October | 2013 | Square Life Round World

Worn Out Running Shoes

by Melanie Adams

Ouch! On Friday I went for my last long run before my upcoming Wine and Dine Half Marathon, and it hurt! To be fair, a certain amount of pain is expected but good grief! My joints and calves hurt more than they should have after 10 miles. Saturday I could barely walk and had flashbacks to the Greenline Half 2 weeks ago (yes, I know I still haven’t done a race report but it’s coming). I was unusually sore after it, but I attributed that to the hot bath I took later that day (which is totally the wrong thing to do).

So after my 10-miler I felt so lousy I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to run again. Saturday morning there I was, going through in my head everything I had eaten and had to drink the day before and the day of, desperately trying to figure out what I had done wrong. As I massaged my legs, I thought to myself, “It’s almost like my shoes are worn out.” What?! The SHOES???!!! No! I’ve only had them for a little over two months, and they only have about 100 miles on them. Also, I ONLY use them for running. Running shoes should last 6 months or 300-500 miles. So, it couldn’t be the shoes, right?

I gave them a good once-over. I didn’t find any noticeable wear, but I did recall my local running store told me once you can’t really go by that. They told me what I really should be looking at is the bend in the rubber. Shoes with life left will not bend with normal force. Worn out shoes will bend fairly easily. So, I gave it the good ol’ bend test.

They aren’t supposed to do this.

Sure enough, there was bendage.

What was a girl to do? It was two weeks before my next half, no more long runs left, and not enough short runs left to get used to different shoes. Surely I could get two more weeks out of them. SURELY! I tried to put it out of my head. No matter how hard I tried, I could not stop thinking about how much pain I was in after 10 miles. How was I going to get through 3.1 more? So off to the running store I went.

Sure enough! The verdict was I had worn them out.

They REALLY aren’t supposed to do this.

I still don’t know how that happened but the guy at the store said he definitely wouldn’t recommend running a half in them. Luckily, because they are only a couple of months old, they are still a current model. So, I got another pair of the exact same shoes, Mizuno Wave Inspire 9, only in pink this time.

Pink Mizunos!

Here’s hoping they feel pretty much the same as my others. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

Have you ever had running shoes wear out prematurely?

Follow me on Twitter @myglasssneaker.

Like my Facebook page http://facebook.com/myglasssneaker.

Follow myglasssneaker on Instagram.

I am a charity athlete raising money for St. Jude. To make a donation, click here.

Running

Godiva Chocolate Truffle Flight

by Melanie Adams

Thursday I had the opportunity to do something fun and free. I participated in a complimentary Godiva Truffle Flight tasting. Earlier in the week I got an email saying my local Godiva store would be offering this experience for one night only. The email instructed me to call and schedule my appointment. When I called, they were very clear that if you were not on time for your appointment, you would not be able to participate. My parents were in town to take me out to dinner for my birthday, and I thought it would be a delicious way to end the evening. So, after dinner, the three of us headed over to the Godiva store, not really knowing what to expect.

There were about 10 people participating in the flight at the same time we were. Each station was set up with its own gold box of six truffles, a tasting chart, an ink pen for taking tasting notes, and a cup of water.

Each station was set up like this.

It was set up very similar to a wine tasting if you’ve ever done one of those. Godiva offers six different truffle flights, and we got to experience the Milk Chocolate Lovers Truffle Flight.

6 Delicious Truffles

The six truffles offered were Chocolate Éclair, Milk Chocolate Mousse, Milk Chocolate, Butterscotch Walnut, Salted Almond, and Hazelnut Crunch.

Truffle tasting chart

My favorites were Chocolate Éclair, and Butterscotch Walnut. The interesting thing about Butterscotch Walnut is that it was created for Godiva by Duff Goldman, of Food Network’s Ace of Cakes fame.

The experience only lasted about 20 minutes, and I was only able to have a little bite of each, being full from dinner. We were able to take the rest of our chocolates home with us, though.

My leftovers

All three of us really enjoyed it. Each flight box sells for $16 in the stores, so to be able to experience this for free was very generous of Godiva.

Have you tried Godiva’s truffle flights?

Follow me on Twitter @myglasssneaker.

Follow myglasssneaker on Instagram.

Like my Facebook page at http://facebook.com/myglasssneaker.

I am a charity athlete raising money for St. Jude. To make a donation, click here.

Family Restaurants

How I Got Into a runDisney Meet-Up

by Melanie Adams

Squeeeeeee!!!! I’m so excited! Yesterday was a great day because I got into my very first runDisney meet-up, which is pretty much like hitting the runDisney lottery. This is something I’ve wanted about as long as I’ve wanted to do a runDisney race, which is as long as I’ve been running.

runDisney

Traditionally, these meet-ups have taken place early in the morning before the expo opens on marathon and half marathon weekends at Disney Parks. A week or two before the event, a post will appear on the Disney Parks Blog that will instruct those interested to send an email to a designated email address. Once the blog post goes up, runDisney will send out a tweet telling people to go visit the blog. Usually the tweet happens about a minute after the blog post goes up, although not always. Disney doesn’t say exactly when this will happen, but they usually send out a series of “teaser” tweets alerting everyone that the time is close. So, people will literally stalk the blog for days for their chance. They fill up so fast that usually if you don’t send the email within 2-3 minutes of the blog post going up, you are out of luck. Even then, it comes down to whose emails got there the fastest. I honestly never thought I’d actually get in, so I’m thrilled!

Here’s how it went down. I’m off work this week with no plans and nowhere to go, which almost never happens. I originally had the week before last off and was going to do fall cleaning on my house. I had a hunch that the meet-up post for the upcoming Wine and Dine Half Marathon Weekend would happen this week, so I figured I could fall clean this week as good as I could two weeks ago and moved my vacation to this week. That would put me in a better position to at least be watchful. I had my Twitter alerts set so that I would get a notification for all runDisney tweets, and I already had an email drafted from my gmail account (I’ve read that gmail sends faster than yahoo). I really wasn’t expecting the post until later in the week, but I was as prepared as I could be.

Yesterday morning, I had to go to my weekly Rotary Club meeting. I am the President, and our District Governor was coming for his official annual visit. So, I couldn’t skip that. About 20 minutes into the meeting, the first (and what ended up being the only) “teaser” tweet came.

Teaser Tweet

I thought to myself, “Please don’t do this now! This is literally the only obligation I have all week!” So, I went ahead and pulled up my email draft so it would be ready for “go time”. After the meeting was over, I had to have my official photo taken with our District Governor, and of course, his wife had to take about a bazillion photos (it was probably only 2). I shook his hand, thanked him for coming, said a few pleasantries to his wife, and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my phone on the table light up. I practically leaped over to it and saw that it was the Twitter notification for THE tweet!

THE Tweet

I didn’t even read it. I went straight to my email, hit send, watch the circle go round and round for what felt like 5 minutes (more like 20 seconds) and THEN went back to read the tweet. I then read the blog post to make sure they hadn’t changed anything about the method to register for it (they hadn’t).

It was also then that I saw it was going to be the very first nighttime meet-up and would feature a viewing area for attendees to watch Illuminations, Epcot’s nightly fireworks and laser show. Attendees would then get to sample food and wine featured as part of Epcot’s International Food and Wine Festival and hear Olympic athletes share training and nighttime running tips. The evening would be capped by a run through an empty Epcot and many other surprises. This was one meet-up I wanted to get in very badly! Not only is the Wine and Dine Half Marathon my inspiration race and the reason I started running 2 years ago, the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival is my favorite event at Disney.

So, for the next 3+ hours, I anxiously waited for them to post the list of attendees! I hoped with every ounce of hope I had that my name would be on the list. I knew I sent the email as fast as I possibly could, but did it get there fast enough? Finally, the list was up, and I found my name there!

I made the list!

So, in a couple of weeks when I head down to the Wine and Dine Half Marathon Weekend, my trip will begin with this awesome event, and I cannot be more excited!

This cute pic was in the teaser tweet.

I’ll be tweeting live and posting on Instagram during the event so make sure you follow me if you want to join the fun. Look for a blog post later about it, too!

Have you ever done a runDisney meet-up?

Follow me on Twitter @myglasssneaker.

Like my facebook page http://facebook.com/myglasssneaker.

Follow myglasssneaker on Instagram.

I’m a charity athlete raising funds for St. Jude. To donate, visit my personal fund-raising page here.

Races runDisney Running

2 Comments »

Tap N Run 4k Memphis

by Melanie Adams

Yesterday I did the Tap N Run 4k Memphis, which was a beer run. It sounded like a good idea at first. Beer before noon can’t be all that bad, right? Except for the event wasn’t in the morning. It was at 2 pm in the afternoon. It still didn’t sound too bad. After all, October afternoons are pretty nice. Yeah! Turns out it was almost 90 degrees with 80-something percent humidity, and what appeared to be an overcast day turned into full sun by 2 pm. It was HOT! It was still fun, though.

Tap N Run 4k Course Map

Basically, you drink your way through the race. You get a small beer to toast the start, about 6 ounces.

The Volunbeers are getting the cups of beer ready for the start.

Then, you get another small beer at each of 2 water, uh, beer stops, called Beer Chugs.

Beer Chugs were in place of water stops. Water was available, too, though.

Then, after the finish, you get a full-sized can of beer. The beer was surprisingly refreshing on the hot day. The first beer at the start was Schlafly Ale. The first Beer Chug had an orange beer, which was delicious! It was so refreshing! I wish I knew what it was so I can buy it. I asked but the volunteers (called Volunbeers) didn’t know. The second Beer Chug had Pabst Blue Ribbon, and at the end, you got your choice of Miller Light or Coors Light.

The costumes were nuts!

So many fun costumes in the crowd!

I saw many groups dressed in all the Mario characters.

Funny!

Monsters U was well represented, and I saw Thing One and Thing Two. Because it started and ended on Beale Street downtown, there were many tourists spectating. One tourist asked what was going on, and someone responded that it was just a typical afternoon in downtown Memphis. It was funny!

Everyone got a finisher’s medal, too, which doubles as a bottle opener. Always useful!

The medal doubles as a bottle opener!

One of my favorite things about this run is that since it wasn’t timed, I took some pics that I wouldn’t normally take time to snap, like the finish line!