Shoes: age vs miles (Read 1028 times)

The conventional wisdom is that shoes break down due to time as well as due to mileage. I have a hard time believing this one though, which is why I have a pair of Nike flats from 2003 in my closet that I still break out for track workouts once in a while. They perform just fine and are quite comfortable whenever I use them. I find it hard to believe that a shoe made from a variety of synthetic fabrics, rubbers and plastics, sewn with nylon thread and glued together with space-age adhesives will break down in that amount of time. I bet if--when I died of natural causes many decades from now--I was buried in those Nike flats and someone dug up my body 100 years later, the flats would be largely the only thing left and that a person with the stomach for it and a size 9.5 foot could pull them off the skeletal remains of my feet and wear them in a 10k race that day with no ill effects. On the other hand, a lot of my shoes end up becoming "around town" shoes long before their time. The aforementioned Nike flats have only avoided this fate due to their sheer ugliness.

The conventional wisdom is that shoes break down due to time as well as due to mileage.

I think it's not so much that they break down with time as it is the materials harden and lose their compressibility. If you've ever brought out a *really* old pair of sneakers, they can seem almost crunchy and have no flexibility. 100 years from now, someone could pull those racing flats off your skeletal remains and run with them, but they'd be sore afterwards. I one raced in a pair of 9 year-old racing flats that I dragged out after about 7-years of retirement, and I paid for it afterwards. Racing flats are the worst case scenario because they're so minimalistic to begin with -- I think you can get away with a lot more on trainers. Now all that being said, I think runners will almost always wear a pair of training shoes out due to mileage long before they get to the point of age-related issues. Cheers, Jeff

I want responsiveness and to feel the track under my foot.

Drifting slightly OT, but man I just love the feeling of putting on the spike/racers, hitting the track, and cranking up the RPM's. I need to get my hammy healthy so I can hit the track -- I miss it!

abbaroodle---- How are you feeling these days any how? Any changes?

Looking at your log, I can see why you are so frustrated, you are VERY active with all the running and training that you do. Don't rush things though. You want to make sure your recovery is complete so you can get back to your "grrrrrr release"!

Its all Trent's fault. (It seems like I can blame a lot of things on Trent - probably even being in Nashville is partly his fault, if I understand correctly. And a few other peoples. Hehe.) I didnt run a year ago, but now I am addicted and suffering from withdrawal. Actually, I never considered myself active - I thought of myself as busy. I am bad at sitting still, and love trying new things. And compared to folks I know, I barely ran. But then again, it seems like you can no longer run a marathon and be cool - now you have to do a triathalon, and at least a half-iron man at that. So I guess us Americans and make everything excessively large. Travel: Again, I dont consider myself a frequent traveler, but I have been lucky to go some amazing places! (Did you notice the banana tree in my avatar? From Boca Manu, Peru, in the Amazon basin. ) My parents figured out a while ago that if they went places we wanted to go and they paid, we went. I am such a sucker - it works every time! But then again, I'm not complaining or turning them down! (This time, I planned to go to Switzerland and the next thing I knew my parents and sister were also going. Which is really cool, but kind of weird!) Man I can't wait to get away from town and spend the next week sitting and not having to move much!

Blaming Trent is always a good option. I approve.

Trent also gets a lot of credit for things too....like my running and being in Nashville and all that kind of fun. You know, it might actually my brother and his fiancee's fault that I run - now that I think about it, I started because they were going to come down and do the CMM-Half and said they would do it with me. Trent, however, e-mails me back - my brother and his fiance seems to think that there is no internet in Switzerland! (He works at a university and does computer-related stuff, so I doubt this is the case. )