Shoes, shoes and more shoes…

Recently I’ve been working out what to do about my running footwear. I began running wearing the shoes everyone online seemed to recommend – the Nike Pegasus. They’re comfortable, and I figured that if everyone is wearing them, I should. But it turns out that padded shoes like those from Nike are not the end of the story.

My husband also ran in Pegasus shoes, and in fact, we did our very first half marathon together wearing these shoes. But we both had all sorts of foot and other injuries. Could it be the shoes causing the problems?

My husband had significant issues with his cuboid bone, and it was only with an ongoing extensive massage that he resolved this. We both had lots of Achilles tendon issues too. These were “fixed” by lots of careful heel raises. I’ll post about our injuries in another post, that’s not the point of this article.

So we began a look into whether shoes could cause and/or help to reduce our injuries. Both our first port of call was the inexpensive zero-rise shoes from Altra. We both moved into Rivera 2 shoes and they were great. Not a vast change from our Nike shoes because they’re still padded, but none-the-less they were zero rise and we read that this was the best way to protect your Achilles tendons and reduce the risks of other injuries. I’d say the experiment worked.

Are zero-rise running shoes a good thing?

Our second half-marathon was done in these Altra shoes, and it went well. Certainly, we had fewer injuries and my husband got an amazing time, so something worked! But it actually didn’t take long for the soles of these shoes to begin to wear down. No worse than our old Nike running shoes, but no better either. One good thing to say is that the wear pattern looked a lot better – all toe and heel and very even between the left and right shoe.

I was, and am, completely convinced that zero-rise shoes play a great part in us getting over our injuries. But should we continue to buy more and more Altra shoes or was there something even better out there? The solution soon presented itself…

Is barefoot running the solution to running problems?

I kept reading and researching. Having seen some super minimalist runners and completely barefoot runners, I was intrigued – was this the way to go? These runners seemed to have great camaraderie, they were fist bumping and chatting with each other. Did they know something I didn’t know about shoes and running? Probably, because I know almost nothing!

So, we’ve taken a leap of faith and bought some minimalist shoes from Xero. The “Zelen” were on special offer and we needed new shoes anyway since our other ones were quickly wearing out through all our off-road training. It’s early days and these new shoes (just a thin layer of rubber under your feet) are definitely unlike anything we’ve ever tried before.

What is it like running in Xero shoes as a newbie?

On roads, I feel like we both make a lot more noise. Click click click go our feet. We’ve made a big conscious effort to increase our cadence to much higher rates so that we always land on our toes. More on that in another post too! It feels like a big change, but it’s not uncomfortable. My husband went straight for taking out the thin insoles of his shoes. He said, “if we’re gonna do it then let’s really do it”, but I’ve kept my insoles in the Xero shoes. You definitely feel the ground under your feet!

On our usual trails, you can feel all the stones under your feet, but it’s not uncomfortable. My biggest feeling is that my calf muscles get very tired very quickly. But no injuries so far and I know it’s for the best in the long run (no pun intended!).

In conclusion – for now, we’re both going to keep working on running in minimal shoes. Probably not actually running barefoot though it’s tempting! I’m really not sure which shoes we’ll wear for our next half-marathon in a few months time, but watch this space…