Asics or Saucony Running Shoes?!?!?

I'm excited that you are smart enough to realize that running shoes are the place that you need to start. So many people start running with whatever is in the closet, and never pick up running as a sport or a lifetime hobby because their shoes aren't right for them. That leads to soreness and in the worst cases, injuries, all that can be prevented by a little effort up front. You should feel confident with your shoes, and I have some help for you.

A lot of questions can be answered by surrounding yourself with quality people. One of those quality people you need to help you ultimately find the answer is your local specialty running shoe store owner.

How you and your running shoe store owner will find your pair of perfect running shoes is fairly simple. You will find what type of foot/stride you have, find what kind of shoes work with your foot/stride, try the shoes on and run with them AT the store, and decide which of the shoes that fit and are comfortable fit into your style and price range

To help your running shoe store owner out, bring an old pair of running shoes in with you. They can look at the wear pattern to have a hint at what kind of foot structure and stride you have. Then they likely will study your foot and gait to help you figure out what kind of support you need in a shoe.. You will likely then know if you are neutral, or you are a supinator or pronator. This is valuable information to remember for the future.

To figure out what type of shoes matches your running style and foot structure, you can do the research online at each of the running shoe company websites to get the shoes that match by finding a neutral shoe, support, guidance, or control shoe. See the Brooks running shoe website for how they break their shoes into these categories, they do a great job. Otherwise, the shoe store owner will know what categories all the shoes on the wall will fit into, and how they will control what your foot does. This will tell them where they should look for more foam cushioning (outside, inside, forefoot, heel). This will eliminate your selection of shoes down to likely < 10.

Now comes the fun part, try the shoes on! Run with them. Wiggle your toes. Are they comfortable. This is all about you, the shoe store owner can only tell you so much, you need to convince yourself the shoe fits well. You should be able to eliminate a bunch of shoes just by running with them a bit, as things like the width of your toes (toe box) and the width of your heel come into play. My local store always gives 3 shoes after this step.

Then, use your style and price range help you pick your best running shoes.

Hopefully that will help out. I don't have enough time to give you everything I know, but a website that has been very helpful to me is http://www.runningshoesexpert.com. It goes through the process of finding the best running shoe by having a shoe store owner give out his secrets. Believe me, there are quite a few more to help you out.

Best of luck,
Jeremy Zerr