts), and my initial opinion is pretty positive. (BTW the lady at the shoe store noted that I was just fitting into the shoes I had, so she moved me up in size to a 12). I wore them on the 5 mile treadmill run the other night, and they seem like they're going to work out well.

I've completed 2 runs since the Flying Pig. One was a 3 mile "recovery" run the Wednesday after, and the other was a steady 10 minute 5 miler. So far things are going well.

The next race on the radar is the Steamboat Classic in Peoria. It's a 15k run coming up in about a month. I know I can make the distance, so that's not an issue. I haven't set a goal time or pace for myself, but I'm thinking a little faster than FP pace would be appropriate. To that end, I think I'll do a bit more speedwork/interval training (probably mostly on the treadmill, as I find it a bit easier to maintain a pace on there right now).

On other fronts...

I'm eagerly awaiting several movies this summer:
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man (still haven't seen it)
The Dark Knight
Chronicles of Narnia
And last, but certainly not least....The Clone Wars. The trailer looks awesome, and I can't wait to go see it with my 4 year old daughter.

What I'm Reading: The Charnel Prince by Greg Keyes. The second book in a four book fantasy series. Great stuff, and since all the books are out, I can read them all straight through. AWESOME!

What I'm Playing: Grand Theft Auto IV. Not very far in, but lots of fun so far.

What I'm Listening To: PODCASTS! (In no particular order)
1. Star Wars Action News: Fantastic Star Wars collecting podcast. Marjorie and Arnie are lots of fun to listen to.
2. Running With the Pack: Running podcast, fairly new. Initially I started listening because the hosts also ran the Pig (full).
3. The ForceCast: Star Wars goodness with Jason, Pete and the gang. Always fun.
4. SmodCast: Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier talk about, well, whatever.

That's it for now. Except to mention that this post is brought to you by the office in which I work, where I wrote this whole entry the old fashioned way (by hand) while I waited for the copy machine to make the LITERALLY thousands of copies I made this morning.