Yep, I took a couple of days of no running to let the pain in my right arse cheek calm down. More than likely it has something to do with my Periformis being grumpy about me wearing the belt for Bennie’s leash.

It was the reason that I stopped wearing the belt with the leash before and have stopped again this time. It seems that when he pulls hard on the leash, it pulls against an area just above the spot that is bothering so much. However, this time that pain in my arse, has accounted for some seriously slower times this month, well that and the heat/humidity.

I did make a decision on the Salomon Predict RA and they were delivered back to the UPS facility in Waterville for their return trip to Running Warehouse. The bottom-line was that they didn’t fit my feet correctly and were bothering my Tailor’s Bunionette even when just walking in them, so they needed to go back. That and they were fussy about the laces, it seemed that I was stopping and adjusting things way too much and never seemed to get the “right” fit for my right foot.

It is too bad, because there were a lot of things that I liked about them, but the main thing I look for in my running shoes is comfort and put them on and forget about them when I am running. Neither were the case for the Predict RAs and my feet.

Which meant that I had to go digging around in the back of the garage to see what was out there that I could add to the rotation again. I am not thrilled with the noisiness and how the bottom of my feet feel when running over 5.0 miles in the Inspire 15s, so I pulled out my Clifton 6 and Nike Odyssey 2 and after going back and forth between the two, I finally decided on the Clifton 6s.

Turns out it was a decent choice, not sure why I put them away, but looking back at my logs didn’t help me figure it out either, so I will wander about in them for a while to see how things go with them this time. Although I will change out the laces, they just don’t feel right on the top of my feet.

The run itself was pretty routine and while the Periformis is a LOT better than it has been, it is still a little more grumpy than I want to deal with, so I stopped at just over 3.0 miles.

Although I did have a run-in with Raymond the Black Lab down the road. For some reason he has taken a dislike to me and as I was coming back up Stevens Hill, the neighbor was walking Hazel and him down it. She went over to my right and I moved to the left, I raised my hand to wave high and the next thing we knew Raymond had tried to bite me – he was on an 8ft leash. Well I think he succeeded or at least had a tooth scrape a piece of my forearm as I was pulling it away from his mouth and it did draw a little blood this time. It isn’t the first time he has attempted to go after me.

Nothing serious, but the neighbor was horrified and while I wasn’t too impressed, she started apologizing. I know they have been working hard with Raymond and I didn’t let it bother me too much. She texted me a little later apologizing again. I thought that I did a good job of not getting angry and making a situation that much worse. I knew that the neighbor felt bad and if I had yelled and screamed it would not have helped anything. I did show her my arm and the blood welling up from where his tooth had scraped my arm.

I have a feeling though if it had been anyone’s dog but a neighbor’s I probably would have reacted a bit more and probably said words that I would regret later. Thankfully, I just let it kind of go on by, just another one of those things that just happens and you deal with it by taking the high road.

Other than returning the shoes and getting a tooth scrape from Raymond, just another run. 😉

Now to figure out which shoes to get with the Running Warehouse store credit that I will have coming my way at some point over the next week or so. Not really sure what direction I want to go this time?