So today while attempting to run a training 10 miler, and today amidst yet another “feels like the 90s” heat index making the training “run” more a training “walk,” I also got a flat tire.
How does a runner get a flat tire you (and my Mom) might ask? Well, I pulled out one of my last pairs of this model of running shoes and I guess they’d been in the closet too long. They’d passed their expiration date. Because apparently shoes have those now. The glue that held the inordinately large sole that I need to try and correct my massive overpronation stride came unstuck… and the sole flopped back and forth on me heel until I finally just ripped it off… at mile 4.5. I cut through some backyards took various tangents to shorten my return trip home, all the while shuffling and clomping along like a late 1990s rom-com wherein the female lead breaks one of her high heels amidst a rain storm pining for the guy who got away because she, I don’t know, decided to put herself first (ugh… those plots are the worst! This guy WANTS a girl who does her own thing and is proud, confident, and cool with being independent!).
After walking a mile or so in 16 minutes+, I finally decided to just run on the damn thing. There’s a new trend in shoes to strip out the cushioning anyway — Nike has something called the Nike Free which is supposedly better able to approximate the feel of running barefoot. And I know genetically we’re all “born to run” and our ancestors ran barefoot to hunt woolly mammoths and the like. But had I been a caveman my Mr. Magoo-ian eyesight would’ve had me falling off a cliff and impaling myself on some rocky outcropping long, long ago. So I’ll take my stability support shoe to deal with the overpronation thank you very much.
When I got home, I asked my Mom to take a photo of my flat tire. She was confused as she thought I was out for a run and didn’t know when I had gotten my car. I showed her the sole and, well, we staged a phone call to AAA.
I wonder if there’s an ARA – The American Runners Association — that would offer roadside assistance for break downs along the routes. That I’d happily sign up for.
And no, even before this went defunct, it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind:
