OK. These are my track spikes... or rather, what they should have looked like two years ago when I bought them. Yup, they're that color too. (horray for google imagesearch)
Now they're kinda reddish pink (from sitting on the track so much, the red from the track rubs off a bit), really muddy (jumps is a field event, theres naturally mud on the field. Plus, long and triple jump requires jumping into a, usually muddy, box of sand), with grass stains. Not to mention that there's a few drops of blood stains from all the times my spikes attacked me (ie. my right hand and my left leg).
Anyhoo, they're old enough to be considered old now, and old things tend to break. But before that, a quick lesson in high jump.
As the image says, this is a diagram (from google) of how a high jump run looks like. It's a weird J shape. The curve is there to help turn in the air, and to make sure momentum is going to carry the jumper over the bar, and onto the super squishy mat. Nothing specific there, since it doesn't really relate to the story. Well, when you run the curve, you tilt inwards (or, you're supposed to anyways), so when you plant, you can spring into an upright position from the tilt, and it gives a small boost in jumping height. Also when you plant, you're supposed to rotate a little bit, so your body ends up perpendicular to the bar, which then allows for the arch, etc. Hopefully that made sense. If it does, great. Now if only nooby high jumpers could understand also.
So.
Because I run at a tilt during the curve part, only half of the shoe would be on the ground. Imagine your shoe, then kinda tilt it sideways on a flat surface. Well, on the half thats not touching the ground, the rubbery part of the heel wanted to be flat on the ground, rather than tilted on the ground, so the stress would be put on where the heel connected to the rest of the shoe.
Well, after 2+ years of jumping high jump, that stress to that area started a small gash that separates the heel from the rest of the shoe, and it continues to get bigger and deeper after each jump.
The last step of the jump requires a "rotation" of the body. Well, you're supposed to rotate at the torso. Your foot isn't supposed to rotate at all until you leave the ground. Well, since my spikes aren't designed for high jump (which have extra spikes on the heel), they're middle distance spikes, which are more like general purpose spikes. If the floors slippery, the back of the shoe might slide a bit (look at the picture of my spikes on top, notice how they only have spikes at the front of the shoe, not at the heel). You;re not supposed to slide when you plant, hence the need for extra spikes at the heel of the foot to better prevent skidding.
These past few days, the school has been watering the field a lot lately (along with burying it with cow poopoo) so it looks pretty during graduation and next football season. That makes the high jump floor area wet, and since we start off our runs in the grassy area, the bottom of our shoes wet too. Water makes people slip. Guess what happened? Yesterday, I was doing my run, then right when I planted and was about to take off, I slipped. Gash between my heel and shoe gets a lot bigger, and my ankle gets a bit messed up (obviously this isn't the first time, so yeah, I have pretty messed up ankles). So I stopped, took off my spikes, put on my running shoes, and called it a day.
Today we practice high jump again. I don't exactly want my shoe splitting in half, nor do I want to buy another pair just to use only for the remainder of this season. So I grab some medical trainer's tape, and use it to hold the heel in place. Seemed to work OK. Horray for medical trainer's tape. Hopefully they hold out all right, cause I really really like these pair of spikes.
The above makes sense... right?
Did I mention that I really really like medical trainer's tape? Other than their obvious use of taping injuries, they're quite useful. We tape the floor/grass to mark things, yes, it tapes onto grass, quite well too, cause it stays on the grass until they decide to run over it with the lawnmower, and even then, it might still be there. They're really sticky. People complain when I tape up their shins and part of the tape adheres to their skin rather than the pre-wrap, cause then when they take it off, they loose lots of hair. Think waxing. The tape's streachy, and almost cloth like in texture, and behaves almost exactly like cloth. We steal boxes of these from the trainer, and they get mad at us cause their tape disappears.
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I bought a set of sharpies from staples! 12 colors! weeeeeee. In preparation of yearbook signings I guess. Whats the point of yellow sharpies...?
