Remember when you were a little kid, and getting new shoes was a really big deal? You felt like you could run faster, jump higher, and you definitely looked cooler. Now that I'm running over 200 miles per month, shoes only last a couple months. The easy thing to do is just get the exact same model again, so they don't even look very different—a little cleaner, a lot less worn on the soles, but otherwise the same. Buying shoes has become almost as boring as buying groceries for the week.
My latest pair does have one tiny difference from the old shoes: They a half-size larger. My toes were feeling cramped in the old model, and Chad confirmed that they were a bit small. Today I took the new ones for their first spin. As expected, they felt just like the old ones, only slightly roomier, and with a bit more spring in their step.
Tomorrow I've got a 22-miler planned, and ordinarily I wouldn't use almost-brand-new shoes on such a long run. But I figure that these shoes aren't really very different from the old ones, with the exception of the extra room, which should only be a good thing. To be sure, I asked Théoden Janes to post my plan on his Facebook page. Pretty much all the responses said the same thing: It's not that big of a deal to use new shoes on a long run. One poster pointed out that now that shoes don't have any leather in them, there's not really anything to "break in." Good point. I'll be running in the new shoes tomorrow.
Details of today's easy 6-mile recovery run are below.
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