Monday, October 23, 2006

Will the shoe fit??

ORN: 3 miles, 2.8 of them pain free

Frustrated over the lack of progress on my right knee pain, I had an idea yesterday, Sunday. I had to drive to Indianapolis to pick up the youngest son, returning from a conference in Washington, DC. Why not go by my favorite running store while in Indy to see if they could help me with my shoes??

So, off I went to
www.athleticannex.com, where they have helped me a lot. I took my current pair of Brooks Adreneline GTS6 with me. To my delight, John looked and looked and looked at the wear pattern on these shoes, now with about 350 miles on them. He observed something I've seen but I didn't know what to do with; while my heel strike seemed very normal, my forefoot wore over to the inside of the shoe, leaving virtually no wear at all on the outside of the shoe. I observed that this has been the very same wear pattern on my last six pairs of Brooks Adrenelines.

He scrunched up his face, "This just isn't right." So he went to work to find a shoe he felt would help this inward roll on the front foot.

We ended up with a pair of adidas Supernova. I ran in them on the sidewalk outside the store, they felt great, way better than several other pairs. I was cautions...I've never had good results with adidas, feeling they were much more a "mass consumer" shoe rather than a serious runner shoe. Shoot, don't all serious runners wear either Brooks or Asics? Yet, I took the advice of John who was knowledgable and had run a 2:35 marathon the day before.

This morning, I took them out. Ouch...the first 200m were wierd. A new shoe...felt funny. Yet, by my stretching point a third of a mile in, it felt OK. The planned 3 mile run went well and it was great to be out again.

But, with just .2 miles to go, I felt the twinges in my right knee. Good thing I was almost home.

In previous adventures like this, I know it takes a while for the pain to subside. I'm hoping that's the case here. We'll see.

Thanks for the concern from many of you. Stay tuned as I persevere with this.

4 comments:

Backofpack said...

Well Joe, I hope those new shoes work. I love it when you get a knowledgable shoe person, who can actually analyze and think about your wear pattern, your gait, and all the pieces together. I've never thought of Adidas as a mass consumer shoe. Though I will admit, it seems as though all the runners I know wear Brooks, Saucony or Asics. I think I know one Nike wearer.

Keep us up on how it's going!

Anonymous said...

I hope the new shoes work. My friend had very bad ITB for the last month- bought a new pair of Mizuno and ran the Chicago marathon pain free.

Sarah said...

I hope you find the change in shoe helpful, Joe. I rotate between Adrenalines and Supernovas. Both are good shoes, IMO (although I'm probably going to drop the Supernovas). The Nike Kantara's are similar, but very expensive and wear out quickly. An over the counter insert might help too. Good luck! : )

Unknown said...

I am glad I have had success with most pairs of shoes I wear and I am an avid Brooks wearer. In fact I have only worn brooks shoes since I began running almost five years ago. I hope those adidas solve the problem. I can understand your skepticism.