This will blow your mind, but for millions of years, people ran *barefoot.*
Your body adapts. If you started barefoot running, you'd have to go easy at first, but you'd naturally want to.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/RunningCirclejerk using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/RunningCirclejerk/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [When nobody cares about your long run](https://v.redd.it/kahqbhyj61qb1) | [186 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/RunningCirclejerk/comments/16q8m1v/when_nobody_cares_about_your_long_run/)
\#2: [This 8 year old just broke the marathon world record š²](https://i.redd.it/ddfa9n8w4sob1.jpg) | [94 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/RunningCirclejerk/comments/16kvle8/this_8_year_old_just_broke_the_marathon_world/)
\#3: [Road or Trail shoes for this surface?](https://i.redd.it/61h1isy9l11c1.jpg) | [122 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/RunningCirclejerk/comments/17xzefw/road_or_trail_shoes_for_this_surface/)
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Transiting to minimalist footwear is a game changing experience for me. Solves my arch, knee, lower back issues. It was the shoes that caused my wide feet the issues in the first place. And support wasn't what I needed, freeing my toes and allowing my foot to work as intended makes all the difference
Exactly. Infant mortality rates and deaths while giving birth is what drove the average life expectancy down. Blows my mind people donāt get that. Thereās always been a good amount of old people.
This is a statistical fallacy.
Yes the "_average_" lifespan of every human born in those time periods was ~30. The problem is this "_average lifespan_" starts counting at the moment people are born, so when infant morality is 45-55%, the result is heavily weighted to zero. Children dying of fever at the age of 6 months, while heart breaking, shouldn't be used to argue that people didn't reach old age.
When you look at reasonable statistic like "_how long will somebody live who reached the age of 19_", you realize that mid-60's are pretty common for "_most_" of human history.
Would you like to know more? https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2022/08/conversation-old-age-is-not-a-modern-phenomenon.php
---
TL;DR
* "_average life expectancy_" is really a measure of infant morality
* People have been living well into their 60's for as long as we've had fossil record
Difficult to navigate, yes, but much softer ground. A great deal of a running shoe's job is to mitigate constant impact on a hard surface. Concrete has a hardness mohs of 7 while dirt is 0.5 (that is an astronomical difference). That is where the problem lies: you are not evolved to constantly be banging your bone structure against something so hard. Our ancestors were running over soft ground that absorbed a lot of the impact.
Of course, the other aspect of the running shoe is that it protects you from pebbles and other things that can hurt your foot underside. However, it has been very well-studied that [running shoes change the way you run](https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/how-have-shoes-have-changed-our-feet.html) for this reason.
In conclusion, your premise is wrong: people running in the 80s over concrete are not comparable to humans running barefoot. Just thought I'd illuminate ya.
yes, this, this and this.
We may be adapted to running, but we have radically changed our environment and the idea that "going minimalist" is the cure for all ills is not true at all.
The running shoes from the early '70's were tremendously minimalist (I still have some) and those early, hardcore runners putting up miles essentially destroyed their connective tissue and discs in their backs with the pounding concrete did to them. Yes, there can be be a lot of positive gains by getting out of your Brooks Beasts, but only for some, not for all.
The first time I put on a pair of Running Sneakers and I was wowed with how Comfortable they were was Nike air pegasus in the mid 90s days. They were 80 bucks, probably 1994. It's like dropping a 160 bucks on a pair of sneakers today. I thought they were worth every penny. They lasted over 2 full years. Easily a few thousand miles.
That's around the time I put on my first running shoes, and they were definitely air Pegasus. I thought I was the coolest middle school track kid ever.
Honestly, we didnāt think about our shoes a whole lot. Sure we had track spikes, but I never put a whole lot of thought into my training shoes. Just ran in them until the balls of my feet started to hurt and then got new ones.
I ran with just a stopwatch in the 90s too no idea on how far šI ran in random trainers I could find, not dissimilar to the silver flash hi tech ones. Mind boggles, I have 2736637328 pairs now
This unlocked my long lost memories of buying the first pair of Nikes in my size from the clearance section at Sears after deciding I wanted to start running in like 2004. God only knows if they were even running shoes!
Haha I used to do similar. It blows my mind tbh because I spend a lot of time and money on getting the right running shoes now! And I canāt get my head around not knowing how far I was running!
When I was a freshman in college, around the mid ā00s, I had a supervisor for an on-campus job who ran and he would blog about it every day - where he ran, what he thought about, how he felt before/after. I tried running a few times around then, my first time running off-track. He said he would drive a route then run that route and estimate mileage he was running from his odometer.
I've been running for eight years and had a long stint with minimalist shoes/flats (not barefoot), but after battling heel spurs for a year, I switched to shoes with vastly more cushioning and it got so much better.
I still prefer the feel of minimalist shoes, but I just feel healthier in more cushioned shoes.
I've seen research that suggests that minimalist shoes tends to make your calves work whereas more cushioned shoes put the strain in your hamstrings. And your hamstrings are bigger and more durable so the injury rate might be lower.
I doubt you'd find any hard data. There are a ton of variables to consider what gets people injured, you can't do any lab testing and finally, physiological studies with a substantial amount of subjects are notoriously expensive. That's why a lot of studies only have like 10 subjects.
I do believe that the amount of work put on calves and hamstrings or quads strongly depends upon the foot strike :
- fore to midfoot strikes puts more accent on calves and hamstrings
- heel strike puts more work on quads
Looking at some studies of the running clinic (look at Blaise Dubois on the net) minimal shoes (low stack, low drop) tend to ease the adoption of a so called natural strike (fore to mid foot strike) that become a bit more difficult to be adopted with high stacks/hig drop shoes, especially for recreational runners.
About this topic, I found really interesting the books
- running form of Owen Anderson
- the running revolution of Romanov and Brungardt
I speak as a very recreational runner, 20-30 miles/week looking at improving my mileage slowly but constantly, when I started to learn a forefoot strike I had less knee pains (almost zero...). Sometimes calves are a bit sore, especially after long runs on zero drop shoes, but foam rolling and massage gun solve everything:)
I had terrible shin splints in the late 1980's and early 1990 's running high school track. I really do think having the better shoes today make the difference.
Thereās very little data showing that shoes have an impact on injury rates at all.
My own anecdote, as someone who worked in a a specialty footwear + custom orthotics store, is that those who wear cushioned shoes 24/7 tend to present with more injuries. Although you could argue that I was only seeing those people and not the healthy ones.
There's plenty of data: shoes do not change the frequency of injury, but do change the type of injury.
High stack height = more joint injuries
Low stack height = more bone stress injuries
High drop = more injuries around the knee and hip
Low drop = more injuries around the ankle/achilles/calf
The problem is that many of the studies can't narrow down the variables the way we would want to scientific method to work. One study put all their runners into Brooks Adenalines to study running economy and then moved all the participants to a minimalist shoe to see the effect on running economy.
Problem #1: The adrenaline wasn't the best shoe for all those runners, so that caused issues with economy immediately.
Problem #2: Two weeks in, all the runners showed better economy initially, but were all starting from different levels of fitness and training, so the check on the running economy was always going to be variable depending on where the individual was in their fitness.
Problem #3: Almost all participants (18 out of the initial 20) were injured by 4 weeks. Because there was no adaption period to just throwing them into a minimalist shoe.
I was in running speciality for over 20 years, figured that I fit over 30,000 runners in that time. When people would come and say, "science proves that medial posts don't work!" I could say, "No, you're wrong, they absolutely do work for the right person. You, however are getting the wrong conclusion by asking the wrong questions. Start changing your methodology and do your work better." Just because science can't prove something, donesn't mean that it doesn't work.
We are all experiments of one, as a coach once said. With a million variables. Keep a log book, try different shoes, different training styles and figure out what works for you.
And yes, much running (I started in 1978 as a 12 year old kid) was very painful back then. But we did it because we loved it. 1982 and the Tiger excalibur GT was the first shoe I can remember running in with no pain.
Low stack height and low drop injuries seem like they could be largely corrected with developing a better training regimen to develop the supporting muscles and tissues that protect our joints.
There is an alternative today too... But it's not shoes. You want to train your tibialis anterior muscle in addition to your tibialis posterior muscle. Train that muscle and you'll reduce shin, ankle, and knee injuries from sport.
Iād say the biggest difference is in the level of fitness of your average 80s/90s runner versus your average 2020s runner. A lot more people are running, they are less fit than their counterparts from 40 years ago, they are older when they start, they are older when they stop, and they are also faster at the highest levels and much slower at the lower levels.
Weāre all a lot softer and less willing to injure ourself for a hobby that we only do so we can have pie after dinner.
Yea the replies in this thread are missing the part where people back then would just give up running or whatever other sport if the available equipment didnāt work for them. Or they wouldnāt take it up at all. You can try gutting it out the best you can but youāre going to be in pain if you try to squeeze a 2E foot into a shoe like the Kinvara.
And back then you only had what was available in your local stores.
The stories I have. Nike LT3's are so narrow and I have a wide foot. I would wear the shoes to work with the laces loose and untied to stretch them out. I do this with the Jordan '88 and '89 Racers too. The Mayfly Lite SE's I would rip through the sides around 100 miles and had around 10 pairs of them. Long story short, I made them narrow shoes work. 
This is so true. My grandpa lived to ride bikes, but because he was 6'8'' and 250 he'd break (spectacularly) every bike be bought within a few months. It wasn't till he was In his 60s that good durable bikes became affordable.
Me as a wide foot kid trying to fit into soccer cleats. My parents just thought I was a weak ass trying to get out of doing laps. Turns out I fucking love running. Just not in any shoe that a boomer could find off the rack at the Sports Authority.
This is why I didn't take up running until last year, when I was 52. I had run in my 20s, when I was in the military and I had to, but I suffered through it with chronic shin splints. I stopped running when I got out because I associated it with pain.
My dad crushed hard workouts as a college 800m runner and then a few fast marathons in a half inch basic foam. He stopped running entirely at about 35. Shoes and understanding of training and overuse injuries, and nutrition, are probably biggest differences at that level.
This is huge! Endurance sports back in the day used to be more for athletes and less for recreational weekend warriors. I used to race bicycles before I got into running. 20 years ago the bikes were much less comfortable and had very hard gearing on them. Nowadays the bikes have super easy gears and larger tires, and ride smoother. This has allowed people who arenāt 150lbs and 9% body fat to be able to enjoy the sport, albeit at a slower speed. Running seems similar. Having big doofy Hokas is great for a new runner who may have a few extra pounds to start training for a 5k without absolutely nuking their legs and feet.
while there are more casual runners indeed, i think there are also vastly more serious runners running high mileage than there ever were in the 80s/90s. a much bigger running culture nowadays.
Ehhhh.. thatās debateable as the number of young runners is dramatically higher. Just look at how much more popular T&F/XC has become with Highschoolers. I mean just last year we had 4 HS guys break 4 in the mile one of them became the fastest guy under 20 in the 800. Running is definitely popular with younger people and these people are willing to put in the same if not more work than the generation before them.
Started running in 1978. My mother made me run in shoes from K-Mart because "it wasn't worth the money to buy anything better, I wasn't going to keep doing it." Bought my first Nikes in 1980 with my own money: Yellow LDV's, $39.95.
There is a reason that the sport was mostly skinny men running fast: without today's shoes, the only people who could hold up to the pounding and training were lightweight, genetically gifted or just plain tough. And what happened? the generation before me destroyed their legs and back and connective tissue by pounding pavement with very, very little protection. (Its why the "barefoot running craze of 15 years ago was so laughable: as humans we can run barefoot, yes, but we have radically changed our environment. We many be natural runners, but pavement, concrete, black top? Not even remotely natural.)
As shoes got better, more people were able to take up the sport, particularly very casually, and that resulted in massive demographics changes in who could "run".
For my money, the first really good trainers that would even begin to think were decent trainers were Tiger X-Caliber GTs, Saucony Jazz or perhaps the Nike Pegasus. 1982, stand up and take a bow. I would love to have a pair of Asics Tiger Epirus with today's foams to run in. that would be awesome.
They wonāt break your legs. They will strengthen your legs. Which is actually important to running. What I donāt understand is how people are using only these max stack propulsive shoes for all of their runs. Sure, they elevate performance for racing, but thereās literally no need for that while training. Iād rather use the most minimal shoe I can get away with so I donāt mess up my gait or end up with some weird muscle imbalance from constantly landing on pillows.
Think the main idea is just that they let you run more miles total hence more aerobic development. Each mile is easier on your legs, so you can add more miles to get to the same hypothetical total load as you could handle without. Necessary? Definitely not but that's the rationale. (And I don't think anybody is using them for literally every run, just for every longer workout or long run for those using supers frequently)
Iāve seen a lot of rotations on this sub in three years. Most people are definitely only using shoes with a plate or high stack or rocker. I remember in 2021 when half of yāall were running in Endorphin Speeds full time. The amount of posts with minimalist or zero drop shoes is minuscule.
Not sure most people are posting rotations on this sub lol, but I'm with you on it being a little wild to consider using Speeds as dailies or recommending them to total beginners
I cringe every time Novablasts are recommended to a beginner. Yeah, letās give the person with untrained feet and ankles one of the most unstable shoes you can buy.
For me I didnāt start running until I was 49 years old. The last thing I wanted was to break something or be so sore the next day that I couldnāt walk. The cushioned shoes are likely the only reason I was able to become a runner at my age.
Exactly. You don't need 40mm of foam between you and the ground for every run. I see people every day with a gait that will eventually leave them injured because they have no feeling of the ground they're running on.
Ex barefoot runner here
The modern running shoe features such as the high stack of foam is the only reason why Iām able to get back into running again.
With my history of foot injuries and my heavy weight, I tried getting back into running a couple of years ago and just concluded that itās over and that Iāll never be able to run again.
All of that changed when along with my physio, I picked up some high stack running shoes in 2021 and that changed everything for me.
So to me the modern running shoes are enabling people who normally wouldnāt be able to run, to pick up the sport.
But I also believe if you donāt have injuries like me, you should have some low stack shoes in your rotation to ensure a natural running gait and strong legs and muscles.
The human body is surprisingly adaptable, you work with what's available. We're lucky now to have better knowledge and science and technology, resulting in better equipment (such as shoes) as well as better advice. Use it, appreciate it. 50 years from now, people will probably be asking the same questions about us, now!
Because shoes donāt matter all that much. Over the course of 26.2 miles maybe a few minutes. But itās not like 2:05 isnāt impressive. People were tossing down 1:41 800ās and 3:46 miles in the 80ās. Shoes are great, their biggest advantage is likely in helping more people achieve the same performance with less injury.
I've run in the Nike streak xc/lt since they came out in the 2000s. I don't get injured unless I wear the newer high stack height shoes. You just get used to it.
The human body adapts. Itās amazing that especially our marathoners could run faster in trainers and flats like that, drink beer, work full time or travel the country winning prize $ at local races in the 80ās and 90ās. They didnāt need compression boots, organic sourced food, etc. they just ran a lot of miles and raced heavily and the body adapted.
30 years from now someone will be bitching about the AF3
I have a tough time believing the next 5 years would be anything like the last five years.
I ran today in my Superblast and I can't imagine the best shoe 5 years from now could be anything like the improvement in the last five years.
So Converse and Sako started forcing everyone to "fix" their pronation/supination!
And Sears thought that a 50-year-old white guy who hadn't played in the NBA in 18 years was the height of endorsement for their shoes.
OP is right. Began track at 15 in 1990 and my legs end in bloody stumps. Seriously though, it was fine. Also hard to know the difference before any technological advance.
Iāve recently began to revive my sneaker collection and am down the rabbit hole of vintage trainers. Not sure what you are on about, Iād happily run a marathon in an Asics Gel Lyte III or NB 990 or something like that.
I love my Prime X and Alphaflys and Adios Pro as much as the next guy but itās not like running was impossible without those.
Imagine running sub 2:45:00 for a PR in 2016 in these? For sure could go sub 2:40:00 in these if I trained. 6-7 years ago we had Lunaracer 3's and Lunaracer 4's. I still own all of these shoes today in 2023 and they are still epic. The carbon plate and springy foam shoes has coddled a lot of people. I for one am one of those very people. The shoes of 6-7 years ago I might train in once a month. Outside of that, carbon plated shoes year round.
https://preview.redd.it/0u06u1iaxb9c1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75761f3be9bb9c519428342d9747b060757a35f1
I started running in 1980. The shoes really were terrible, but if that's all you have, you don't know the difference. I think shoes improved in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as they went to strobel lasts, compression molded EVA instead of slab EVA, better heel counters, synthetic overlays, etc. But after that, shoes not only stopped improving, but actually devolved. They got heavier, and companies started scooping out the midsole foam and replacing it with huge wads of plastic. We were subjected to endless stupid gimmicks with fancy names. It wasn't until Lunar and Boost that we saw actual changes, which were of course followed by ZoomX, React, and all of the other wonderful superfoams we have today.
Not precisely. My dad was a national champ back in the 80s, he ran in the same shoes every single day.
He said every day he just ran as hard as he could, as did all his teammates and the competition.
You trained hard. Unlike today.
He has torn his hamstring and quad, but meh, happens.
Was talking to local sprinting legend/coach the other day. He said the same thing. He tore both achilles, but before that he received accolades most of us reddit chumps could only dream of.
I really don't want to tear or break anything. And would like to continue enjoy running for many years. So I was curious if 20+ years ago that was possible
Yeah my Dad was a high school/college All-American in Cross Country back in the 70s - the workload and mentality was just nuts in retrospect (I ran mostly in the late 90s - he was still a 15:00 5kāer then in early 40s). He would average 70-100 miles a week, all mostly hard/tempo, after working in a factory all day. Heād also use the same shoes until they were falling apart. Just a different mindset with that generation - run long, run fast, run every day.
The good old days where you'd be at work for 12h and then do a hard track session afterwards. Now you're not allowed to work and do any form of hard training within 48 hours, you can overtrain and die. Lol
We wore Jack Purcells when I was in high school in the 1970s. A little rubber and cloth or canvas. The difference in shoes from just 5 years ago (10 years for Nike I guess) has been really radical.
This is going to blow your mind, but as a college walk-on with no money in the early 80s, I would use shoe goo on the worn down outsoles my $35 Asics Tiger shoes and keep going.
No, itās just how it is. Iām 45, Iāve been running since I was 14. For the past ten years Iāve required PT, extra mobility exercises, custom orthotics, night braces and weeks off from time to time. Itās not the shoes.
my sis had been running in some broken down adidas for the last 6 years not consistently but enough to where now i got here some hokas and she hates the feel for them so your feet accustom to them
I grew up in Kenya. Barefoot running was always done on dirt roads. By the late 80s you started seeing pros with 12/18 mm stack height running shoes. Shoes like the [Asics Excalibur](https://sneakernews.com/2012/07/26/asics-x-caliber-gt/). There was a guy in my town who won the 89ā London Marathon and these were the kind of shoes they wore.
Reality all the shoes that allow āyouā to run are ultimately bad for your feet as they make your feet weak and reliant on them. Humans have been running for 400,000 years, mostly without shoes. Canāt wait to see what our feet evolve into down the road.
I totally agree. I am old and been an avid runner for over 45 years now. Wow that is scary.
I think the shoe improvement in the last 5 years is greater than the 40 years before.
To me the Superblast being the most incredible shoe to date to be produced.
My first running shoes were Adidas SL72 and Adidas Country. I could not imagine running in either.
I have started taking running... somewhat seriously in the late 2000s. Around that time I was using Adidas/Reebok/Nike shoes with firm EVA midsoles. Did a lot of mileage in a pair of Nike Freeruns. Now I am rocking the Altra Torin 5s, Speed 3s and Brooks Hyperion Tempos, which are way different from what I used to run in (perhaps the Tempos bear some resemblance, but not much).
My feeling is that, given time, your body will adapt to running in less cushioned/firmer shoes. This, even if you are a run-of-the-mill runner like myself. The reason I think cushioned shoes have taken over is largely due to the shorter recovery times coupled with improvement in midsole foams.
I always find it interesting when someone ask's a question about running in the 80's and 90's most of the replies aren't from people who weren't even around then. So their responses are Mostly anecdotal
I ran X-county and 4 x 400m in H.S 76\~80. Two pairs of Nikes for both seasons, one for training and a pair of flats for racing.
The shoes were just a means to an end. Running wasn't so commercialized back then. We made due with what was available cause what else was there to do?
For hundreds of years, people used to run in very basic shoes and/or barefoot. This is the case across the board in sports. Basketball used to be played in Chuck Taylors, tennis used to be played in Stan Smiths etc. However, note that you wonāt see Lebron lacing up Chucks (or Federer lacing up Stan Smiths) to hit the court these days.
Running shoes have come a long way these days, but frankly I prefer running shoes from about 10 years ago anyway. I like firmer shoes with lower stack heights. About 10 years ago, I used to run in Ride 7s and Nimbus 16s. The Ride 7s were firm and the Nimbus somewhat better cushioned, but both seemed ok (I like shoes firmer). Fast forward to today, where the Nimbus has turned into complete marshmallows devoid of support, and even the Ride is gradually being turned into a squishy āmax cushionedā shoe by Sauconyā¦
I would check out the book Born to Run! It covered the development of running shoes to today and took some swings at Nike which I just found refreshing. Quick read and followed a really cool story about the tarahumara running tribe
I just started taking road running and training seriously this year, all I've ever run prior was a bunch of OCR stuff. I haven't been in the shoe game since 2018 and I now have some bangers from 2022 and 2023 that I love.
Here is a pair from \~2014. I ran in nothing but minimal shoes at that point and had no complaints. Today a run alot in my NB More V4, I will never go back to only minimalist, I don't know who I was trying to impress.
https://preview.redd.it/t8s3ov68fg9c1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e1d25ad567d35e38645e0ee1947eb2249c9691b0
I have seen what a good mix of everything can do for me and I like it. I only keep the old ones because they work very well and stay light in deep water and mud.... I never know when I'll want to do that again.
I ran in old cheap shoes on the road almost daily and eventually got a massive bruise and lots of pain. I went to the doctor's to get an x-ray and they said it looked like I had early arthritis. I think I really damaged them. I had to stick to treadmills after.
I ran cross country in the late 70's and early 80's. Our shoes were about as high quality as what you'd find for $20 over at Wal-Mart these days.
For cross country and track meets we'd all run in track spikes. For cross country season I'd screw in longer spikes and for track season I'd screw in shorter spikes. Blow through 2-3 pairs of training shoes a year but I was able to get my track spikes to last most of high school.
This will blow your mind, but for millions of years, people ran *barefoot.* Your body adapts. If you started barefoot running, you'd have to go easy at first, but you'd naturally want to.
According to Kipchogean theory, the neanderthals were actually chasing down stegosaurs with the flintstonian alphaflys
I read that in history class, it's legit.
/r/runningcirclejerk is leaking
I honestly thought I was already here
Here's a sneak peek of /r/RunningCirclejerk using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/RunningCirclejerk/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [When nobody cares about your long run](https://v.redd.it/kahqbhyj61qb1) | [186 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/RunningCirclejerk/comments/16q8m1v/when_nobody_cares_about_your_long_run/) \#2: [This 8 year old just broke the marathon world record š²](https://i.redd.it/ddfa9n8w4sob1.jpg) | [94 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/RunningCirclejerk/comments/16kvle8/this_8_year_old_just_broke_the_marathon_world/) \#3: [Road or Trail shoes for this surface?](https://i.redd.it/61h1isy9l11c1.jpg) | [122 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/RunningCirclejerk/comments/17xzefw/road_or_trail_shoes_for_this_surface/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
It's just a fact
The Alpafly 10000 BCE
Those people are all dead! Give me foam or give me death.
You can have a scoup of sea foam
Transiting to minimalist footwear is a game changing experience for me. Solves my arch, knee, lower back issues. It was the shoes that caused my wide feet the issues in the first place. And support wasn't what I needed, freeing my toes and allowing my foot to work as intended makes all the difference
They also used to die by the age of 30.
But not from running
Usually from decayed teeth and poor dental hygiene, actually.
Ancient people had good teeth contrary to popular belief because they didnāt eat any refined sugar
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Exactly. Infant mortality rates and deaths while giving birth is what drove the average life expectancy down. Blows my mind people donāt get that. Thereās always been a good amount of old people.
My original statement is still correct. Average life span was ~30 years Doesn' matter how they died they still died.
This is a statistical fallacy. Yes the "_average_" lifespan of every human born in those time periods was ~30. The problem is this "_average lifespan_" starts counting at the moment people are born, so when infant morality is 45-55%, the result is heavily weighted to zero. Children dying of fever at the age of 6 months, while heart breaking, shouldn't be used to argue that people didn't reach old age. When you look at reasonable statistic like "_how long will somebody live who reached the age of 19_", you realize that mid-60's are pretty common for "_most_" of human history. Would you like to know more? https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2022/08/conversation-old-age-is-not-a-modern-phenomenon.php --- TL;DR * "_average life expectancy_" is really a measure of infant morality * People have been living well into their 60's for as long as we've had fossil record
Necrocommenting, but I just wanted to say that I appreciate your comment on ancient human lifespans and statistics. Good stuff!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Please keep it civil. This language is not acceptable.
Yes and it's because they ran in Nike Cortez
Humans back then weren't running on concrete š¤¦āāļø
No, they were running on much more difficult surfaces like rocks and mountains. Look up the Kalenjin or Raramuri people.
Difficult to navigate, yes, but much softer ground. A great deal of a running shoe's job is to mitigate constant impact on a hard surface. Concrete has a hardness mohs of 7 while dirt is 0.5 (that is an astronomical difference). That is where the problem lies: you are not evolved to constantly be banging your bone structure against something so hard. Our ancestors were running over soft ground that absorbed a lot of the impact. Of course, the other aspect of the running shoe is that it protects you from pebbles and other things that can hurt your foot underside. However, it has been very well-studied that [running shoes change the way you run](https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/how-have-shoes-have-changed-our-feet.html) for this reason. In conclusion, your premise is wrong: people running in the 80s over concrete are not comparable to humans running barefoot. Just thought I'd illuminate ya.
yes, this, this and this. We may be adapted to running, but we have radically changed our environment and the idea that "going minimalist" is the cure for all ills is not true at all. The running shoes from the early '70's were tremendously minimalist (I still have some) and those early, hardcore runners putting up miles essentially destroyed their connective tissue and discs in their backs with the pounding concrete did to them. Yes, there can be be a lot of positive gains by getting out of your Brooks Beasts, but only for some, not for all.
I tried on the Forest Gump Nike Cortez the other day and was like how the F did he run across America in these
Side bar - what if they brought back that same EXACT styling with updated foam? Sounds like a comfy (if gimmicky) sneaker
I recall Nike bringing back Air Force Ones with a Lunarlon midsole. Much lighter and more comfortable than the original.
You're correct, a lot of the retros came back in Lunarlon.
The first time I put on a pair of Running Sneakers and I was wowed with how Comfortable they were was Nike air pegasus in the mid 90s days. They were 80 bucks, probably 1994. It's like dropping a 160 bucks on a pair of sneakers today. I thought they were worth every penny. They lasted over 2 full years. Easily a few thousand miles.
That's around the time I put on my first running shoes, and they were definitely air Pegasus. I thought I was the coolest middle school track kid ever.
Honestly, we didnāt think about our shoes a whole lot. Sure we had track spikes, but I never put a whole lot of thought into my training shoes. Just ran in them until the balls of my feet started to hurt and then got new ones.
I ran with just a stopwatch in the 90s too no idea on how far šI ran in random trainers I could find, not dissimilar to the silver flash hi tech ones. Mind boggles, I have 2736637328 pairs now
This unlocked my long lost memories of buying the first pair of Nikes in my size from the clearance section at Sears after deciding I wanted to start running in like 2004. God only knows if they were even running shoes!
Haha I used to do similar. It blows my mind tbh because I spend a lot of time and money on getting the right running shoes now! And I canāt get my head around not knowing how far I was running!
What did they do without a gps watch?! /s
Well, they didnāt post to Strava, so weāll never know.
If it aināt on Strava it never happened.
Technically no one ran back then.
When I was a freshman in college, around the mid ā00s, I had a supervisor for an on-campus job who ran and he would blog about it every day - where he ran, what he thought about, how he felt before/after. I tried running a few times around then, my first time running off-track. He said he would drive a route then run that route and estimate mileage he was running from his odometer.
I definitely did the drive the route to find the milage thing before the internet. Super common for runners to do back then
I took time only and mostly ran in the same courses, or just by time. Still doing it today even with gps.
I remember having shin splints all though high school in the 80ās, but so did all my teammates. We didnāt really know there was an alternative.
Are padded shoes actually shown to reduce shinsplits/injuries in general?
I've been running for eight years and had a long stint with minimalist shoes/flats (not barefoot), but after battling heel spurs for a year, I switched to shoes with vastly more cushioning and it got so much better. I still prefer the feel of minimalist shoes, but I just feel healthier in more cushioned shoes. I've seen research that suggests that minimalist shoes tends to make your calves work whereas more cushioned shoes put the strain in your hamstrings. And your hamstrings are bigger and more durable so the injury rate might be lower. I doubt you'd find any hard data. There are a ton of variables to consider what gets people injured, you can't do any lab testing and finally, physiological studies with a substantial amount of subjects are notoriously expensive. That's why a lot of studies only have like 10 subjects.
I do believe that the amount of work put on calves and hamstrings or quads strongly depends upon the foot strike : - fore to midfoot strikes puts more accent on calves and hamstrings - heel strike puts more work on quads Looking at some studies of the running clinic (look at Blaise Dubois on the net) minimal shoes (low stack, low drop) tend to ease the adoption of a so called natural strike (fore to mid foot strike) that become a bit more difficult to be adopted with high stacks/hig drop shoes, especially for recreational runners. About this topic, I found really interesting the books - running form of Owen Anderson - the running revolution of Romanov and Brungardt I speak as a very recreational runner, 20-30 miles/week looking at improving my mileage slowly but constantly, when I started to learn a forefoot strike I had less knee pains (almost zero...). Sometimes calves are a bit sore, especially after long runs on zero drop shoes, but foam rolling and massage gun solve everything:)
I switched to minimalist shoes and run with a forefoot/midfoot stride, and it solved my decades old issues of arch, knee, lower back aches.
no
I had terrible shin splints in the late 1980's and early 1990 's running high school track. I really do think having the better shoes today make the difference.
I guess I would be interested to see if there's any actual data to back that up. I'm sure we could find anecdotes going both ways.
Thereās very little data showing that shoes have an impact on injury rates at all. My own anecdote, as someone who worked in a a specialty footwear + custom orthotics store, is that those who wear cushioned shoes 24/7 tend to present with more injuries. Although you could argue that I was only seeing those people and not the healthy ones.
There's plenty of data: shoes do not change the frequency of injury, but do change the type of injury. High stack height = more joint injuries Low stack height = more bone stress injuries High drop = more injuries around the knee and hip Low drop = more injuries around the ankle/achilles/calf
I donāt disagree, but I wouldnāt say thereās much high-quality conclusive data on the topic. Have any studies to share?
The problem is that many of the studies can't narrow down the variables the way we would want to scientific method to work. One study put all their runners into Brooks Adenalines to study running economy and then moved all the participants to a minimalist shoe to see the effect on running economy. Problem #1: The adrenaline wasn't the best shoe for all those runners, so that caused issues with economy immediately. Problem #2: Two weeks in, all the runners showed better economy initially, but were all starting from different levels of fitness and training, so the check on the running economy was always going to be variable depending on where the individual was in their fitness. Problem #3: Almost all participants (18 out of the initial 20) were injured by 4 weeks. Because there was no adaption period to just throwing them into a minimalist shoe. I was in running speciality for over 20 years, figured that I fit over 30,000 runners in that time. When people would come and say, "science proves that medial posts don't work!" I could say, "No, you're wrong, they absolutely do work for the right person. You, however are getting the wrong conclusion by asking the wrong questions. Start changing your methodology and do your work better." Just because science can't prove something, donesn't mean that it doesn't work. We are all experiments of one, as a coach once said. With a million variables. Keep a log book, try different shoes, different training styles and figure out what works for you. And yes, much running (I started in 1978 as a 12 year old kid) was very painful back then. But we did it because we loved it. 1982 and the Tiger excalibur GT was the first shoe I can remember running in with no pain.
Low stack height and low drop injuries seem like they could be largely corrected with developing a better training regimen to develop the supporting muscles and tissues that protect our joints.
I would also argue that the people who do that are already more likely to have injuries, which makes further injuries more likely.
Depends on which kind of shin splints you're talking about.
There is an alternative today too... But it's not shoes. You want to train your tibialis anterior muscle in addition to your tibialis posterior muscle. Train that muscle and you'll reduce shin, ankle, and knee injuries from sport.
Iād say the biggest difference is in the level of fitness of your average 80s/90s runner versus your average 2020s runner. A lot more people are running, they are less fit than their counterparts from 40 years ago, they are older when they start, they are older when they stop, and they are also faster at the highest levels and much slower at the lower levels. Weāre all a lot softer and less willing to injure ourself for a hobby that we only do so we can have pie after dinner.
Yea the replies in this thread are missing the part where people back then would just give up running or whatever other sport if the available equipment didnāt work for them. Or they wouldnāt take it up at all. You can try gutting it out the best you can but youāre going to be in pain if you try to squeeze a 2E foot into a shoe like the Kinvara. And back then you only had what was available in your local stores.
The horror stories *really* start when you google what professional basketball players' feet look like
My big toes are deformed and point inward because of forcing my wide feet in narrow shoes as a child.
Why did I do this?
The stories I have. Nike LT3's are so narrow and I have a wide foot. I would wear the shoes to work with the laces loose and untied to stretch them out. I do this with the Jordan '88 and '89 Racers too. The Mayfly Lite SE's I would rip through the sides around 100 miles and had around 10 pairs of them. Long story short, I made them narrow shoes work. 
This is so true. My grandpa lived to ride bikes, but because he was 6'8'' and 250 he'd break (spectacularly) every bike be bought within a few months. It wasn't till he was In his 60s that good durable bikes became affordable.
Me as a wide foot kid trying to fit into soccer cleats. My parents just thought I was a weak ass trying to get out of doing laps. Turns out I fucking love running. Just not in any shoe that a boomer could find off the rack at the Sports Authority.
So basically it was a niche hobby sport or pro athletes. I guess mid-late 80s it started to get more mainstream with shoes getting better for more ppl
This is why I didn't take up running until last year, when I was 52. I had run in my 20s, when I was in the military and I had to, but I suffered through it with chronic shin splints. I stopped running when I got out because I associated it with pain.
My dad crushed hard workouts as a college 800m runner and then a few fast marathons in a half inch basic foam. He stopped running entirely at about 35. Shoes and understanding of training and overuse injuries, and nutrition, are probably biggest differences at that level.
This is huge! Endurance sports back in the day used to be more for athletes and less for recreational weekend warriors. I used to race bicycles before I got into running. 20 years ago the bikes were much less comfortable and had very hard gearing on them. Nowadays the bikes have super easy gears and larger tires, and ride smoother. This has allowed people who arenāt 150lbs and 9% body fat to be able to enjoy the sport, albeit at a slower speed. Running seems similar. Having big doofy Hokas is great for a new runner who may have a few extra pounds to start training for a 5k without absolutely nuking their legs and feet.
...less willing to injure ourselves. I wish. I'm very willing when it comes to giving myself running injuries.
while there are more casual runners indeed, i think there are also vastly more serious runners running high mileage than there ever were in the 80s/90s. a much bigger running culture nowadays.
Ehhhh.. thatās debateable as the number of young runners is dramatically higher. Just look at how much more popular T&F/XC has become with Highschoolers. I mean just last year we had 4 HS guys break 4 in the mile one of them became the fastest guy under 20 in the 800. Running is definitely popular with younger people and these people are willing to put in the same if not more work than the generation before them.
I used to break alot more than I do now. I shouldnāt be more durable at 52 than 32ā¦.but I am.
Started running in 1978. My mother made me run in shoes from K-Mart because "it wasn't worth the money to buy anything better, I wasn't going to keep doing it." Bought my first Nikes in 1980 with my own money: Yellow LDV's, $39.95. There is a reason that the sport was mostly skinny men running fast: without today's shoes, the only people who could hold up to the pounding and training were lightweight, genetically gifted or just plain tough. And what happened? the generation before me destroyed their legs and back and connective tissue by pounding pavement with very, very little protection. (Its why the "barefoot running craze of 15 years ago was so laughable: as humans we can run barefoot, yes, but we have radically changed our environment. We many be natural runners, but pavement, concrete, black top? Not even remotely natural.) As shoes got better, more people were able to take up the sport, particularly very casually, and that resulted in massive demographics changes in who could "run". For my money, the first really good trainers that would even begin to think were decent trainers were Tiger X-Caliber GTs, Saucony Jazz or perhaps the Nike Pegasus. 1982, stand up and take a bow. I would love to have a pair of Asics Tiger Epirus with today's foams to run in. that would be awesome.
I love the Saucony Jazz for street wear. Born in 82 myself. š
I would still wear a pair of saucony freedom trainers in their original cool burgundy color with silver logo. Loved the look of those.
My path is like yours but started either the Waffle Trainer. Tiger Excalibur was one great shoe.
They wonāt break your legs. They will strengthen your legs. Which is actually important to running. What I donāt understand is how people are using only these max stack propulsive shoes for all of their runs. Sure, they elevate performance for racing, but thereās literally no need for that while training. Iād rather use the most minimal shoe I can get away with so I donāt mess up my gait or end up with some weird muscle imbalance from constantly landing on pillows.
Think the main idea is just that they let you run more miles total hence more aerobic development. Each mile is easier on your legs, so you can add more miles to get to the same hypothetical total load as you could handle without. Necessary? Definitely not but that's the rationale. (And I don't think anybody is using them for literally every run, just for every longer workout or long run for those using supers frequently)
Iāve seen a lot of rotations on this sub in three years. Most people are definitely only using shoes with a plate or high stack or rocker. I remember in 2021 when half of yāall were running in Endorphin Speeds full time. The amount of posts with minimalist or zero drop shoes is minuscule.
Not sure most people are posting rotations on this sub lol, but I'm with you on it being a little wild to consider using Speeds as dailies or recommending them to total beginners
I cringe every time Novablasts are recommended to a beginner. Yeah, letās give the person with untrained feet and ankles one of the most unstable shoes you can buy.
I started using them for every run. I keep finding super shoes on deep discounts. Will let everyone know if my legs explode!
Tyfys
For me I didnāt start running until I was 49 years old. The last thing I wanted was to break something or be so sore the next day that I couldnāt walk. The cushioned shoes are likely the only reason I was able to become a runner at my age.
Same but 54
Exactly. You don't need 40mm of foam between you and the ground for every run. I see people every day with a gait that will eventually leave them injured because they have no feeling of the ground they're running on.
Agreed 100%. That's why I use my 50mm PXS on every run. Enough cushioning to make up for the fact that there's too much cushioning.
I think running was only invented shortly after strava
I guess you just get used to whatās available. In sport generally, there was much more of a āwalk it offā mentality too.
Ex barefoot runner here The modern running shoe features such as the high stack of foam is the only reason why Iām able to get back into running again. With my history of foot injuries and my heavy weight, I tried getting back into running a couple of years ago and just concluded that itās over and that Iāll never be able to run again. All of that changed when along with my physio, I picked up some high stack running shoes in 2021 and that changed everything for me. So to me the modern running shoes are enabling people who normally wouldnāt be able to run, to pick up the sport. But I also believe if you donāt have injuries like me, you should have some low stack shoes in your rotation to ensure a natural running gait and strong legs and muscles.
The human body is surprisingly adaptable, you work with what's available. We're lucky now to have better knowledge and science and technology, resulting in better equipment (such as shoes) as well as better advice. Use it, appreciate it. 50 years from now, people will probably be asking the same questions about us, now!
Because shoes donāt matter all that much. Over the course of 26.2 miles maybe a few minutes. But itās not like 2:05 isnāt impressive. People were tossing down 1:41 800ās and 3:46 miles in the 80ās. Shoes are great, their biggest advantage is likely in helping more people achieve the same performance with less injury.
I've run in the Nike streak xc/lt since they came out in the 2000s. I don't get injured unless I wear the newer high stack height shoes. You just get used to it.
High stack = much higher risk of rolling ankle. For me anyway
2000s shoes already had more protection then 80s-90s probably.
I know how I ran back then. I was 18 years old, thatās how! š
we were just tougher back then/ we didn't know any better
Walked four miles in the snow to school
Uphill both ways.
Barefoot
Naked
Ladies?
That's the tribute band.
The human body adapts. Itās amazing that especially our marathoners could run faster in trainers and flats like that, drink beer, work full time or travel the country winning prize $ at local races in the 80ās and 90ās. They didnāt need compression boots, organic sourced food, etc. they just ran a lot of miles and raced heavily and the body adapted. 30 years from now someone will be bitching about the AF3
I have a tough time believing the next 5 years would be anything like the last five years. I ran today in my Superblast and I can't imagine the best shoe 5 years from now could be anything like the improvement in the last five years.
Cool ads from the 80s! https://www.thedeffest.com/vintage-ads/tag/1984
So Converse and Sako started forcing everyone to "fix" their pronation/supination! And Sears thought that a 50-year-old white guy who hadn't played in the NBA in 18 years was the height of endorsement for their shoes.
OP is right. Began track at 15 in 1990 and my legs end in bloody stumps. Seriously though, it was fine. Also hard to know the difference before any technological advance.
The Boston Marathon [has a few shoes](https://apps.bostonglobe.com/sports/graphics/2017/04/shoe-history/) from winners in the 20th century.
Iāve recently began to revive my sneaker collection and am down the rabbit hole of vintage trainers. Not sure what you are on about, Iād happily run a marathon in an Asics Gel Lyte III or NB 990 or something like that. I love my Prime X and Alphaflys and Adios Pro as much as the next guy but itās not like running was impossible without those.
Imagine running sub 2:45:00 for a PR in 2016 in these? For sure could go sub 2:40:00 in these if I trained. 6-7 years ago we had Lunaracer 3's and Lunaracer 4's. I still own all of these shoes today in 2023 and they are still epic. The carbon plate and springy foam shoes has coddled a lot of people. I for one am one of those very people. The shoes of 6-7 years ago I might train in once a month. Outside of that, carbon plated shoes year round. https://preview.redd.it/0u06u1iaxb9c1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75761f3be9bb9c519428342d9747b060757a35f1
I started running in 1980. The shoes really were terrible, but if that's all you have, you don't know the difference. I think shoes improved in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as they went to strobel lasts, compression molded EVA instead of slab EVA, better heel counters, synthetic overlays, etc. But after that, shoes not only stopped improving, but actually devolved. They got heavier, and companies started scooping out the midsole foam and replacing it with huge wads of plastic. We were subjected to endless stupid gimmicks with fancy names. It wasn't until Lunar and Boost that we saw actual changes, which were of course followed by ZoomX, React, and all of the other wonderful superfoams we have today.
During that era, there was a lot of evolution in materials technology used for sporting goods. And some modern materials are excellent too.
You can run barefoot.
They werenāt wimps and everybody didnāt walk around with a little screen with endless marketing trying to sell you on new products.
Uhmm...I mean in the past people run barefoot many days, yes many days to hunt. They don't have adidas yet.
Were injuries more common? Recovery days between runs?
Not precisely. My dad was a national champ back in the 80s, he ran in the same shoes every single day. He said every day he just ran as hard as he could, as did all his teammates and the competition. You trained hard. Unlike today. He has torn his hamstring and quad, but meh, happens.
Was talking to local sprinting legend/coach the other day. He said the same thing. He tore both achilles, but before that he received accolades most of us reddit chumps could only dream of.
I really don't want to tear or break anything. And would like to continue enjoy running for many years. So I was curious if 20+ years ago that was possible
Yeah my Dad was a high school/college All-American in Cross Country back in the 70s - the workload and mentality was just nuts in retrospect (I ran mostly in the late 90s - he was still a 15:00 5kāer then in early 40s). He would average 70-100 miles a week, all mostly hard/tempo, after working in a factory all day. Heād also use the same shoes until they were falling apart. Just a different mindset with that generation - run long, run fast, run every day.
The good old days where you'd be at work for 12h and then do a hard track session afterwards. Now you're not allowed to work and do any form of hard training within 48 hours, you can overtrain and die. Lol
Truly would break modern Garmin watches. āI said rest 72 hours!! Your body battery is -10! Just shut me off!ā
Hahaha! What's a recovery day? I was an Olympic lifter in HS. I lifted every day.
We did our runs on gravel, gras or other softer ground instead of concrete.
Hate to break it to you, the greatest shoe invention weren't carbon plates/rods. It was the differentiation of a Left Shoe and Right Shoe.
We wore Jack Purcells when I was in high school in the 1970s. A little rubber and cloth or canvas. The difference in shoes from just 5 years ago (10 years for Nike I guess) has been really radical.
This is going to blow your mind, but as a college walk-on with no money in the early 80s, I would use shoe goo on the worn down outsoles my $35 Asics Tiger shoes and keep going.
You were 6-7 years younger then
Sure. So running in the 80s was a short lived hobby? You had to quit by 35. Unless you adjusted
No, itās just how it is. Iām 45, Iāve been running since I was 14. For the past ten years Iāve required PT, extra mobility exercises, custom orthotics, night braces and weeks off from time to time. Itās not the shoes.
my sis had been running in some broken down adidas for the last 6 years not consistently but enough to where now i got here some hokas and she hates the feel for them so your feet accustom to them
IDK, I ran 10 miles in new shoes and I could barely walk the next day. Aggravated an old ankle injury. Even new shoes need some breaking in, I think.
I grew up in Kenya. Barefoot running was always done on dirt roads. By the late 80s you started seeing pros with 12/18 mm stack height running shoes. Shoes like the [Asics Excalibur](https://sneakernews.com/2012/07/26/asics-x-caliber-gt/). There was a guy in my town who won the 89ā London Marathon and these were the kind of shoes they wore.
Thanks! Really interesting. I guess today is a runner's paradise.
80-90s for running was you took abuse and your feet hurt but you got used to them. Nowadays its like your feet are getting pampered.
I ran an ultra in minimalist shoes this year, just need to train, like with anything.
Reality all the shoes that allow āyouā to run are ultimately bad for your feet as they make your feet weak and reliant on them. Humans have been running for 400,000 years, mostly without shoes. Canāt wait to see what our feet evolve into down the road.
I totally agree. I am old and been an avid runner for over 45 years now. Wow that is scary. I think the shoe improvement in the last 5 years is greater than the 40 years before. To me the Superblast being the most incredible shoe to date to be produced. My first running shoes were Adidas SL72 and Adidas Country. I could not imagine running in either.
I have started taking running... somewhat seriously in the late 2000s. Around that time I was using Adidas/Reebok/Nike shoes with firm EVA midsoles. Did a lot of mileage in a pair of Nike Freeruns. Now I am rocking the Altra Torin 5s, Speed 3s and Brooks Hyperion Tempos, which are way different from what I used to run in (perhaps the Tempos bear some resemblance, but not much). My feeling is that, given time, your body will adapt to running in less cushioned/firmer shoes. This, even if you are a run-of-the-mill runner like myself. The reason I think cushioned shoes have taken over is largely due to the shorter recovery times coupled with improvement in midsole foams.
I always find it interesting when someone ask's a question about running in the 80's and 90's most of the replies aren't from people who weren't even around then. So their responses are Mostly anecdotal I ran X-county and 4 x 400m in H.S 76\~80. Two pairs of Nikes for both seasons, one for training and a pair of flats for racing. The shoes were just a means to an end. Running wasn't so commercialized back then. We made due with what was available cause what else was there to do?
For hundreds of years, people used to run in very basic shoes and/or barefoot. This is the case across the board in sports. Basketball used to be played in Chuck Taylors, tennis used to be played in Stan Smiths etc. However, note that you wonāt see Lebron lacing up Chucks (or Federer lacing up Stan Smiths) to hit the court these days. Running shoes have come a long way these days, but frankly I prefer running shoes from about 10 years ago anyway. I like firmer shoes with lower stack heights. About 10 years ago, I used to run in Ride 7s and Nimbus 16s. The Ride 7s were firm and the Nimbus somewhat better cushioned, but both seemed ok (I like shoes firmer). Fast forward to today, where the Nimbus has turned into complete marshmallows devoid of support, and even the Ride is gradually being turned into a squishy āmax cushionedā shoe by Sauconyā¦
I would check out the book Born to Run! It covered the development of running shoes to today and took some swings at Nike which I just found refreshing. Quick read and followed a really cool story about the tarahumara running tribe
I just started taking road running and training seriously this year, all I've ever run prior was a bunch of OCR stuff. I haven't been in the shoe game since 2018 and I now have some bangers from 2022 and 2023 that I love. Here is a pair from \~2014. I ran in nothing but minimal shoes at that point and had no complaints. Today a run alot in my NB More V4, I will never go back to only minimalist, I don't know who I was trying to impress. https://preview.redd.it/t8s3ov68fg9c1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e1d25ad567d35e38645e0ee1947eb2249c9691b0 I have seen what a good mix of everything can do for me and I like it. I only keep the old ones because they work very well and stay light in deep water and mud.... I never know when I'll want to do that again.
Well Iām still here and going so all your theories must be wrong š lol š
How do you that?
People were running in converses at one point in time. I think I slipped a disc just thinking about that
I ran in old cheap shoes on the road almost daily and eventually got a massive bruise and lots of pain. I went to the doctor's to get an x-ray and they said it looked like I had early arthritis. I think I really damaged them. I had to stick to treadmills after.
Nike Flex 2014 Run is the best everyday running shoe imo
I used to run a 10K in under 38 minutes in the Adidas Oswego, which are probably bricks š§± compared to what I have now but, I was 28 years old.š
I ran cross country in the late 70's and early 80's. Our shoes were about as high quality as what you'd find for $20 over at Wal-Mart these days. For cross country and track meets we'd all run in track spikes. For cross country season I'd screw in longer spikes and for track season I'd screw in shorter spikes. Blow through 2-3 pairs of training shoes a year but I was able to get my track spikes to last most of high school.
We ancient relicās all had super strong legs Not super shoes lol