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Obsessing Over Running Shoes
It wasn’t the shoe that was going to make me better — it was me
Right now, I am training for marathons and trying to run under 2:30 in the race, which is about 5:43 every mile. I have been out of college for six years, and I ran the 5000 meters and 10,000 meters throughout college. I run 80 miles a week, about 340 miles a month.
The biggest expense of having to run this much is running shoes. Because the life cycle of training shoes is traditionally 300–500 miles, I am supposed to cycle through shoes once every month or every month and a half. However, because running shoes are expensive, I tend to really stretch them and only change the shoes once every two or three months.
Throughout the last 16 years, I must have used and worn through at least 100 pairs of running shoes. For the big brands of running shoe companies in the running community, like Nike, Saucony, Brooks, and Asics, I am probably their dream customer. Over my lifetime, I can estimate that I probably have spent over $8,000 on running shoes.
I remember when the $250 Nike Vaporfly first came out in 2017. It was the first “super shoe,” designed with a carbon plate that made runners 4% faster than other marathon running shoes. I swore I would never buy them at the time. I thought they were a form of cheating and…
