019: An Ode to Running Shoes

I had to buy a new pair of trail shoes this week.

Not particularly remarkable news coming from someone who runs a lot.

Shoes wear out.

Soles disappear, foam compresses and grip becomes increasingly theoretical. Eventually, you accept that the pair you’ve stubbornly insisted have another hundred kilometres in them probably don’t.

And so, a new pair arrives.

Looking at the retiring pair as they await the imminent arrival of their replacements, I started to reflect on the person who first stepped into them. Because while they’ve been ever-constant and consistent, the person wearing them hasn’t.

Running shoes are the antithesis of human beings.

They are steady, while we are volatile.

We change our minds all the time. Our ambitions grow and shrink, our confidence comes and goes. Some weeks we feel capable of anything; others we wonder why we bother at all.

Our shoes remain indifferent to all of this.

They just sit by the door and await our return.

They don’t know whether today’s run is part of a carefully considered training plan or an emergency escape from a day spent staring at a computer screen. They don’t know whether we’re chasing a personal best, preparing for some enormous adventure, recovering from disappointment or simply trying to find an hour of quiet.

They just know that we’re going somewhere.

I think that’s part of what makes them such good companions. They allow us to step out of one world and into another.

Reaching for your running shoes is a conscious decision to prioritise yourself. The laptop closes and the emails can wait. The responsibilities and expectations we walk around with all day are rendered insignificant when we step out of our professional footwear.

We lace them up, adjust the tongue and step out over the threshold.

And for the next hour or two, life becomes considerably simpler.

Left.

Right.

Repeat.

Our shoes are the connection between us and the world we move through.

They meet the road before we do. They sink into mud and scrape across rock. We catch their toes on roots and splash through deep puddles. They interpret the punctuation of the day’s terrain beneath our feet.

Their rhythm against the ground becomes the metronomic beat against which our lives unfold.

Our minds wander wherever they please. Towards the things we’re worried about and the plans we’re making, to conversations we’ve already had a dozen times in our heads. We celebrate victories nobody else will ever know about and contend with failures that probably matter far less than we think they do.

All the while:

Left.

Right.

Repeat.

Some days those shoes feel impossibly light. Our feet barely seem to touch the ground and the miles disappear beneath us. Other days they seem to weigh a tonne each.

The shoes haven’t changed though, we have.

A pair of running shoes might accompany us for five hundred, seven hundred, perhaps even a thousand kilometres. Measured purely as distance, that’s impressive enough, but that total doesn’t tell you very much about what happened along the way.

You might have bought them while training for one race and retire them dreaming about another.

Somewhere between their first and last outing, your relationship with running might have changed entirely. Maybe you’re fitter than you were back then. You might have learned to appreciate an easy run. Perhaps you’ve become more ambitious, or finally realised that you don’t need to be at all.

Running aside, a lot of life can happen over a thousand kilometres too.

There are weeks when everything seems to be falling into place and weeks when putting your shoes on and getting out of the door feels like the only thing you have any control over.

Your shoes know none of this, of course, nor do I think they’d care if they did.

They just remain in place for whenever we need them.

And over time, life leaves its mark on them just as it does us.

The perfect white foam you took out of the box is now creased and discoloured, the tread worn smooth in habitual places. The ends of the laces begin to fray. Mud settles so deeply into the fabric that no amount of washing will ever completely remove it. There might be a tear from a rock you caught on a trail somewhere, or a stubborn smell carrying the memory of a particularly wet afternoon.

A new running shoe is anonymous.

An old one is unmistakably yours.

They bear their miles more visibly than we do.

Every crease, scratch and worn piece of rubber is evidence that they went somewhere.

And so did we.

Eventually, though, there comes a run when you realise something has changed.

The grip isn’t quite what it was. The cushioning feels a little flatter. Perhaps there’s a suspicious ache somewhere that has you looking accusingly towards your feet.

Their work is done.

And another pristine cardboard box appears at the front door, complete with matching socks, because that makes you faster.

I think there’s something slightly sad about placing the old pair beside the new ones.

One looks ready for anything, the other looks like it has already seen everything.

I think that’s why I’m always reluctant to throw the old pair away.

It’s not the shoe itself I struggle to part with. It’s everything that happened while I was wearing them.

The hateful Tuesday evenings. The early mornings. The races. The terrible runs and the inexplicably brilliant ones. The conversations, the solitude, and all those places they carried me.

A pair of shoes quietly measures a chapter of our lives in foot strikes.

And when that chapter ends, perhaps it’s worth looking at them one last time.

Not to mourn a piece of foam and rubber, but to remember the person who first opened that box.

What were they training for?

What were they worried about?

What did they think mattered?

Where did they hope those shoes might take them?

And, more importantly, who is standing here now?

So next time a faithful pair approaches the end of the road, before consigning them to the bin, the gardening cupboard, or that suspicious collection of retired running shoes you insist you’ll find a use for someday, take a moment.

Look at the battered soles.

The creased foam.

The frayed laces.

Then consider the version of you who first stepped into them.

And when you open that next box, perhaps consider who you might be by the time that pair looks the same.