Once a Writer

My review of "Once a Runner" appeared in the paper this morning, plus it's on line here. I wonder if there will be any response from our running readers? Should be fun opening my work email when I get to my office.
Last evening I ran 8 miles on the levee along the Missouri River. The four miles out were against a strong head wind - it seems like that's always the case out there. At least it wasn't also cold or raining. The run back, of course, was with the wind, so my splits were much better in that direction. Overall I averaged 8:23.
I am using two different pairs of shoes these days. One is a stability shoe by New Balance that I bought when I had a tibial tendon problem in my right foot. The other is a light-weight racer, also by New Balance. After running in the stability shoe exclusively for several weeks, I switched back to the lighter shoe for two weeks and then back again this week.
The difference in the two shoes is astounding. It's almost like switching from snow boots to socks and back again. While I'd like to wear just the lighter shoe all the time, I think I'll just wear them once in a while, and especially in races, and train in the heavier shoe. I think that might make me feel lighter in a race. I'll have to do the math, but if the heavier shoe is, say, 2 ounces more than the other pair, multiply that times the number of strides in a marathon and you've got a lot more weight to haul across the finish line. They say it makes quite a difference.
Let's see, about 2,400 stides in a mile, times 26 miles is 62,400, plus a few for the .2, so 63,000 strides for a marathon. An extra 2 ounces per stride adds 126,000 ounces, divide that by 16 and you get 7,875 pounds of extra weight over the course of a marathon. What??? Yikes!!!!