This blog is almost a year old now and I haven’t done a post yet about my running shoes. The primary reason is because I’m not a shoe guy. It seems like most blogs I read people are pretty fanatical about their shoes. They have a specific shoe or brand they love and that’s all they wear. I’m not like that at all. I have a brand I like (Salomon), but I don’t like it so much that that’s all I’ll buy. Frankly, my favorite brand is Under $50 on Amazon. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I’m cheap. I dislike overpaying for things and will use what I have until it’s literally falling apart (i.e. 160k miles on my car and I’m hoping for another 10 years). I’m not convinced that a $150 pair of shoes are any better than a $40 pair. And if you wait long enough, you can typically find that $150 pair marked down online to $50. Overall, my goal is to pay less than 10 cents per mile for my shoes. So I need to get 500 miles out of a $50 pair. There have been a couple pairs over the past 4 years that haven’t met this standard, but on average I’m getting about 7.5 cents per mile.
Besides buying cheap shoes, I like to rotate 3-5 different pairs at all times. Since I run every day, this is one way for me to prevent injuries. Different shoes and styles of shoes will work muscles differently. The best example of this is barefoot running. Go do 2 miles on the beach some time and you’ll feel leg muscles you didn’t even know you had. So by always wearing different shoes, I’m not putting the exact same stress on the exact same muscles each time I run even though I use the same stride mechanics. Or at least this is my theory. I’ve been running for 4 years without serious injury and while my shoe choices may have nothing to do with this, I think it has to have at least a small positive impact.
Current Lineup
Lots of cushioning and support. The Filas have been my go to long run shoe so far this year.
Lighter shoe than the Filas. I use these for my track workouts and anything up to 5 miles or so.
My Jesus sandals. I’m still working on breaking my legs into using these. I’ve done a couple 3 mile runs that have really worked over my calves. I may eventually get up to 5 miles with these, however plan to only use these on the roads. I was never sold on this style of shoe until I heard they were good for about 5,000 miles. 1 cent per mile?!?!? Sign me up!
Still fresh out of the box.
Pretty beat up so I’ve moved these to my walking shoes. Hope to get a couple hundred more miles out of them that way before having to toss them out.
Do you have favorite shoe?