I feel it is an unwritten rite of passage when you officially don't care what your running shows look like. It is funny to me that there are often signs on the walls in the running stores that discuss shoe color briefly to tell you to relax. Signs like "Your feet don't care what color your shoe is".
If you take a look at most of these shoes, they are a combination of some loud color, then some neutral colors around it. They almost look like the colors were decided by a dart board. Sometimes those combos look awesome, sometimes just crazy. Crazy colors seem to be a theme with running gear though including shirts, hats, jackets. I understand the need to be visible at night, but often reflective gear takes care of that.
My hip started hurting recently and a friend of mine indicated he thought it was time to change my shoes. My current running shoes were almost a year old now, so it seemed to make sense. I went to Fleet Feet where they took video of my run to look at in slow motion. First they started with me wearing a neutral support shoe. Watching my foot hit the treadmill was painful to watch. My heel hit first on the outside, then it rolled into my arch to where my ankle looked like it was going to collapse deforming my leg between my foot and calve.
Turns out the last shoe I bought was right on for the support I need, so it really came down to comfort from there. I ended up going wi the newer model of my shoe, the Asics Gel 2170. Watching me run in those were night and day on the camera, much better. As for the colors, they are grey with screaming neon green laces and highlights.
My hip feels mostly healed now after taking two run days off. I'm sure my heart will make me breath heavy my next run out, but it generally only takes me two runs to get back in the groove with this short of time off. Tomorrow I will try to log my first miles in my new shoes, knock out a 3 mile light jog.
Later this month, Shamrock Shuffle!
