Mill City Awesome

It’s been a few weeks since now, but I finally bought some new running shoes. I guess it’s not really news if you read my blog, because you would have seen it come up on my Twitter feed. Anyway, I made the trip to Northeast Minneapolis to Mill City Running and (as you could also see from my Twitter posts) could not have been happier.

I’ve been let down by the last few running shoe fittings I’ve had at other stores, so I was over the moon with how much attention I was given at Mill City. Like other running stores, they took a look at my feet, my instep, how I walk, and so forth. They went the extra mile however in putting me in a pair of neutral shoes and have me run on a treadmill. Makes sense doesn’t it? I’m looking for the best pair of running shoes - so it only makes sense to see how I run. This was all filmed on an iPad so I could even look at it when I was done running. The big surprise was that I don’t overpronate severely like I’ve always been told! 

I then tried on probably about a dozen stability shoes, nearly running in all of them outside on the sidewalk in front of the store. Never before have I tested out so many shoes. Needing a stability shoe instead of a motion control shoe definitely expanded my options, but I also think that the staff at Mill City Running really want to give people as many options so they can find that perfect shoe. The perfect shoe for me? The Mizuno Wave Inspire 13 - which funny enough is a shoe I’ve used in the past, just in previous model versions. 

When I was up at the cash register paying for my shoes, it came up in conversation that I used to work in the bicycle industry and how I kind of got sick of needing to make sales versus helping people. Bekah - who helped me during my entire fit process and who I later remembered later in the car is one of the store’s owners - responded (and I’m totally paraphrasing here) that she sees that a lot in the outdoor industry too, especially with the larger companies. At their store though - while they obviously want to stay in business - she doesn’t see sales transactions but instead just sees the store as simply helping people with their passion for running. 

And with that, Mill City Running got a customer for life.

Oh, and also they have loon socks.

The Best Laid Plans...

Now that I’ve been running for a full two months - and only running, no walking breaks I might add - I finally got around to making a training schedule. My long term goal is to progress slowly in distance and difficulty. I’m starting out with a beginners 5K program, advancing then to an intermediate 5K program, then 10K, then half marathon, and finally working up to full marathon distance. I really would like go further and do a trail ultra, but we will see. This long term build could go in so many directions, that I’m not too focused on the end result. I’m just happy to be building back up my running fitness.

I typically use the training plans from CoolRunning.com. It’s a bit of a skeleton site anymore and run by Active.com, but the luckily the training plans are still available. I’ve always used them in the past, they seem to work, and I can adjust them easily to fit my schedule.

No, Cool Running. Not Cool Runnings.

Right now I’m building up to base pre-training mileage to start the beginner 5K training plan. So far, so good. Of course things will almost immediately get disrupted with busy summer weekends - weekends when I don’t have a chance to get a run in or when we’ll be away. I’ll just adjust and try to get all my runs in during the week or - gasp - I might have to miss a run here and there.

I’m really just happy to be running again and even more happy to be seeing progress. My short 2 mile runs are getting faster - now in the 8.20s per mile pace - and my long runs are also faster. My longer runs are also getting longer, as I’ve now done two 4 milers in the last two weeks. I ran these at a 9.14 and 9.11 average pace - a pace that I was doing for my short 2 mile runs two months ago. It’s still slow compared to the pace of past years’ running, but hey it’s progress.