568 miles on a pair of Newtons

After putting 568 miles on a pair of Newton Motion running shoes, it was time to replace them.  I almost feel like I could get another 100 miles or so out of them, but my feet were starting to feel a little weird and I am sure that it was due to the shoes wearing out.

From the pictures you can probably see that I pretty much wore the nubs off the mid-foot area and the area just in front of (towards the toes) is completely slick (when new there were some grooves and a bit of a raised area – all gone now).  And in the event you can’t tell….  the new shoe is on the left…

I switched from the “Motion” model that provided something that they called “medial posting” to offset pronation, to the “Gravity” model, which is supposed to be a neutral shoe.  I really don’t know that I have a pronation problem, so if I go back to “neutral” perhaps I might learn something.  When I made my original purchase, the helpful store clerk recommended the Motion model because it provided a bit more “support”, something that might be helpful to me since at the time I was complaining about dealing with Plantar Fasciitis – I’m not sure where that support is provided, but it’s supposed to be there somewhere.

With the recent arrival of my new shoes and a 20K event this weekend (Leesburg 20K – Virginia), I have spent some walking time in them, then a short 2 miler, and today a hillier 6 miler. The new shoes feel great! And after this last run, I can definitely feel the different shoe symmetry in my calves. This may also be due to the fact that the new shoes are “new and unused” vs the “old and worn out” ones that I’ve been in for a while.  I’ll do more walking and run at least another 6 to 10 miles in the new shoes over the next 4-5 days before the event.

I’m looking forward to seeing how I do in the event itself – I didn’t have a chance to run any events in my previous Newtons so I’m looking forward to see how I feel after 20K and what kind of time I can post.

4 days to the Leesburg 20K  [UPDATE:  here is a link to the Leesburg event:  http://runningthrutime.blogspot.com/2013/08/leesburg-20k-great-run-great-event.html  ]

74 days to the MCM