How many miles do you like to have on our shoes before you will run a  marathon in them? I am running the Shamrock marathon on March 17. I am trying to decide between two pairs of shoes - both are Saucony Omni, but one is the 10 and one is the 11. The 10's have about 420 miles on them. The 11's are in the mail and have not yet arrived. I figure that I could easily put about 20 taper miles on them between now and the 17th. I have been wearing Saucony Omni's for three years now- the 8, 9, and 10. So I am pretty confident about the 11.

What say you, oh gurus of the running internet community? Which shoes should I wear?

I am no guru, but the shoes I bought to run my first marathon stayed at home on race day, and instead I wore the ones I trained in.  Just a gut feeling on my part, or perhaps a bit of superstition.

Incidentally, the shoes I did not wear, I wore during my second marathon, but I also trained in them leading up to it so there was a comfort level there.

If it were me, in your situation, 420 miles would be too much for race day. 20 miles done in the new shoes and they'd be good to go for me. I've done that often in the past (run in new shews with just one or two training runs on them). I won't wear shoes for a marathon which have more than 200 miles. But that's just me and my gut feeling. I have nothing to explain why my way is the right way. It just is.

I prefer to have 30 to 50 miles on my marathon shoes. I'll normally do my last long run in them. There is no way I'd do a marathon in shoes with 420 miles. I don't retire shoes until 500+ miles but I normally don't do double digit runs in shoes over 400 miles, just short easy recovery runs.

I have done three trail 50K's in fresh from the box (0 miles) shoes with no problems. However, I was doing the 50K's as training runs for a 50M.

I've done marathons with shoes that had 4.5 miles in them, but they were trusty Elixirs.  I usually retire shoes at 400-450 so for me, 420 is too much.

I would use the new ones, as long as you do some runs in them and the shoes feel good.

If you've used the model shoes before, I think 20 miles is plenty.  I've done a HM in a pair with zero miles on them and that's my current PR race.  I agree that shoe technology is such that shoes don't really need any breaking in period.  I'd only want to run in a new-to-me model before the race just to be sure they fit and don't hurt.

72

I never thought of it that way before, but you are totally right!

Thanks everyone. I think I will go with the new shoes, assuming that they arrive on time.

I wear them enough that I'm sure there are no irregularities that might rub and I've had time to adjust the tension on the lacing to be sure it's comfortable.

That's me.

I don't find that my shoes need to be broken in, per se, but I always need a few runs to make sure my laces are in a good spot.  I find for the first run in a new pair, it's not uncommon for me to have to stop and adjust the laces during the run because they are too loose or too tight in spots on my foot.  After a couple of runs, they kind of fall into a sweet spot where I don't have to mess with them for the rest of the life of the shoes.