i'm not talking about when the new "jordan" shoes come out. i'm not referring to getting the new black on red instead of the barely a month old red on black "lebron james" special edition hightop. believe me, i have a rant saved up for that, but this is about my quest but really, when is it time to get new shoes? we all have that favorite pair of shoes that we wear practically everyday until the back of the sole, at the heel, starts to separate from the rest of the shoe and appears to talk to the people behind you. i'm no exception. it's hard to let go. especially me. instead of recycling them so some less fortunate than my self can give a pair of my old shoes a bit of some extra life, i hold on to them thinking i can still use them when i do some dirty work.
i can be very picky when i comes to shoes, but i digress. we're here talking shoe life. so, in the past if you had asked me, i would have thought people were crazy for having to change their running shoes after 6-9 months of constant running. i thought shoes could last a long time. yeah, i know the sole wears out and stuff like that but how long does it really take. for those of us not swimming in money, it seems logical that it should take a long time to happen. at least we hope it does. shoes, quality shoes, cost money. it's not like we can go out and spend money on a new pair of shoes every month. a year? yes. this goes back to my rant about sneaker endorsements by spoiled athletes who make more money the more we buy a shoe for no other purpose than that to walk around with their name on our feet. oops, there i go again.
over the past 2 or so years, i finally got it. i got why people, runners for example, have to change shoes. when i started the shoes i owned were decent. i mean they were meant for running and even though i had them for a while at that point, but i didn't know as much as i know now about this hobby of mine.
okay, okay... sometimes it's an obsession.
i continued to work out in these shoes until my feet just couldn't stand them anymore. i might as well had been running in dress shoes that have no insoles. the soles are as smooth as skis. (i used present tense here because i still wear those shoes. see what i mean about hard to let go. the pair i bought to replace those, i donated. those were still good enough for someone else. the older pair i might as well keep them until they dissolve. they won't do anybody any good.)
anyways, since then i had bought 3 pairs of shoes. so, we're talking about an eight month average. last year i did a lot more running. my life schedule got out of whack after the beginning of the year and running took a backseat for a while, but i never stopped working out. so, i have bought 3 new pairs of running shoes over that time. i'm still wearing the second pair. i have not ran as much as i had in the first pair, which lasted 7-8 months. i think they could have gone farther but the reviews i had read about that pair had said they have a relatively short lifespan. i had started to notice the symptoms of when it's time to start looking for a new pair. my first half marathon was not too far away. i liked the pair i had so much that i bought the exact same shoe. the difference between them were like night and day. i felt refreshed when i put them on. however, wearing new shoes to run can be painful. they have to be broken in slowly over the course of a couple of weeks. well, that's what i've read in all the magazines and websites. whatever.
well, i have a new pair sitting in my room waiting for me to put them on and start running. i tried to get a 3rd pair of the same shoe but when i went to the store to get fitted that shoe was no longer made. so, soon i will have to bid farewell to the "brooks defyance 3" and welcome my new "brooks glycerine 9" pair in the near furture. i can't wait to run in them actually, i still have a lot of quality time left in my other pair right now. there's a reason why i have bought a pair so early.
now, shoe life. i seen a lot of argument over when to wear a new pair of shoes. i'm not going to get into it because of the large difference of opinion. i'm no expert. i go by feeling. if i feel i can't work in the shoes anymore, then i'll switch. this time however might be a little difficult to tell because my insole is not going to wear out anytime soon. it's a kinda plastic insole called "a-line". they are supposed to keep your feet straight and inline with you knee. i've had few feet, ankle and knee problems while wearing them. that being said, i never had those issues before and i hope i don't have them in the future. anyways, those insoles will last quite a while. i want to ween myself off of them though. so, when i start my switch i will not be putting those in the new shoes. they might slide around anyways.
why? i have had a gait analysis done each time i went in for new shoes. each time the shoe size got bigger. strange, i know. i thought i was a size 9.5-10. then, when i got my first pair i was measure at 10.5. for the next pair, the guy at the store didn't have the same pair in 10.5 and had a hunch. he brought back an 11.5 and i tried those. they felt large, but i was more comfortable with those over time. i had more toe room. speaking of toe room. the new pair which i have yet to wear are 12. what? i get that i need to get a shoe that will allow for my feet to swell. isn't that too big. the salesman said, "no". he even showed me on the show measuring thingy when he was first checking my size. i wouldn't have believed it if i didn't see it. i still won't feel comfortable getting shoes that big for anything other than running though. they are a bit big in my opinion, but i like wearing thick socks too. in theory i should not get the black toe nails that people talk about. i saw somewhere that it is related to shoes being too small.
oh man, i was supposed to talk about shoe life. honestly, i still don't know how long running shoes last when that's what they are specifically used for. i don't wear my running shoes casually like football players don't wear their cleats casually. i expressly use them for running. i wish i would have kept track of the mileage on my current pair, but i estimated them to have about 200 miles of running on them. i can easily put another 200-300 mile on them before it's time to retire them. i guess. the sole on them have significant wear on them though. i do know that i can put some more distance on them for sure. a lot of distance. i may have to retire them before february though. i need to do some more math to figure out when that may be. so, from here on, i'll estimate about 200 miles on them and keep track of the mileage i put on them.
now, i just wish i knew how much time i had left on my nike foot pod that keeps track of my pace and distance blah blah blah. i've had it for a while and went a while without using it but never got rid of it. the battery has to die soon. i may have to switchback to my gps watch though. it's just that it takes forever to get satellites here.
i think in a later post you may end up hearing my rant on celebrity athlete endorsed shoes or anything endorsed by an athlete for that matter. maybe i can gather my thoughts on a long run. we'll see.
i also want to do some research about the life of running shoes. that can be my independent study. hahaha!!!
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