Trying running gifts out and keeping extra weight off after Christmas

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and is enjoying a restful day recovering. This holiday usually is filled with connecting with family and friends and relatives and catching up on the absence between meetings. It is also a time when people tend to eat a bit more than usual. There are some families that like to have the big meal on Christmas Eve. This usually means the Christmas meal is leftovers from the evening before. Then a typical Sunday meal makes it three larger than normal meals in a row. As a youngster, I grew up in a Norwegian family where the Christmas Eve meal was lutefisk. As a youngster, it was an easy task to not eat a big meal of lutefisk. It is one thing that as a family tradition was never passed on to future generations.

For runners that received gifts suited for running the warm weather makes it perfect to try the items out. Whether it was socks, running shorts, a high-tech running shirt or winter wear for when it gets cooler the extra day off is made for a run. A runner needs shoes as the most basic gift but this is a difficult gift to buy. Most runners have a specific brand and type that they wear. A gift certificate is the best option if anyone bought a runner shoes. For beginning runners, this often isn’t a big problem as many of them are still trying to find the best shoe for their running style. I have been a good example of trying to find that correct shoe to run in. I have tried Nike, New Balance, Asics, Brooks, Mizuno, Adidas, Reebok, and a few brands that are no longer available. I finally settled on either a Brooks or an Asics even though the Reebok was the one I ran most marathons in. The problem is once you find that perfect shoe the company decides to “upgrade and improve” the shoe and it does not work like the old style. That is what makes buying a running shoe for a person so difficult.

Running in the wrong shoe for the person’s running style can often lead to problems. One friend thought he ran with a supination foot plant. He bought a custom-made shoe to prevent his foot from over supinating. It turns out he was a pronator in running foot plant. With a shoe that emphasized pronation to counter his supposed supination, it was a wrong choice. We went on a marathon training run of 18 miles and at the end of the run, he could hardly walk. The company said they would correct the shoe to make it anti-pronation for him. Since he was not going to be able to run for a couple of weeks because of the sore knees it should have worked out. Instead, he bought anti-pronation inserts to put in his anti-supination shoes to see if it would help. A wrong shoe for a runner can lead to problems. I need a high toe box so the Nike shoes at the time had a low front toe box and my toe went through the top of the shoe after a few miles. The New Balance has a wide forefoot portion so my foot would move back and forth and cause blisters. I have a neutral foot plant so any shoe that is anti-pronation or anti-supination will cause problems. I am also a “heavy” foot plant so I need good heel cushion. It takes a runner several brands to find the one that fits their running style. If you bought a runner the wrong shoe keep the receipt so the runner can exchange it for the shoe that fits them.

As to the possible weight gain from eating several meals larger than normal that just take adding a few more miles to your running total for the next few weeks. If you ran before the big meal your metabolism was revved up and helped burn the calories if you overate. A walk after the meal also helped. The hardest part of moving after a big meal is overcoming the urge to take a nap. I have been to Christmas parties and other celebrations with a group of runners. I thought many of them had hollow legs as they went back for seconds and thirds and still remained skinny. Runners putting in those long miles training for marathons need the extra calories so they just called it “carbo-loading” and ate everything on their plate. At the Houston Marathon one year at the ‘pasta loading meal’ that was provided I watched the eventual woman’s winner go through the line three times. We tried to follow her since she was the established runner to follow. We gave up after the second time through the food line. I can only eat so much spaghetti before I have a hard time walking much less going for a run.

So enjoy the time to recover from Christmas meals and try out the new gifts you opened for running. Give that new fancy calorie counter, timer, and distance calculator watch you got a try.