New Shoes

New shoes are traditionally and stereotypically associated with women, but men that are active have learned to covet (maybe to unhealthy levels) new shoes as well.  I have running shoes, backup running shoes, trail running shoes, hiking boots, cycling shoes, river floating shoes, basketball shoes, and yes even golf shoes.  If I have an outdoor activity I probably have a pair of shoes associated with them.  I’ve hung on to shoes way after their useful life because I had a great level of success with that pair of shoes.  Those shoes and I went through some tough times together.  We trained, bonded, and succeeded together, and after all the hard miles I will ditch them for a younger model.  It just feels wrong, but that’s what I did this past weekend.

Once a year our local running store, www.thesportyrunner.com , has their annual shoe sale.  This shoe sale brings out all the running crazies.  It’s not uncommon to see someone buying five or more pairs of shoes just for themselves.  This time I was able to get there at door opening time and secured 3 pairs of shoes for myself; one pair for road running, one pair for trail running, and the last pair for just wearing around.  I was able to purchase all three for the price of one.  Scott joined me for this sale and arrived about 10 minutes late and was still able to secure two pairs of shoes.

New Shoes

It felt wrong throwing those three pairs of worn out running shoes in the trash, but it feels great slipping on these new ones.  Oh, and by the way, shop local whenever you can.  Most of the races you run have sponsors and more often than not those sponsors are your local running store, not your local big box store.