Today's Anchorage-y photo:
Downtown Anchorage is heavy on sailing art (get it? Anchorage? A place one anchors?). This is behind the Captain Cook Hotel, I think. Or some hotel. They're all the same to me.
Today's goal exercise-wise was to take it easy, and I crushed it. A long, stressful school and work week left me exhausted today, and since my new fancy shiny plan doesn't start until Monday, I want to take it extra easy on my legs until then. Plus, I'm actually really sore from the twenty minutes of pilates I did yesterday. I think my body's trying to tell me something: no more pilates. I haven't decided what this weekend's workouts are going to look like. I'll get a hike in there for sure, but besides that I'm not sure I'll do much else.
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Do you like ugly shoes? If so, boy do I have a treat for you. We minimalists suck for a lot of reasons, but the most obvious is probably our shoes. I hate spending money on casual shoes (and purses and other accessories-basically, girl stuff). I would much rather blow my cash (or what cash I used to have) on clothes, which cover more than roughly 3% of my body and are therefore much more visible. I never look at other people's shoes, so I've managed to delude myself into thinking no one will ever look at mine. Basically, I've given myself a free pass to wear hideous shoes bought for me as gifts by my parents. I am willing to drop major billz on running shoes, but of course, some of the shoes I run in are ugly as hell. Let's make fun of them all together!
These are the original ugly shoes, known affectionately as the swamp shoes. My dad got them for me for Christmas four or five years ago. He was so proud of them, thinking he was giving me the coolest present ever, and started hinting about the "best gift ever" weeks before Christmas. When I opened them, I didn't have the heart to tell him they were gross. I started wearing them around and decided they were actually really comfortable, and once I started rowing they became my dock shoes.
Another view, you ask? This is just like those food blogs where the same damn plate of food is photographed from 500 different angles.
Next up is my most recent addition to the collection, known as the Michelin Man shoes.
These shoes. My god. They are so ugly and they look like slippers and not real shoes and I've never really seen anything like them before but HOLY SHIT, they may be the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. The material inside is so soft, and every step feels like I'm walking on little down pillows. It's incredible. My mom got me these for my birthday. I've been trying to figure out what to wear them with to make them look less weird, but so far have failed most spectacularly.
Next up, we've got a shoe I chose for myself to run in.
These are my Softstars. They're really comfortable, but so ugly. One friend called them elf shoes. I ran my first "minimalist" half in them last year in Annapolis, and got plenty of looks. They make me slower than any other shoe I own, but I really like them. I do not wear these casually.
I lied, my Michelin Man shoes are not my most recent acquisition. These are.
These tanks hurt my minimalist soul. They are so big and so clunky, but they claim to keep your feet warm to -25 degrees, which should come in handy this winter. I always hike in my Pace Gloves (see below), even on multi-day trips like the one I did with my dad in the Sierras a couple of months ago, but when you add snow and cold into the equation, my Pace Gloves just didn't cut it. Bummer.
And now, the most reviled shoes to ever have walked this earth.
And now, to clean that awful taste out of your mouth, I present to you the normal, even cute shoes I usually run in.
I love my Pace Gloves. They rock in every way. I bought a second pair, but only because the traction is almost completely worn off this pair. They have a ton of miles on them and still feel as good as the day I bought them (better, really, since they are now perfectly molded to my feet). I've actually been asked where I bought my "rock climbing shoes" before, so you know they're not ugly! I completed marathon training in these and was set to run the Burlington Marathon in them until my foot broke down. But again, that's a story for another day.
So those are my ugly shoes. These days I'm mostly wearing my surprisingly-stylish boots (not pictured) since it's getting colder outside, but these make it into the rotation often enough.
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We will wind down this li'l post with an adorable picture I just took.
Spoiled as hell.
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You should go watch this video, especially if you hate minimalist runners. It's hilarious.
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