Walking/gym shoes

[njhowie]

New Balance especially if you have a narrow heel. Consider fitting and buying a pair locally, then looking online for buying later pairs.

Completely agree.

I swear by New Balance - running, walking, hiking, casual. 99% of the time, once you know your size with them, all of their stuff runs true to size. I particularly like that their standard width is wider than Nike and other's standard width.

Best place online to get them is joesnewbalanceoutlet.com (it is New Balance's site). Sign-up and they will notify you of special sales/deals only available to those who are registered. Every day they offer a Deal of the Day. The prices through the site are significantly better than their retail locations.

 

[RunningBum]

Good idea stocking up on shoes. I used to alternate several different sets of shoes and needed something to keep track. So I made a spreadsheet that kept track of my runs with mileage and shoe. Then I had a table that summed the mileage by shoe. This helped in figuring out when I should retire a pair of shoes due to mileage.

I use Strava to track shoe usage. You can use the Garmin app on your phone to track your runs/walks, or sync it with your GPS watch. Add your shoes to your Strava account, and after the run, you pull down the shoe selector to pick the shoes you run with. It shoes you the miles on each shoe, and you can retire (not show) old shoes. I think you can default to a pair you use most often, but I trade off a lot and I don't want to forget and have miles assigned to the wrong shoes. Sometimes I'll forget to do it until a few days later and I've forgotten which shoes, but usually I can remember.

A trick I used for a little while was to tally a mark with a sharpie after every run. Each tally was 5 miles, rounded. 2.5-7.5 gets one mark, 7.5-12.5 gets two and so on.

 

[Ronstar]

^ Thanks for the Strava tip. And the sharpie trick!

 

[Scuba]

Well, I’m very bummed. I walked 8 miles over the weekend in my new Asics Kayano’s, and ended up with blisters on the inside of both heels, down near the sole of my foot. The blisters are long and narrow and run from just behind the arch to about an inch in front of the back of my heel. Very painful. I took the shoes back to the store and asked if they had any way to adjust them or any inserts I could purchase to address this problem. They just had me try on a few different pairs but none felt as good as the Asics had felt before the blisters.

We are ordering a narrow width pair of the Asics to see if that solves the problem. I normally wear a AA width and most walking/running shoes don’t come in narrow sizes, so my heel was slipping even with the rabbit ear tying method.

 

[mystang52]

Well, I’m very bummed. I walked 8 miles over the weekend in my new Asics Kayano’s, and ended up with blisters on the inside of both heels, down near the sole of my foot. The blisters are long and narrow and run from just behind the arch to about an inch in front of the back of my heel. Very painful. I took the shoes back to the store and asked if they had any way to adjust them or any inserts I could purchase to address this problem. They just had me try on a few different pairs but none felt as good as the Asics had felt before the blisters.

We are ordering a narrow width pair of the Asics to see if that solves the problem. I normally wear a AA width and most walking/running shoes don’t come in narrow sizes, so my heel was slipping even with the rabbit ear tying method.

Don't ignore your socks as possible culprit. I only wear Thorlos running socks for my running or when I walk for exercise. They're a bit thicker, and as a result my feet do not slide within the shoe.

 

[RunningBum]

Don't ignore your socks as possible culprit. I only wear Thorlos running socks for my running or when I walk for exercise. They're a bit thicker, and as a result my feet do not slide within the shoe.

I was going to mention socks as well. Dehydration is another possibility. If I don't stay hydrated on long runs, my feet can get pruned and then susceptible to blisters. Both are probably unlikely but worth mentioning just in case.

 

[Aerides]

Scuba, try adding a layer of stick-on moleskin on the inside heel of your shoes to keep them in place better, also include that "extra" tie slot on the laces. Doing these avoid heel slippage for me, and avoids blisters.

 

[splitwdw]

For places to buy try a REI https://www.rei.com/c/womens-shoes?r=c&origin=web&pagesize=90&ir=category:womens-shoes&page=1 or Nordstrom's https://shop.nordstrom.com/c/womens...v&cm_sp=Left Navigation-_-Sneakers & Athletic

 

[Scuba]

Thanks for the comments. I wear really high quality running socks but will definitely look into the moleskin. I’m hoping the narrow size will help.

 

[RunningBum]

Alternatives to moleskin, while you're trying to find the right shoe, is to put on some kind of lubricant so that there's less friction. Vaseline works, but it's kind of messy. I use something called Body Glide. If you want to go cheap, a deodorant stick will work.