Breaking in shoes (Read 908 times)

better wear some good tech socks possibly even doubles. I've had some friends do this and paid a price but those marathons were rainy and wet. Certainly get some miles on them as I've found the same model sometimes fits a bit differently between pairs. Good luck on the marathon.

Do you think there are any concerns buying shoes this close to race day?

I wouldn't do it. Do you really need to have new shoes this close to a race? I just checked your log. If this is the pair with 440-something miles, I'd run with them in race. Unless they're really hurting you, I'd take a shoe with 1000 miles on it over one with zero. The last thing you need is some weird problem with a new pair of shoes popping up at mile 17. Is it likely? Probably not, with a model you're used to. But I wouldn't do it. Just one more thing that could go wrong. I'd never go near a marathon with shoes without at least 100 miles on them. Especially if I didn't get to try them out in a long run. That's just me. YMMV.

Its pretty rare to see this happen, but it happens. On my fifth pair of a particular make/model, I found one shoe that had some kind of stitching or construction issue that caused serious blisters.

Imagine how bad it would suck to DNF because of something like that. Hey, you should just go barefoot. I hear its awesome!

For me 2 weeks is more then enough break in time. If you've got a bad pair you'd know after just a few miles.

While I don't discount JK's cautious approach, I tend to agree with protoplasm on this one. I've done my three marathons on shoes with 71, 19 and 21 miles on them respectively. In the case of the 19 and 21 mile shoes, these were both the same make/model as a prior pair that I had run in for many weeks.

i broke in shoes in 3 wks prior to a 1/2 last year. The shoes were sooooo amazingly comfortable and the ride so smooth, I couldn't imagine continuing in my old shoes. The 1/2 was fine. good luck! (and did you say the shoes you have now have 700 miles on them? Wow, you get good life out of your shoes, or they really really need to be retired).

My training partner asked the same exact question... she has done 8+ marathons... and she asked a guy I run with who has done a bunch and has like 30 states done... and his resonse was... "Dance with the girl that brung ya!" hehe... Then he said that get them and run a few weeks on them including one long run... before trying to race in newer shoes... That being siad... I know an elite that has run races on brand spakin new shoes... and doesn't have a problem

I ran a marathon yesterday in new shoes. I tried a pair of them on 5 weeks ago at the expo at ING Georgia, had my rep drop them off for me at my local store the week after Boston, did 2 runs in them (~5 and ~10 miles) and then raced the marathon in them. It was the first time that I used racing flats in a marathon rather than light weight trainers. It worked out pretty well for me. Generally speaking, shoes these days don't really need to be "broken in" as much as they did 10 or even 5 years ago. That being said, having shoes that fit properly when purchased is important. I normally would opt for the shoes with more miles if I was at all unsure.

Shouldn't ever have to break em in, but you will want to try them out on a longer run to make sure they're okay. If they hurt, you may not even want to train in them let alone race.