How to tie a marathon knot

In my last post about my adventure with Bicycle up to Spikes Athletic Footwear I mentioned a "Marathon Knot." It's so simple and so cool that I want to share it. I'm sure some of you super runners out there know about it or know other knots, but perhaps I can pass it on to at least one person out there that needs a way to keep their shoes from loosening up during their runs.

After inserting the first (of many) orthotic insert into my running shoes the employee at Spikes began to lace me up. I immediately start lacing up my other shoe not wanting to make her work too hard. She stops me and says, "you need to tie a marathon knot like this," and reconfigures the lacing on my shoes. I gaze down at her work in amazement. How cool?

To tie your own marathon knot just follow these steps.

1.) Lace up your shoes as most people normally do, but use that last hole... the one that you've probably never used in your life and make a loop with the shoe lace tip coming out inside the shoe.


2.) Put on your shoes and pull the laces as tight as you desire. You'll have to pull on the loops (not the lace ends) to tighten the last bit.


3.) Now for the only part that I can imagine anyone getting confused about: Take the end of the shoe lace and thread it through the loop on the OPPOSITE side of the shoe.


4.) After threading both laces through the loops pull tight.


5.) Now go ahead and tie your shoes the way you normally do before your run. I prefer a double or triple knot. The difference is now it will be harder for your shoes to loosen up even if your knot becomes lose or untied.

Brilliant!

In other news:
It was 11 days since my last test run, a 3 miler, that just made my Achilles worse, and this morning I attempted another test run. This time with my orthotic inserts (I'll review in a future post) and I only pushed it for 1.6-miles. The pain was minor, but it was pretty much unchanged since my last run. This Achilles tendon stuff TAKES FOREVER to heal! So I cut the run short, and hit the gym to cross train with weights. It's only 13 days until the Daytona Half Marathon and I'm really starting to wonder if I'll be able to complete it or if it'll be a bust? I feel like endurance wise I'm find with the distance and cardio of a Half Marathon, it's just I already know how frustrated and disgusted I'm going to be if I'm in shape for it, but unable to run because of this Achilles business. By the way it has finally cooled down in Florida. It was a chillaxing 50-degrees when I left my house this morning. I quickly realized that all my routes from this summer are moot because they feature a lot of shade for if the sun is up. Now I need to re-think them all for the most possible sunlight to stay warm! Who would have thunk!?!? Here's me and my Florida cold running get up!