I guess that's why trail shoes are gray.

oh, so this is exciting. My new shoes were waiting on my doorstep for me on Friday. awesome, right? the stabils are the same old stabils I always run in, so that wasn't overly exciting, but the omni trails... oh man. seriously, they're a dream. I ran in them yesterday evening and they're like running on little cushions. I love them.

we had tickets to the Pistons game yesterday. They weren't playing well at all through the first half, then they picked it up a little in the third and played great in the 4th. although I have to say... Rip just wasn't playing as well as he usually does. and it was awesome to hear the whole Palace chant "MVP! MVP!" every time Chauncy went to the line. I can't wait until the playoffs start later this month! DEEEEETROIT BASKETBAAAAAAALL!

after the game we resisted the urge to go the B-dubs to get cheese fries, wings, and beer and instead went home and got ready to run/workout. I stopped by the mall to pick up my lappy and then headed up to a park on the other side of town that I rarely run at. This park is all trails, with about 10 miles of mountain biking trails and a few miles of "multiuse" trails. I usually don't like running the mountain biking trails because they're often very busy and they are very tight trails so there's really not a whole lot of room for the bikes to pass me so I'm always jumping off the trail whenever I see a biker coming. But it had started raining as soon as I left the mall and was virtually downpouring by the time I got to the park, so there weren't a whole lot of bikers out. From the emptyness of the parking lot I could tell I wasn't going to have much company so I felt comfortable hitting the biking trails too, which was nice. The problem with running in a new park is that I don't know many of the trails and I always am stopping at the trail markers to find out where I'm at. at one point I jumped onto what I thought was a short connecting trail and found myself way out in the middle of nowhere before I found a trail marker that informed me that I had taken the totally wrong trail. But I did see two deer hopping through a meadow, so I guess it was worth it. Once I found my way back to the trail I was supposed to take the trails were completely and totally a mess, and I was completely soaked from the rain. It was a blast. this is what running is about, I told myself.

For about 3 seconds, as I tromped through a HUGE muddy puddle, I worried about my new shoes, and how they'd be all dirty from the trails. But then I realized that that's kinda the point of trail shoes, and that's probably the reason why they're often gray to begin with; you can hardly even tell that they're dirty. and seriously, who cares? I'd rather my shoes be muddy and scuffed up than sparkling white anyday. So I splashed around in the mud and rain for a while... ended up with probably between 4 and 4.5. I was a total mess when I got home, but man did that hot shower feel nice.