Thursday, August 4, 2011

Running Shoes

Currently I am reading this book

picture courtesy of http://www.barefootted.com/born2run.jpg


For those of you who have not read the book it is one man's story of how he began running again after numerous injuries.  It chronicles the story of the Tarahumara, a tribe located in Mexico, as well as other ultrarunners.  I am currently at the part that is discussing the types of shoes these people wear and how they are still able to run LONG distances in sandals.  We're talking 40+ miles in SANDALS!  Now to me this seems crazy though Sam read this book last fall and due to it was given toe shoes for his birthday this past January.

photo courtesy of http://www.geraldinecampbell.com/09/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Five-Fingers.jpg

The thinking behind these shoes is that before about the 70's humans were running in simple shoes without balance control, cushioning and all those other things we pay mucho bucks to have.  The book states the statistics, but I am too lazy to look them up, on how the number of running related injuries has drastically increased since people have started to use 'doctored' shoes.  It really is astonishing to look at and so far I highly recommend this book if you are a runner.

But it got me thinking....

Once I began training for my first half marathon I went to a running store that specialized in finding a shoe for my gait/protonation to help balance my step.  Since this time I have gone through a countless number of ASICS Nimbus shoes only to have injured my groin, have knee pain and possibly even have had a stress fracture in my fibula ( I do not know because I rarely go to the doctor when I should and by the time I got an x-ray there was no fracture, though still pain).  Could these ailments be partially caused by the shoes I wear?  Part of me wants to try them but they are $60 and what if they don't work out?  Then all that money is wasted, but my ASICS are well over $100, so would it be worth it to try them out?  My boyfriend RAVES about these and loves them, though he was in a lot of pain after the first few runs in them.  By pain I mean that his calves were not used to running 'barefoot' (more or less) and so they had to adjust to his normal running style.

What do you think about these running shoes?  Should I give them a try?  What shoes do you run in?