Day 103: Shoes & Sox

This morning, I set out to run four miles easy. I ended up turning in my fastest four-miler in quite a while. Maybe it was the fact that I tried out my newest pair of Brooks shoes. Since 2005, I've had four pairs of shoes. The first pair, from '05, wasn't used much for running; I tried them out a few times in the spring that year, when I lived in DC, and shortly thereafter. I remember hiking through Rock Creek Park at one point, slogging through mud, getting them all messed up. These days I use them mostly for walking.

In August of last year, I got my second pair of shoes -- also Brooks Adrenalines. These are orange, and I began running seriously with them in November. In March of this year, when I got the third pair of Adrenalines -- the yellow ones -- the orange shoes got demoted to backup, for use in the rain or before a trip (so that the yellow ones would be dry for packing). Oddly, though, I think the orange ones are in better shape than the yellow ones, which have racked up the most miles of any of the shoes by far, and are in a pretty sorry state now. They also stink.

This morning I ran for the first time with the fourth pair of Adrenalines, which are, again, blue. It does make a difference to run in new shoes, evidently.

After work I went to Fenway and watched the Sox clinch a playoff berth by beating the Indians, and handing Cliff Lee his third loss of the season (although his record is still an astonishing 22-3, making him a prime Cy Young Award candidate). Beautiful night in the Fens, clear and crisp, and an excellent mood in the air. Celebration when the Sox finally won it, on blazing fastballs by fireballer Jonathan Papelbon (who needed to throw only one pitch in the eighth). Love that dirty water.