When purchasing your first running shoes or even your 100th pair, you should take great care in selecting the best ones for your feet.
Here are some tips on buying:
1. Ask your friends where are the best running stores in your area.
2. Go to the store after being up on your feet for 6 hours or more, so you should go in the afternoon or early evening.
3. Talk to the sales clerk and say that you are training for a marathon, he or she will usually direct you to what they think is the best running shoes in the store.
4. Try out no less than 10 pairs of shoes, walk in them, jog outside the store, jump up and down with them. Get a feel of what you think is comfortable. Don’t get sucked in by the sales clerk hype, if the sales clerk is a runner, and has done a marathon, then he or she should know something about selecting the right shoes for you. Please do not believe everything that he or she have to say. Listen to your feet.
5. In the beginning, you may end up buying 5 pairs of shoes, so expect to spend about $300. I have been doing this for a long time now, and I usually buy 3 pairs every December in Honolulu. So I end up paying over $200 every time. But don’t forget these shoes are to last you for 365 days. So think of it as a great investment.
Now if you end up buying 5 pairs of shoes, be prepared to probably use only three for the rest of the year. You will notice, actually your feet and body will notice, after a few months that:
- some shoes hurt your knees when running,
- some shoes are giving you blisters,
- some shoes are too tight in the front toes area, so you need a bigger toe box
- some shoes just lost their cushion after 1 month,
Don’t think of this as a waste of your money, think of it as a learning experience about how your body works. Remember this is about taking care your health and enjoying a wonderful life from here on. In a few years time you will learn what shoes are just right for your body.
Now I spend less than thirty minutes in the running store when selecting my shoes. I know what brand works for me. I know in a matter of few seconds what shoes are perfect for:
- Training For a Marathon
- Running a Marathon
I buy 2 pairs for training for a marathon, and I buy 1 pair for racing in a marathon. I alternate shoes every day that I am running so that the shoes will retain their flexibility and cushion. If you use one pair of running shoes for the whole year, you will certainly have problems.
What if that pair starts hurting your knees? What if that pair starts giving you feet problems? What do you do?
Plan to spend an average of about $90 for a good pair of running shoes. It isn’t my plan to spend this amount, it is just that the best shoes for my feet cost this amount. The price no longer bothers me because the reward of running every day for one year and training, running, and finishing a marathon outweighs the price a thousand times.
Money Saving Tip: To save you money, try out the shoes you want to buy at your local running store, remember the maker, model, size and color. Next, go shopping online to find and buy the best deals for these shoes. Enjoy your shopping.
Aloha.
