A guide to Running shoes

Which running shoes do you need? (Or, as my family keep asking me, why I have so many pairs of shoes.). Each of my pairs of shoes has its own function and ideal environment.  Below is a summary of the main types of shoes you may come across and what they are most suitable for.

Starting with the basics, you should consider comfort and the running surface you mainly use, as the best way to choose shoes.  Research has found that there is no link between how much you spend on shoes and risk of injury.  (Although this was carried out before carbon plate, stacked shoes.).  Comfort was the best way to pick shoes.  A good running shop will be able to offer you impartial advice on wether you need features like motion control, depending on your running style, so I will just concentrate on the various different types of shoes and their use.

If all you do is run on roads, hard surfaces and treadmills, then you just need standard road shoes that are comfortable.  It is a good idea to have 2 pairs, as rotating which pair you use will make them last longer and could save you from having to wear wet shoes.  If these are the only type of trainers you have, then it can help prevent your feet, ankles and stabilising muscles from become lazy by having two different types of shoes, one more supportive and one less so.

If you start to get in to racing and want to really see how fast you can go, you may want to add a pair of light weight racing flats to your collection.  Racing flats are just a light weight version of trainers designed to use on hard surfaces.  They will have slightly less support and cushioning to achieve a lighter shoe.  Do train in these before using them in a race and for most people they should only be used in races up to 1-1.5 hrs long, due to the lower support and cushioning.  They can be of use for longer track races, if spikes cause you injuries due to their low profile.

If you decide to venture off road then you will want some off-road trail shoes.  These are designed for the wide variety of surfaces to be found off-road.  Trail shoes are fairly similar to road shoes, but with a bit more grip.  If your runs are a mix of trail and road, and not too muddy then these are the shoes to get.  They tend to have a bit less cushioning than road shoes as they are intended for soft surfaces.

If your runs are just too muddy for trail shoes, or you want to race through mud in cross countries, parkrun and trail races then you may want to purchase a pair of Fell running shoes.  These have large rubber studs on the base, to give you great grip in deep mud, they are also fine to run across gravel, but may be slippy on tarmac or wet rocks.

If you need even more grip in mud or want to race on the track then you will want a pair of running spikes.  These shoes have a base plate into which you can screw sharp, metal spikes of different lengths.  For the track you want spikes up to 6mm, for cross country they can go up to 15mm.  (Top Tip for muddy cross country is to put your longest spikes at the front of your shoes and shorter ones further back under the ball of your foot, for added comfort.)  More expensive track spikes come designed for specific events, but if you buy a cheaper pair, of all round spikes you can use these for track races and cross country.  WARNING: it is horrible to run over tarmac and gravel in spiked shoes!

These are all the running shoes that I have.  Now I move on to a couple of others that I haven’t tested myself:

Barefoot shoes– these are designed to be as similar as possible to running barefoot, but with some protection for the sole of your foot.  They have no support or cushioning.  The reasoning being that they encourage you to run with more of a forefoot strike and landing under your body to prevent jarring.  If you decide that this is something you wish to try, then you need to progress to them slowly and working on plenty of foot, ankle and calf conditioning first.  If you suddenly make a switch from standard trainers to barefoot shoes for all your runs, you will almost certainly end up injured.

A new addition to the shoe market are the latest carbon plate shoes, like Nike Alphafly Next% and Adidas Adios Pro.  These have been helping to rewrite the records for road and track distances.  The shoes have a carbon plate and special foam that returns more energy on each foot strike, making most (but not all) people 2-5% quicker.  The down side seems to be the cost and the fact that the shoes don’t last very long.  Probably only worth considering if it is really important to you to knock a bit of time off your pb, or you might win a race.

So to sum up, getting the right shoes for the surface you want to run on will make training more enjoyable, but go for comfort over fads, price or the latest technology.