A Tale of Two Shoes.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

In August 2012, when I first stepped out onto the roads to begin my tryst with distance running, I wore a pair of two-year-old Reeboks.

They weren’t even running shoes. They were, horror of horrors, tennis shoes...

Since then, I have owned six different pairs of shoes from five different brands.

This is their story.

That first pair...it was as generic as shoes can possibly get. I barely remember what they looked like. I had bought them because they were ‘predominantly white’, which was a requirement at morning PT in the Army, much like at Wimbledon. Plus they kinda-sorta went with jeans.

Did I care? Not a dram. I held the unforgivably sexist view that obsessing over shoes was something that women did.

Did it matter? Not a grain. I was slow and irregular with my runs and frankly, I thought I would get over the whole running fad in a few months, at most. Once I had lost the last few kgs of extra weight I had been carrying around, what would be the point of continuing?

A few months later, a significant syzygy fell into place.

At around the time I was starting to enjoy running for its own sake, almost seriously thinking of doing a half-marathon someday, I ran through a puddle one rainy morning and felt the water seep through and wet my sock. The sole had split apart to the liner, and I hadn’t even noticed it.

While ordinarily I would have driven down to the nearest mall and picked up a random pair from the shelf, this time I made a life-altering decision and googled ‘running shoes’...

That rabbit-hole just sucked me right in...

Saucony? Mizuno? Brooks? Newton? Wtf were all these brands? Heel-toe drop? Pronation? Torsion? Stability? Support? Dude...

After more than an hour of reading random articles about running shoes, I had lost all clarity in the matter. But I knew I wanted a nice, interesting pair of shoes. No more inky-pinky-ponky at the local shoe-store for me.

I ordered a pair of ASICS Cumulus 14s online.

I know that it was probably psychosomatic, but I ran about two minutes off my 54-minute 10k time the next day, without even trying. And just like that, I became obsessed with shoes.

The Cumulus 14s saw me through my first two halfs (halves?) and my first two marathons. I was a fan. I bought my next pair, ASICS Cumulus 15s this time, without thinking much about it, while the 14s were still doing perfectly all right.

By the beginning of 2014, I realized that I was gradually getting faster than I ever thought I would get. I began my first actual marathon training program with a time goal in mind. I alternated my two pairs through it, and finally raced in the newer (and heavier, I later realized) pair.

That was the Hyderabad Marathon in August 2014, a watershed race for me. There was no denying it anymore. Running was now an inextricable part of my life.

In September 2014, I retired my Cumulus 14s as they had become significantly down-at-heel. The 15s were still going pretty strong, and I continued to run in them.

27^th September 2014. Dennis Kimetto breaks the World Record for the marathon at Berlin. A few days later, I come to know of the adidas Adizero Adios Boost 2 racing flats... I read up on this particular species of shoe, and decide, for reasons I cannot rationally explain, that I have to have it! Until I see that the damned things retail for more than fifteen thousand bucks a pair...

Sanity prevailed. I came across the adidas Supernova Glide 6s just in time for ADHM 2014. An ounce lighter than my Cumulus 15s, so better to race in (does an ounce or three even matter?), but still, cushioned enough for regular training.

I let the Cumulus 15s take on most of the training load through the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015, using the Glide 6s mainly for races.

In April, when I moved to the mountains, I anticipated doing a lot of hill trails, and invested in a pair of Salomon Fellraisers. Strangely, I still haven’t run in them! They are lying untouched on my shoe-rack, waiting for their day in the dirt...

A few more months of running saw my Cumulus 15s wear out, and I upgraded the Glide 6s to the status of a regular trainer. I was, once again, in the market for a fresh pair. As before, I was looking for something lightweight, yet cushioned. The next iteration of the adidas Supernova Glide was only marginally heavier, and I had almost decided to get those  until I remembered Skechers.

Meb Keflezighi won the 2014 Boston marathon in a pair of Skechers GOmeb Speed 3s, and the brand saw a lot of positive publicity in the wake of that win. I decided to give it a try, picking up the Skechers GOrun 4s which were closer to my idea of a racer/trainer hybrid than the racing GOmebs. Surprisingly, these shoes are even lighter than the Adios Boost 2 racers.

I started alternating between the Glide 6s and the GOrun 4s as I dove into my current training cycle. Over time, I realized that while the GOrun 4s were lighter and more comfortable over longer distances and on high impact downhills, they were also less responsive. They had a kind of super-soft midsole that made them seem sluggish if I tried to speed up. The Glide 6s were stiffer, and hence, despite being much heavier, felt more conducive to faster runs at toe-off.

Come November, the Glide 6s had done more mileage than any other shoe I had run in, and were at end-of-life. I decided to race one last time in them before retiring them. They carried me to a great finish at ADHM 2015.

I had agonized over my next purchase for quite a while, anticipating the need for a good pair of shoes to race Dubai in. What I wanted was something that combined the best of the GOrun 4s and the Glide 6s, which, in my opinion, was a low weight and a stiff, responsive sole respectively. And it still had to be reasonably well-cushioned... a racer/trainer hybrid. I considered staying with adidas and getting the Adizero Boston Boost 5, which was getting a lot of good buzz around here. I also thought about the Nike Free Flyknit 4 (lighter but softer) and the Mizuno Wave Sayonara 3 (stiff but heavier).

I finally settled on a striking pair of electric blue New Balance Vazee Pace running shoes, imported through a cousin returning from the US. So far, I’m ecstatic about these. They are only very slightly heavier than the GOrun 4s, and lighter than both the Adios and the Boston Boost. The ‘REV-lite’ foam midsole feels slightly firmer underfoot than the ‘Boost’ foam on the Glide 6s. I had no complaints with the narrow fit of the Glide 6s, but the Vazee Pace is definitely much roomier in the toebox. While I’m still in the process of breaking them in and getting used to the new ride, I have a good feeling about them.

Phew! That was a long-ass post.

In summary, maybe I've been lucky that I've never actually bought a pair of bad shoes, ones that have led to injury. Maybe there are no bad shoes.

Or maybe, the shoes one wears don't matter so much as one thinks they do...

2015 is almost done. And so is my training cycle. The high volume has definitely made me faster, stronger and lighter. I have successfully managed to rein myself in from overtraining. My vacation in Gurgaon is at an end, and I will head to the pure, cold air of the mountains again in a couple of days, returning in mid-January of the New Year to go and race in Dubai.

If I don’t metamorphose into a complete imbecile on race day like I usually do, I should be able to BQ this time. Either way, I’m looking forward to an off-season till about April after this.

...It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.