I have been putting off buying new sneakers because I’m a little broke. But I’ve been trying to increase my walking speed and endurance and I’m having some hip and shin and knee pain. Nothing major, but I thought, why am I doing this to myself?

So yesterday I took my Hanukkah gift card to Big Peach Running Company in Atlanta. Love, love, love that place. They have a fit system where they put you in a neutral shoe and let you run on the treadmill. They video tape your feet and then analyze it, compared to a neutral gait runner. Then they start pulling out the shoes. I think Laura must have pulled out 10 pairs of shoes or more. I tried different sizes, different brands, different models, different widths. For every pair I walked a bit, then jumped on the treadmill to see how I did at my current speed, then cranked it up to my next speed level for 30 seconds to see how that felt.

I was there for over an hour but finally settled on this pair of Brooks running shoes – the Adrenaline GTS 11th Edition. I even like the bright red color!  Since I bought my last pair there, they gave me a 10% price break, so I splurged on four new pairs of my favorite running socks, the Feetures multi-sport, light cushion performance socks. They were buy 3 get one free, so with the other three pairs I’ve bought in the last year, I now have one pair for every day. They are so good that I confess I often wear them a couple of days in a row because I love how they cushion my feet without being too thick.