The Day Before Vacation

It being the day before my vacation is actually irrelevant to anything that I did today.  I have two profound subjects to cover here: water & shoes.

First: Water

It's 97 degrees today in Kansas City. Its too hot for a raccoon to be found in the Johnson County water supply this morning and cause the county to be on Boil Alert. Today I learned what a Boil Alert was: a pain. Convenient that my "landlords" left town and forgot to leave bottled water for unexpected contamination problems. I also learned today that you don't drink distilled water, only purified. Thank you to the lady at Target.  I should have known when there were only two gallons of purified left next to shelves of distilled.

Are these two gallons of water going to get me through the rest of the evening, a yoga class, a ten mile run tomorrow, and through 5pm when conveniently the Boil Alert is over and my flight leaves? I sure hope so. I have learned a lot about water today and my pre-vacation brain might be overloaded if I find out other hidden facts about the one component of my nutrition that I now see I take for granted.

Second: Shoes

Note: Please just agree that the man at Gary Gribbles was laughing with me today.

This shoe predicament all started on a run with my friend Brent on Tuesday. I have known that it was about time to retire my mildewy marathon shoes from LA. I have ran over 200 miles in them, so there is some attachment issues I have been working on.  Brent basically told me I needed new shoes; he clearly didn't want to go on another run of me complaining.

I had some time to kill on Wednesday, so I headed over to Gary Gribbles hoping that seeing all the shoes would inspire me to try some new shoes. No it just overloaded my head with confusion. I am not adverse to change. And really there is no reason for change considering I could have just got the same shoes (Brooks Ghost 3). I am, though, "cautiously adventurous." In other words: I want to be adventurous, but this is a difficult task and takes many hours of over analyzing and evaluation.  And this is exactly what Shoes #1 brought.

Shoes #1:

Asics Gel-Cumulus 13

These shoes even got a photo shoot in the "product photo booth" at work, but they just didn't make the cut. After I tested them out on the treadmill for 3 miles, I went through an extremely annoying war with myself. That run was very unpleasant for the mere fact I was trying to find something wrong with them.  Here is what was wrong with them:
- They didn't make running easier
- They didn't help me run faster
- They didn't provide a sudden burst of energy to do more than 3 miles
So basically nothing was wrong with them. Basically it was operator mental error.

So back to Gary Gribbles I went. Really this was more of a mental journey (my Gary Gribbles life saver asked me how long I sat in my car contemplating if I should come in or not; he hit my personally type right on). I wanted to know if someone could figure out why I was having such a problem deciding on shoes. I am sure that dealing with customers like me is not in their training, but this man was well-trained in the art of dealing with "mentally unstable shoe buyers."  He listened intently to my problem (well me just going around and around with why I don't know if I can change shoes) and my jokes about the timeliness of the patriotic color (I couldn't have him believing I was a total nut-job). And, then he somehow made the decision I should try on the Brooks again, while making me think this was all my decision (all men should take note on this).

Two choices now. Two feet. Ghost 3 or Ghost 4?
Just like a car: a new version.
The quick jog around Gribbles (with my work dress bouncing about) helped me make the decision.

So here is Shoe #2

Brooks Ghost 4

Small change was better than large change. I opted for the newer version, which I am still thinking I need to try these babies out on the treadmill before I make any big decisions (like running 10 miles outside in them tomorrow). So I might test these out on a short scenic mile on the treadmill later tonight.

And the best part: these were cheaper so I was talked into buying some new fuel. I mean the impression of "unable to make change" must have not been that bad if he was trying to convince me to "try" a new fuel.