Sunday, March 31, 2013

I may have a shoe problem

I've always been a bit of a gadget freak.  I love tech as much as anyone.  Now that I'm a runner, that has transitioned to a love for shoes.  So when I say I have a shoe problem, it means I have a bad habit of buying lots of running shoes.  My friend teased that I'm worse than a chick when it comes to this.  Its really quite humorous to think that I've worn the same pair of shoes to work for 3 years now.  I've only had my every day kick around shoes since November, but the pair I had before that I wore for about 3 years.  So how bad is it with running shoes?  I own 9 pairs of running shoes.  Yes that is right, 9 pairs.  I've been running for about 18 months now, so that means I've gotten a pair just about every other month.... Not that I do, but that is just how it averaged out. 

Here are 7 pairs of shoes that I own.  Not pictured are my original runners, a pair of Brooks Ghost and a back up pair of Vibram Bikilas.

Of the shoes in the photo:
Vibram Bikila - wear once a week for an easy run when its nice out to strengthen feet.
Brooks Adrenaline - Retired since June
Nike Structure - Newly retired and replaced
New Balance Minimus trail - Picked up since I'm doing a couple trail runs this year. I've only worn these once so far on a wet and muddy day.
Brooks Pure Cadence - These are my racing and speedwork shoes.  I love them
Mizuno Wave Inspire - Picked these up in November, they are my every day trainers.
Newton Motion - These are brand new.  They are to replace the Nike Structures.  I wanted to try something new, and hopefully the lugs on the midfoot will help with midfoot striking.

The Newton Motion are my newest pair of shoes picked up from Fleet Feet yesterday.  I hope they will provide a change of pace trainer from my Mizune Wave Inspire and hopefully help enforce good bio mechanics like I'm already working on by running in the Vibrams.  I will have to write a review once I get some miles in them.  Runner's are supposed to slowly adapt to them like you would for the Vibrams, so I stuck to my Mizunos for my long run today.

So is having 5 active pairs of shoes too much?  They each serve a purpose - strengthening, trail, speed, training, change of pace.  I may be shopping again soon.  The Mizunos have nearly 300 miles on them which is about when shoes normally start breaking down for me.  I'm a heavy, but speedy runner so I tend to be a bit rough on shoes.

Anyone else cycle through multiple pairs of shoes?

1 comment:

  1. Good to meet you too Eric. And I don't think you can ever have too many shoes (running or otherwise).

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