Running shoes, and why we should never talk about them

A big hole, and no left heel.

I need new running shoes. I've needed them for several months now, and I'm not entirely sure - especially with my impending marathon only four weeks away - why I didn't sort this out sooner. My current runners have holes in. Not small tears in the top mesh which allow my toes to wave fondly at me, but actual, large, gaping holes in the side where the seams have come undone, through which part of my foot threatens to fall out when I do a groin stretch; and the soles are frighteningly worn down on the outside of the heel. They would make a physio shudder with horror to see them. 

I should explain at this point that my skin is so sensitive that I develop blisters on my palms after one circuits session using scratchy-handled weights. My feet do not take kindly to pounding the roads for hour after hour in unfamiliar material. It took me four years to find MY shoe; the one that fits my foot without giving me blisters or black toenails or muscular injuries or ligament damage or those mysterious and unsightly hard patches of skin on the soles of the feet. These four years have been fraught with frustration with first identifying, and then not falling for, the mind-games and scare-tactics of physios who just happen to make a significant portion of their income from selling orthotics and pressing said orthotics onto those who don't need them, or other physios who just happen to have a lot of in-clinic advertising for - and, one strongly suspects, commission from - a particular brand of shoe, or salespeople in specialist shops who convince me that my feet are a size smaller than they really are, and that they'll fit just nicely into The Latest Shoe From The Most Lucrative Capitalist Fashion Sports Company We Happen To Be In Bed With. I've spent a lot of money, time, stress, and RICE on this journey. I've HAD to run to negate the stress of buying stuff to run in.

I found my running shoes in a specialist shop in Carrick-on-Suir - Outfield Sports - the owner and his gait-analysis machine spent a long time with me and my feet until we found the perfect shoe for me, all the while unintentionally reassuring me with his kind and uncommercial attitude that he genuinely wanted to help my running and not merely his accounts. I left with the Nike LunarEclipse, grey and yellow. I never had any problem with them. I don't believe for a second that my IT band issues were related to my shoes; these were caused by over-training and over-racing. I know the right shoe when I've run in it long enough. This is the shoe for me, for the rest of my life. In addition, I hate shopping, and shops, and shopping-related trips and shopping-related decisions and shopping-related expenditure. I've done my time and research. I don't need to think about shoe shopping ever again; I simply need to find the right item online and click a button, all without needing to put a pair of trousers on to leave the house. The internet is a pants-less paradise.

Imagine my frustration, then, when I come to reorder an identical pair of runners, and I find that Nike - and therefore every sports shop and website - has decided, presumably on somebody's whim, to no longer stock this exact shoe, because they were several seasons ago. I have a problem with this for several reasons.

Firstly, it makes me highly doubtful that the Nike shoe team actually know what they are doing. Are they so insecure about the quality of their produce that they are unwilling to sell the same shoe for longer than the length of time it takes to train for a marathon? 

Secondly, does Nike truly believe that their customers - who, let's not forget, are RUNNERS and not MODELS - are more interested in the style of their footwear than whatever technology and design went into the creation of the shoe? (And of course we must not overlook the extraordinary prices this technology provokes). That the unsightly atrocity of last season's footwear must be whisked off the shelf before someone jumps onto a chair screaming, "Oh, the awful yellow old-fashioned thing! Get it away from me!"? No. We are runners. We take our pants off in front of our friends to wee in fields, and discuss bowel movements at length over post-run pints, and double-dip, hairs and all, into a communal tub of Vaseline. We have no shame. 

Thirdly, the Nike LunarEclipse series appears to range from anywhere including but not limited to the following: "LunarEclipse shield+", "LunarEclipse +2", "LunarEclipse +3", "LunarEclipse +4". I don't know which mine is because it doesn't specify anywhere inside the sweaty stench of my shoe. How do I know that the latest (read: most expensive) in the series is, in fact, the same shoe as MY Nike LunarEclipse, but merely in a different colour? I don't have enough knowledge on this matter to believe that, and the stakes are too high if I get it wrong. 

I know almost nothing about running shoes, despite my extensive research, and am highly suspicious of people who try to sell me Stuff. I've been ripped off by shoe salespeople and physiotherapists more often than I would like to admit. This is why my new pair must be identical to my old pair, including the colour; not for reasons of aesthetics, but for personal reassurance and peace of mind. 

I have, of course, read Christopher McDougall's Born to Run, and flirted - only theoretically - with the temptation of joining the barefoot movement (I remember reading the book and shouting aloud, "YEAH! SO TRUE!" at regular intervals). But for me one of the perks of humankind's inexorable journey out of the darkness towards civilisation, at least in the developed world, is having ready access to sensible footwear, and not having to constantly look down at one's nakedly fragile feet to avoid stepping in bear poo and impaling yourself with those really sharp pine needles in the delicate, baby-soft skin between your toes, making you yelp with pain whilst musing on the lengths to which heroin addicts will go in order to find a useful vein. (Yes, I am aware of the Vibrams and other barefoot shoes, which would encompass all the barefootedness with the comfort of poo protection, but this would involve an extensive shopping trip and long-term monitoring and training, which is not something I am comfortable with.)

I can't help noticing, on my frequent trips around the internet, that there seems to be a great deal of discussion about running shoes. There seem to be weekly articles on "Which shoe is right for you?" or "This season's must-have shoe" or "Spring 2014 Shoe Collection". This leaves me wondering who actually reads these in hope of gaining any insight into this important subject. Because unless you're one of those people who just throw some sort of footwear on, dance out of the house and then suddenly run a marathon - we all know people like this - there's no point reading about shoes. These articles befuddle me because they seem to imply that the search for a shoe is a constant and fluid journey, and that your pedi-personalities: arch, width, length, pronation, supination - arbitrarily change with the fashion season. How can you possibly read words about a shoe and think, "That's the one for me"? Because it says the word "stability" in it, or "support", or "cushioning"? THEY ALL DO. It's like the bullshit on a wine label. Here's a tip: put the word "quite" or another vagueifyer of your choosing in front of anything you say to a crowd of wine buffs and you'll sound like you know what you're talking about. "It smells quite..." <pause dramatically to insert your nose once again into the glass> "...leathery." Yeah. So does a good shoe.

We shouldn't be talking about running shoes. Ever. It should never be a discussion. It's such a subjective and stressful thing to get right for each individual runner that we simply should not be talking about it. No one should ever offer unsolicited advice on anything, least of all on running shoes. At best it's highly unhelpful and at worst it's dangerously misleading. 

So what have I done to solve my problem? I had to rely solely on Google images to find my shoe, and I DID find them in my size on one website which I'd never heard of. I ordered them three weeks ago, and I haven't received the "your item has been dispatched" email yet - although they have quite happily taken my money - and even if they are eventually sent, they are being delivered to Ireland, where I am currently not. So, I have given up on those shoes as an option.

I have visited many shops over the last few days, including one specialist, albeit Nike-free, running shop with a very helpful and insightful man who knew that I was right-handed from looking at my knackered footwear and the way I have been dragging my left heel. None of these shops stocked my shoes, or anything close to a resemblance. Some floated the suggestion that I try something entirely different, and I cut them short. Experimenting with an alternative shoe at this stage in my training is not an option: I know all too well the implications of wearing the wrong footwear, and for me these dangers far outweigh the risks of continuing to run in an over-used but familiar shoe. 

So yesterday, this is what I decided to do: Nothing. I would continue to train in my sorry shoes, and run my race in them. And this is in alignment with the Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti's statement, which I discovered this week and decided to attempt to live by: "I don't mind what happens." (My apologies for any unintentional paraphrasing). This is otherwise known as John Lennon's "Let it be." With the exception of a poorly-run or non-existent marathon, of course. I have standards. 

However, my shoe adventures continue. Today, the day after I made a decision to not try to change events that are clearly far out of my control, my wonderful mum phoned me from a Nike shoe shop to say that she had found a pair of LunarEclipses in my size. Despite them being a different series from mine - LunarEclipse +3, and purple - I concluded that this was the best chance I had at buying a new pair of suitable runners at the right stage in my programme. So I DO now have new shoes, and am looking forward to the magical inaugural run tomorrow morning. Plus I need to run some of the shoe-related stress out of me.

Marathon programme update to come.

Purple. They're purple.