Marathon Me

Hey Frank, I’ve got several questions for you. With all the marathons you run, you must go through shoes like crazy! How often do you replace your shoes? How much do you typically spend on a pair of shoes, and anything else I should know?

-Raul M from Portland

Hi Raul,

Great to hear from you and those are some good questions. First let’s talk about replacing your shoes. The rule of them is somewhere between 300-400 miles for road shoes and probably an extra 100-150 for trail shoes.

One of the best things that I feel you can do to both make your shoes last longer and to avoid injuries is to rotate between (at least) two pairs of shoes each time you go running. The key point here is to get two different model shoes. This will allow your shoes to dry out between sessions, thus extending their life. But the major benefit is that by running in two different pairs of shoes you will be stressing your feet, ankles, legs, joints, muscles, etc in a slightly different way.

Think of what would happen to your car tires if you only ever turned right. They would wear/break down in that direction. If you only run in the same pair and type of shoes you will open yourself up to minor repetitive stress injuries like shin splits and potentially stress fractures. That being said, just running in two different pairs of shoes won’t keep you 100% injury free, but it will be a big help.

Now as to cost for shoes, this is where I disagree with a lot of experts. I don’t think you need $100-$120 pairs of shoes. I typically stay in the $30-$60 range and can find a nice selection of shoes to choose from. I typically shop at discount stores or sporting good stores like Kohl’s or Academy. Here you can usually find last year’s models going for significantly cheaper than what they cost brand new and they are still in fact brand new.

I do choose to support specialty running stores but not normally with shoe purchases. The markup is too high for me and I am cheap bastard. I do buy clothing and GUs and other gear at those places. But I can get 3 pairs of shoes for the price of one at RunnersMegaStore.

Also, and this is another big one for injury prevention and shoe life: never wear your running shoes as daily wear shoes while you are still running in them. You will be introducing different wear patterns and wasting valuable miles on them and shortening their life span. Once you have put in your 300-400 miles, then throw them in the washer to destinkify them, then rotate them into your walking shoe arsenal.

I also like to have a pair that I only run marathons in. This way I know how they hold up during long races and I have to worry less about blisters or hot spots. I will typically run 15-20 marathons in a pair of shoes before it gets rotated into the walking pile.

Final advice is to find a couple pairs that work for you and hit the road.

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