What A Difference A New Pair of Shoes Makes

Now anyone that knows me in real like will probably laugh at this post as I'm not averse to buying shoes and in fact have, well let's just say, alot of shoes.  For some reason though, buying new running shoes is something I put off.  It may be that I haven't found the perfect shoe yet - the one that I'm loyal to for years on end and would never think of straying from.  I've had a couple of great pairs but the shoe companies always seem to come out with updated models and the updated versions have never felt as good.  This probably makes me sound like I have some real issues with my feet too, but I don't.  I need a slightly wider toe box but other than that I have a normal arch, regular width, size 6 foot.  No pronating, nothing.

For the last couple of weeks I've been really feeling that my current running shoes have bit it.  I get soreness in my hip and knee (usually the right side) and can feel it in my feet.  Coach Mary finally had to tell me to "Go get new shoes!"  Okay then.  It was a gorgeous day here on Friday so I took a couple of hours of vacation from work to head over to the running store.  I wanted to make sure I had a new pair in time for my run Saturday.  I told the girl what I was looking for and she brought out 5 different pairs for me to try.  It came down to a pair of Saucony and the New Balance 1080s.  After a couple of laps around the store I decided on the 1080s.  They're pretty low key in colour and I noticed they had a pair of 1080s on the wall that were predominately red.  I love me some red and really wanted those shoes.  Unfortunately they didn't have my size - boo! - but she offered to order them in for me.  I hesitated for about 5 seconds and thought that I really needed the shoes sooner than later and I'd have to take the ones in stock.  20% off later from my Windsor Tri Club discount (score!) I had me a new pair of shoes.

Saturday's training plan had a 2100 metre swim and a 45 minute run.  Paul and I wanted to go to the States for some shopping so I decided to run home from the pool to get everything done in the shortest amount of time.  I also love running when I have a destination.  It breaks up the monotony of the roads around my house or Sydney's house that I've run past hundreds of times.  Since Paul had to do pool running (he's healing from an injury) he would stay after the swim workout, do his pool running and get showered there.  That would give me plenty of time to run the 45 minutes home.  My house is almost 7.5 kms from the pool so I thought it work out almost perfectly.

The swim went awesome on Saturday.  I'm pretty slow in the water but have started to really feel an improvement and managed to finish the workout almost 15 minutes quicker than Mary had allotted me.  I was stoked!  I then ate a Clif Bar while changing into my running gear, put my stuff in the car for Paul to transport home and headed off.  It was colder this weekend than it had been the last couple of days so I bundled up before heading out.  The wind was gusting at 30km/h which was tough but luckily the sun was shining.  I was a little overheated because of the sun and my ponytail was frozen solid but overall it was a beautiful day for a run.  As soon as I started up I could feel the difference in the shoes and was happy that this was looking like a pain free workout.  I concentrated on keeping my heartrate in zone 2 and enjoying myself.  The 45 minutes was up before I knew it and I was less than a kilometre from home.  I ran the extra few minutes and made it home.  I felt great after!  No hip or knee pain!

Paul pointed out a great feature on Training Peaks that allows you to input your equipment and it will track the mileage.  I entered my new shoes so will actually be able to keep track of the mileage on them instead of just trying to guesstimate.  I'll have to figure out how many miles/kilometres a pair of shoes can generally handle before replacing and keep an eye on my total.  I have made a pact with myself to replace these shoes at that point and stop being such a nerd about it! 

Can any of my eighteens of readers help me out with how many miles a pair of shoes can handle before they need replacing?