OLD SHOES -- NEW SHOES

Today I broke out a new pair of training shoes. I've been wearing the same style of shoe for the last eight years--Saucony Triumphs. They just seem to fit my feet right. I never buy this year's model with a $120 price tag. Usually, I can get last year's model for nearly half price on special deal days at Sierra Trading Post or Holabird Sports. Often I will buy two pairs if I get a price under $70 with free shipping. They sit in their new boxes in the corner of my room beside my dresser. Sometimes I will open the box and smell them. Don't you just love the smell of new shoes. What do they smell like? Potential.

I hope they keep making Saucony Triumphs for years to come. There's nothing more frustrating than finding that the shoe you love, the shoe in which you have been training for thousands of miles, has been discontinued, or even worse: altered so much that it just doesn't feel the same on your feet. That makes me mad enough to want to headbutt a llama.

I try to make each pair last about three months. By then the tread is pretty well worn on the bottom. I run four days a week. That means in three months I will have used those shoes approximately 52 times. If I pay $70 for the shoes, that means each run costs me about $1.35. Can you believe that? If I would pay full price for the shoe, it would cost me $2.50 every time I go for a run. That's literally highway robbery.

My son-in-law, Josh, is a minimalist. He pays a lot of money for running shoes that don't have much to them. He tells me that the minimalist shoe replicates running barefoot with the benefit of just enough material to protect the feet. I'm not a minimalist. I need as much cushion and support as possible. I even have inserts to prevent plantar fasciitis. I asked Josh how often he has to buy minimalist shoes. He wasn't sure. "Think about it," I told him. "The more you run, the more minimalist those shoes become. In fact, the more miles you put on those shoes, the closer to bare feet they get." If the goal is minimalism, you should be able to train in those shoes until they completely fall apart. Then you have reached minimalist Nirvana.

My latest pair of Saucony Triumphs are bright red. I don't like the color, but that was the last pair they had in my size. When I ran down the street today I almost blinded a lady when the sun broke from behind a cloud and the rays hit my shoes. Fortunately, she looked away quickly. Maybe it wasn't the brightness of the color. Maybe she was just embarrassed seeing an old man running along in bright red shoes like an elf that had just escaped from Santa's workshop. I don't care. They felt great. In three months I'll switch out to a new pair. By then they won't be so bright. The winter weather will take its toll. By the end of February I will consider them old shoes. Do you know what old shoes smell like? . . . Success!