Shoegazing:
A long strange trip into way too many pairs of shoes.
In the last month, I have owned and returned two of three pairs of Adidas, two of three pairs of New Balance, two pairs of Asics and now a pair of Mizunos. Shoes are truly crazy right now, and not just in my house: in every runner’s house.
It’s exciting to look for shoes now because we do have a lot more variety and options these days than we used to. On the other hand, it can make finding the right pair a real excavation. That work is worth it, though, because as I said in my earlier post, shoes are cheaper than new knees and hips.
And after all this trial and error, I am now down to two pairs that I think could work for me. One is the New Balance and one is the Mizuno. These Mizuno are currently my favorite.
They are in a word: bonkers.
They have a carbon fiber plate that runs down the heel, like many performance shoes these days. They’ve got the lightweight mesh upper that I guess we’re all supposed to like because it’s “breathable”. I…do not like these meshes; breathability doesn’t outweigh “scratchy polyester” in my pros versus cons list, but I guess I’m unique like that.
The main difference between these shoes and the others I’ve tried is that they are super geared towards forefoot strikers. All the shoe reviews that I saw were absolutely weirded out by this, but I have confirmed that I am a pretty extreme forefoot striker because they feel great to me. They’re a little bit weird going downhill still because I haven't gotten used to how to land on the extreme heel cut out, but overall I'm really liking them. All this being said, they’re $180, and I’m a little worried that they’re going to just get shredded on my road runs. I’m going to give them two weeks of running before I decided whether to order more or not.
If you’re looking for shoes and feeling overwhelmed, you can head to a running store where the staff can check out your footfall. If you can’t make it to a store, prop your phone against something at ground level and film yourself running towards it. Check out your foot fall, how you hold your arms, and your general level of tensity to get a feel for what shoes might work for you. If you’d like, ask me questions in the comments; I’d love to talk about your shoes!
Whatever you’re in these days, I hope you’re enjoying some increasingly good weather. See you next week and for today, remember: go run.