Tired Shoes

On the eve of my ninth half marathon (remember that time I said I wasn't that into the half marathon thing? I changed my mind about that in a hurry), let's talk shoes.

I've been very fond of these shoes, but it's time to meet
their replacement. Today at the Indy Mini expo, I hope.

Shoes are tricky, because they're easily the most expensive and the most complicated part of any runner's gear--they have so many kinds of materials in their construction, after all--yet their useful life as running shoes is pretty short (between 500-1000 miles, although most experts will caution that you start playing with fire if you push it to the higher end of the range). I can generally tell when my shoes need replacing by how my feet and ankles feel--when they start getting weird pains, I change out my shoes, which for me is usually around 700 miles.

But what to do with them? The landfill is a terrible option, but thrift stores won't always take slightly-broken shoes with open arms, either. Planet Aid will send them to developing countries, Nike will upcycle them into tracks and other cool things, and some gardening types (hey, that's me!) will use them as planters for a couple seasons. I've also occasionally unloaded them onto friends who don't mind free, slightly-used shoes, especially when Mizuno goes a bit crazy and makes my preferred shoe model in pink, as they do from time to time. Ugh, no way will I downgrade those to my everyday shoes. It's bad enough having to wear pink while running.

As with pretty much everything, shoe recycling/reusing takes a bit of thought and maybe some time to research good options, but there's almost certainly something that can be done with your old shoes besides tossing them.