PAIN-PAIN & MORE PAIN (Read 960 times)

Wuss. Why I remember back in the day, we used to run 3,000 miles on a pair of shoes. If we were lucky enough to have them. Sometimes, we just wore rocks on our feet. And we liked it, I tell you. We liked it.

Why wear shoes? And when your feet wear out, after about 11 000 miles, hack em off and replace them with rocks.

I'm curious. Why do shoes wear out faster if you run in wet conditions? ... I think shoe mileage is one of those areas where there will be a big difference from runner to runner.

I completely agree that there will be a big difference from runner to runner.. I didn't mean to imply that everyone should throw their shoes out at 200 miles.. just that they shouldn't feel guilty/wasteful if they stop using them earlier than expected because they don't feel good anymore. Why would wet conditions matter? I'm not a shoe engineer, but I can take a non-scientific guess (based mostly on information I've gained from a couple different shoe-clinics... like I said, not very scientific). Shoes are made mostly of light-weight plastic/synthetic materials. From what I've heard, these plastics do break down pretty rapidly (which is why you can't buy 40 pairs of your favorite running shoe to use for the next 20 years... they won't last, even straight out of the box) and I can only imagine that water would accelerate this process (as it does with many other materials). Also, a lot of the shoe is held together with glue (not stitching), and I suspect these glues can loosen up a bit too with exposure to water. And I think it's pretty clear that when the plastic/glue in your shoes is breaking down, the support from the shoe is going to weaken. For comparison, I think most quality hiking boots are made of more durable (but heavier and less breathable?) plastics and rubber and are more likely to be made of leather (or gortex, better yet) and have more stitching (less glue). So they tend to last longer, I think? (However, I don't think I'd like to run 10 miles in my boots).

Rather than high-jack Teek's thread even further with my babbles and burbles, I started a new thread in light of Mikey's comments above, and my own recent experience: http://runningahead.com/frm_topic.aspx?id=e23277a31caa4ad5a81d49d8845b1f95

Hey All, Thanks for the feedback on my injury. I took about three weeks off until the pain subsided. I then ran for two weeks cutting my mileage back to 8 mile and then 5 miles per week. Although the pain subsided I was not without pain so I went to see my doc for a set of x-rays. They came back negative. After another 10 days of continually increasing pain I had a MRI. It came back yesterday with positive results. I have a fracture of my calcaneus. I have not seen an orthopedic doc yet. I will be seeing him later today or tomorrow at the latest. Has anyone suffered this injury in the past? What type of recovery time should I expect? Are they going to put me in a cast or a boot for a few weeks? Any information anyone can provide is really appreciated. I guess my 1000 mile year may be starting out slow.