Analyze This.

Wow, I was so happy after Sunday's run... Monday night was not so good. I left the gym plotting a terrible crabby blog post because I was having a bad day and the gym was the last straw. Examples of what I would have complained about:

1. My ponytail holders aren't strong enough to keep my hair in a good ponytail.
2. There are 5 good treadmills with TVs at the gym, and one TV is always broken. But you don't know until you're already on it, and there aren't any other TVs that face your direction at that point.
3. Treadmills never have a large enough water bottle holder for my large bottles of Fiji.
   
4. Apparently my legs are boycotting running, because every time I make them do it, they punish me for days.

Then yesterday, I was planning on writing a more positive blog post, with the crabby complaints but then something positive, a solution, or at least a different spin on it. (In my sorority meetings you had to follow up with a positive no matter how vile the thing you just said. It made for some interesting positives, especially about prospective members—"she got good grades in high school," etc.—but still not a terrible idea to try and soften the blow.) So here are some answers to the above complaints:

1. Go buy some new ones already.
2. Always bring a backup plan, like a magazine. This way you're prepared to hold off boredom for at least a little while. Besides, when it gets warmer, you'll be running outside and you won't have TV at all, so be glad for what you have, spoiled brat.
3. Umm maybe you should use a different water bottle. ("But I drink a lot when I work out!") Well then maybe you should investigate a tall skinny water bottle that you can refill over and over, even with Fiji.
4. GO SEE SOMEONE! Start with gait analysis at a running store, if new shoes don't help then go see a doctor. Enough whining already.

So, listening to myself, I'm going after work to Potomac River Running in Burke. They have a video system hooked up to a treadmill so that both you and they can watch you run (I wonder if it will confuse me and make me run funny or fall down?), and then they can help recommend shoes that will help correct your issues. Fingers crossed—that they figure out my problem and that their recommended shoes aren't too expensive! Thanks to tax refunds, I am allowing $150 to be put towards running shoes, if they are going to help. So, hopefully they're in my budget.