Running in the same shoes since your last Comrades Marathon? It’s not surprise they are starting to give you trouble. There is no doubting running shoes have a life span; over stepping this can lead to injuries. On this episode of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, Lindsey tells you more.

Transcript

Welcome onto this edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, I’m Brad Brown and I think this is, no, it’s not a first, but it’s been a long time since we’ve done this where we’re actually sitting in the same room recording these podcasts. Lindsey welcome.

Lindsey Parry: Ja, it’s been about four years actually since we were last together on the Comrades road shows, which is ironically exactly why I’m in Cape Town. Good to be sitting next to Brad again and good to be doing another podcast.

BB: Also, you might hear some clinging and clanging in the background, but we’re actually recording this on our dining room table as we speak and my wife is busy cooking dinner, so if you hear some sizzling sounds in the back, it’s my hot wife, she’s doing her thing.

All right, question in Lindsey, this is from Chris Pugh. Chris ran his first Comrades Marathon last year, he’s doing Ironman this year too. He was wondering about shoes and he said: if I buy new shoes now, will they last me until Comrades?

How to know when you need new shoes

He said he’s experiencing issues with my current shoes and need to buy soon, but I really don’t want to buy again before race day. I then messaged him and I said listen, how many K’s have you got on the shoes and he’s told me he’s been running in these since before Comrades last year. So he’s done four ultra-marathons, including Comrades and three marathons in these pair of shoes. I told him he’s due for a new pair, but he probably won’t need another one before Comrades.

LP: No, look, just taking that history into account, if you’ve run in a pair of shoes for that long, then no, you almost certainly won’t need a pair of new shoes before Comrades. However, just looking at what shoes are made from and particularly how shoes are made nowadays, you shouldn’t really be pushing a pair of shoes much past 800km.

I know there are quite a few people that still work on 1 000-1 200, but generally we start running into trouble. Of course, you’ve got a track record now, you know what has worked for you, you know how long a pair of shoes can typically last you. So if you stick with the same brand and the same model of shoe, then you should get a similar lifespan out of it.

Why your old shoes are back for you

I can’t imagine after all that amount of time that there can be anything left in those shoes and also, because shoes effectively are chemical in nature. The cushioning properties that you’re feeling, those are because of the chemical properties of the shoes, those degrade over time anyway. So being almost a year old, I kind of think you should go and get yourself a pair of shoes right now.

BB: You are saying too that he’s struggling, his calves are sore and he’s battling and chances are it’s the shoes that are causing it.

LP: Absolutely. So what will happen, as the cushioning goes out of your shoes, your body will need to rely on its natural shock absorption more and more and more. When the training goes up and as you’re experiencing now, then you will get tightness in the calves and in particular in the soleus and if left unchecked, it’s probably going to turn into an Achilles injury or a soleus injury.

BB: Chris, there you go, go and get yourself a new pair of shoes mate, stop being so cheap. If you want to find out more about Coach Parry and the online community that we’re building, all you need to do is head over to coachparry.com and click on the join now button.

We’re also running an awesome competition where you can win a lifetime membership to the Ask Coach Parry online community, all you need to do is head over to askcoachparry.com/win, go check it out there and you can win with us here on the Ask Coach Parry podcast. Until next time, from the two of us, it’s cheers.