What The Bottom Of A Pair Of Running Shoes Can Tell You!

Above is a picture of the bottom of a pair of Scott Makani 2 running shoes. I had seen a really good review of these shoes in 2010 in Outside magazine, but they were $110 and not sold at very many shoe stores. They are mainly sold to the triathlete market as race shoes. Now, this spring, I found them for $60 bucks including shipping at planet shoes. They were being replaced by the 3 version which was EXACTLY the same except for some trim and logo changes. I use these shoes for short speedwork only. Intervals of a Kilometer or less. These shoes have exactly 103 miles on them (yes I track the exact mileage of every shoe I run in....and now I even have an Ipad Ap for it!). As you can see from the wear pattern, these shoes will probably not go more than 250 miles, so they will end up costing about 24 cents a mile, right in the wheelhouse of My 25 cents a mile goal for all shoes (Many of these new shoes coming to market are made with lighter materials that cause me concern as to lifespan, and not so remarkably, they are substantially more expensive, making my 25 cent rule tougher all the time). I have already purchased a spare pair of these as they are my favorite short interval shoe, and based on my once every ten days or so use, should go more than a year. Now, you can tell from the wear pattern that I am landing on the outside of the midfoot during this speedwork. Now in this picture, in order to get the shoes to stand upside down together, the shoes are on the opposite sides, IE the shoe on the left is my right foot, and the shoe on my right is the left foot, and where the shoes touch each other is normally the outside landing area. As you can see, I am actually landing a bit farther up on the shoe when my left foot hits the ground then when my right foot hits the ground. It is bye approximately 3/4's of an inch. I am also landing harder on my left foot than the right. Now, since I am left handed and footed, that could be seen as normal, but that is not something that was noticeable before. I am supposing the real reason is from my getting run over 2 years ago. I think that my slightly shortened range of motion on the right side, as well as the probable slight strength inequality that I now have is responsible. So, I will now have to try and get that last minor bit of range back and work on one legged presses and squats for strength. As far as my taper week is going, I will end up with about 28 miles, 10 or so less than my peak for the past 6 weeks. The plan now is to power up for 4 consecutive weeks, then taper for a race week (Nov 20th 5K race), gear up for one more week, and then taper again for a 2nd race week (Dec 4th 5K race). Then I will try to find a 10K or Half Marathon to start to train for. The fun just never ends!!