Shoes

I wear sneakers a lot. I mean, an awful lot. I wear them to work. I wear them to exercise (rarely). I wear them when I'm hanging around the house. I wear them when I'm going out. Basically, unless I'm going to a wedding, to court, or to bed, my feet are in athletic shoes. I generally keep 2 pairs of sneakers and swap 'em out every week or so; supposedly this extends the life of a shoe.

A few months ago I participated in a "mud run", basically a 5k obstacle course with a lot of (you guessed it) mud holes. Afterwards, one of the tread spots on my right shoe was loose. So I pulled it off and went on with my life.

A few weeks later, my left hip and lower back started complaining. In fact, my back froze up pretty badly and it took kind of a while to rehab it. In fact, it's still not 100%.

My back was getting worse at the end of last month, starting to be really a nuisance. I had gone back to taking meds for it which is a big deal for me. I was having a hell of a time figuring out what the problem was; it's not like I had added any new activity or anything.

After several days of aching, I swapped my shoes (you guessed it, I put away the shoes with the missing tread spot and put on the other ones) and my back and hip have been getting steadily better since. I've even started running again.*

In retrospect, it all seems pretty obvious. But really, associating left hip and back pain with losing a one-square-inch piece of tread off your right shoe is kind of tough, especially when it takes several days or weeks for symptoms to show up. When you think about it though, these shoes are pretty extensively engineered. It makes sense to think that all the bits might be important.

I got a new pair of shoes today, so far so good. More updates as events warrant.

*Well, I went running yesterday.