I wrote a few weeks ago about my problems with my current running shoes, and in the comments a reader suggested contacting the manufacturer. It hadn’t occurred to me, so I appreciated the suggestion and took her up on it.

After tracking down a proof of purchase for the shoes (I bought them in mid-November, and I hardly ran at all in December, so that means the shoes didn’t even stand up to 4 months of wear), I’m now boxing them up and sending them off to Mizuno for an exchange (assuming the exchange is approved).

That means I’m stuck running in my old shoes. My old shoes are by Saucony and I don’t even recall why I bought them. Probably because they looked ok and the price was ok. They seemed like they’re about half the weight of my current shoes, so I thought maybe I’d be flying along with them on my feet. They also smelled horribly, to the point where I could smell them while running. At least, I hope it was my shoes I was smelling, and not something else I was wearing. Ew.

I was wrong about feeling like I was flying, because my current shoes are a lot better shock absorbers than my old shoes (I guess that’s where the extra weight comes in). I also used to run with inserts in my old shoes, but I took those inserts out before running yesterday, in keeping with my semi-minimalist plan, so I was wearing lighter, uncushioned shoes and pounding the pavement with my heels like crazy at first. My stride was completely different and I felt like I was stomping. It took a couple miles to get a stride that felt good. I am a little bit more sore today than I usually am, but not as sore as I thought I would be after a stomp-run.

Unfortunately I am stuck running with these old shoes until they either send me my replacement shoes or send me my old shoes back with a note rejecting my warranty claim. It will probably take awhile to get the return processed and the new/old shoes shipped to me, so I expect these old shoes will carry me through today’s “medium effort” run, a 14-miler, hill repeats, a mid-week 7-miler, and a faux-10k race at a minimum. Shoes, don’t fail me now.

I suppose this would be the time for me to mention conventional wisdom recommends alternating between two pairs of shoes. Whoops.