Running with ducks

While I have had many experiences running in and around goose poop here in the east bay... running with ducks is a whole new experience. Except I am not actually running with ducks, more just duck noises... all the time... let me start from the beginning of the story.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed I was getting a few more aches and pains in my legs than usual. After I got over the initial panic that my body was falling apart, I realized it was actually about time for me to get a new pair of running shoes. So I headed over to La Foot and got fitted with some sexy new sneeks -->
I also improved the shoes with some new inserts and invested in my new favorite running tool, The Stick.

I tried my new shoes out on a short 4 mile run after work and noticed they squeaked a bit. I wasn't too concerned at the time. I thought maybe the inserts just needed to warm up a bit to the shoe and generally I was not bothered by the sound.

Then came a Saturday long run at the Redwood Regional Park. The trail is very much a traily trail in the Redwoods and basically the only sound other than yourself is some birds chirping and the rustle of an animal in the bushes. Immediately all I could hear was my shoes. The sound was something in between a duck squawk and techno base beats. At first it was awful. The noise was extremely annoying. But, when I found I was running alone, I found it to be a friendly noise and I grooved to the rhythm of the music I was creating. This, however, did not last long either. It got annoying once again. All I could think of was ducks. Rabid ducks chasing me at the same pace I was running. If I ran fast, so did the duck noises. It was terrible.

As soon as I got home I google searched sqweeky running shoes. Some people said you just have to deal with it, some people recommended putting papertowels under your inserts, but it wasn't unitl I read a recommendation to put vasoline in your shoe when it hit me. BODY GLIDE! See, if you arent a runner, you probably don't know what body glide is. It is this awesome anti-chaffing bar runners rub on all the potential chaffing areas before a run. See, it hit me, my shoes just had a bad chaffing problem! So, before track last week I tested my idea out. I popped out my inserts. Lubed them up with Body Glide. Put them back in. Put the shoes on and took a couple of steps... SILENCE. IT WORKED!!!!!

The moral of the story is: when in doubt, body glide it.