#0toMarathon: Running on air

I step into the wonderful abode of a Mr. Ryan Baylis. He hands me a box and I immediately open it and sniff my brand new Altras. It was probably weird but I was excited and I just reacted. Get over it. Plus I love the smell of new shoes. It was a momentous occasion. #0toMarathon is legitimately possible now. Skate shoes and the old tennis shoes I was using to run before were definitely not conducive to a healthy training environment.

This marks the first, real, tangible proof that I'm being supported by Atra Zero Drop. It's a beautiful thing. I took those shoes home and strapped them on the next day, curious as to how they worked. At first glance, I'll be honest, I thought they looked like clown shoes. The way the toes are wider than the back really threw me for a loop. I like to live by the motto: "Don't hate it if you haven't tried it." So I slapped those bad boys on and went on a run. Kid you not, just like it says on the box, felt like I was running with slippers on. The support was there in all the places it needed to be and the wide opening for my toes to expand coupled with the padded backing honestly made the run a great experience. I've never ran in a shoe more comfortable. It felt like I wasn't wearing anything but at the same time my feet were being held in the exact position they should be in. I've never been one to believe the whole 'barefoot running is more natural thing.' I was always vain and wanted cool looking sneakers because I didn't care about the 'right' way. Now that I've tried these out, truth is, I don't know that I'll ever run in anything else. Mad props to whoever figured this out. Altra, you're freakin legit!

If you don't like reading words, I also made a video that explains everything. It's not boring, I promise!

My real official training doesn't start for a couple weeks. I'm on a 16 week plan. So until then I'm just getting used to running 4 times a week since I've honestly only ran 4 times so far this year. Now that I got my new kicks it's going to be a lot easier!

Since we last met, I've also ran in a Mud Crawl with the Banner family. I had no idea running could be so fun. I'd run a mud run every week if I could. I think I liked it mostly because it was a team thing. No one was timing us. We just did what we wanted and enjoyed being outside and getting straight dirty! I took a GoPro through the whole course and hope to have a little vid up within the next week. I'll be announcing a list of runs I'm going to do this summer leading up to the St. George marathon in a blog post real soon. If you have any questions, comments, hate mail etc. feel free to throw it my way.

Keep it real peeps.