If the shoe fits: Test it

6/3/08 Posted in Sherri Powers  |  2 Comments

As far as shoes go, up until yesterday I’ve lived with the philosophy; If the shoe fits (and it’s cute), wear it.

Looking into my closet you’d probably have a hard time believing that I would have any trouble picking out a pair of shoes. But, when it came time to find a great, supportive running shoe to assist me on my 5K journey, I was lost.

So yesterday, I headed into Playmakers for some help. I was introduced to Lindsey Drake, who first sat me down and asked me specifically what kind of training I’d be doing. With this knowledge she measured by feet, had me walk back and forth across the room twice and was off to the storage room.

First, she came out with four pairs. Pair by pair she put them on, carefully tied them up, had me stand, felt around my foot and then had me walk back and forth across the room a few times. At this time we were looking for the right amount of support and cushion in the shoe. We did this for all four pairs and then narrowed the four down to the one that fit the best.

Just as I was thinking ‘that was easy’, she came back out of the storage room with three more pairs. Based on how the one we picked fit she thought that these three would be a good fit too. So we went through the process again with the three new pairs.

From these four, we narrowed it down to three. Normally at this point, I would just pick which shoe was the cutest and be on my way but at Playmakers, the treadmill comes next.

Drake had me try on one of the three and then walked me over to an area with a treadmill, computer and large flat screen T.V. I was instructed to start the treadmill, get it going to a normal running pace for me and then say ‘go’ when I was ready for her to start recording my feet. After 15 seconds of recording she stopped the treadmill and we carefully watched my feet running in slow motion.

Drake explained that she was looking for any pronation in my feet while I ran. Pronation, I learned, is how much my foot, or ankle, rotates and moves as I run. Picking a shoe that allows too much pronation can cause injuries, due to a lack of support in the shoe.

And then there were two. After checking for pronation in all three pairs, Drake picked the two pairs that gave me the most support. Having to choose between the two pairs she advised me to put them both on at the same time, one on each foot, and walk around to pick which one I liked best. They both felt great, but one felt a little better than the other for some reason, don’t ask me why, and Drake agreed with my pick.

I ended up with a blue and silver, pair of Brooks Defyance running shoes in a size 9. After all that, now I know that if the shoe fits, don’t just wear it, get it tested first.