The Long Run

I suspect a lot of triathletes have motion control problems, maybe more than your typical runner. I say this because triathletes tend to be bigger than your average runner—this is especially true of elite triathletes compared to elite runners—and more weight means more force coming down on ankles and arches. Over time, a high arch flattens, and the medial side of your arch and ankle caves in, i.e., you're an overpronator.

What's the answer? Shoes and supports that cradle and buttress your foot on the medial side, keeping things in place. That buttress consists of a pair of possible tactics to keep your foot where it's supposed to be.

When you read about a shoe's "medial post" you're reading about a plug of higher density foam (generally EVA or polyurethane) in that shoe to withstand your foot's tendency to cave in to the runner's centerline.

A "heel counter" generally refers to that midsole's creeping up around the upper to cradle and stabilize it.

If you're a technical footwear company's shoe designer there are a variety of ways to make this dog hunt, and you can bolster or post all three areas of the shoe—the outsole (the bottom layer of the shoe on which you run) the midsole (with a medial post), and the upper (with a heel counter). You'll also see plastic and composite thingies and doodads that get stitched, glued, and otherwise attached to the shoe to provide both heel and arch support.

The best online illustration I've found on this can be seen by clicking this link, and if things go right a new window will pop up and a smart little flash movie will demonstrate how the medial posting works in the Brooks Adrenaline GTS. You'll actually see both a medial post and heel counter in action.

I am an overpronator, and for years I've tried to skate along with reasonably lightweight cushion or stability shoes ("stability" describes a class of shoe that has a bit of motion control but not so much that it weighs the shoe down overmuch). But my arches, ankles and knees have conspired to give me a message: "You're too old to be farting around with higher performance training flats, you need to do your everyday running in motion control shoes."

So during my most recent trip to San Diego I stopped in at Roadrunner Sports' headquarters, where there is a retail store attached to its warehouse. This is convenient, because this brick and mortar store has access to everything that the mail order catalog carries, and you can try shoes on, run on the treadmill, and figure out once and for all what works for you.

I had determined to try on every motion control shoe that they had, from every company. I figured I'd end up with an Adidas, New Balance or Asics, because historically these were the companies in whose shoes I've been running. During my best running years (in my mid 20s and early 30s) I was a confirmed Asics guy. More recently I've been running in NB and Adidas.

But the sales gal said, "Look, you being you, you ought to consider this particular Saucony shoe and that Brooks shoe over there."

I explained that these shoes will not work for me, but after trying on just about everything else I finally gave in. What was my initial reticence? As for Saucony, I sold my company Quintana Roo to them, and worked for them for about five years, and when we parted it wasn't on bad terms, but I guess "tense" is the best way to describe it (Saucony has since sold its bike division to American Bicycle Group). There's a "thing" that often happens in my business, where you just won't consider the brand built by your former employer/sponsor. Real scientific, eh?

With Brooks, for whatever reason I had it in my mind that this company had an image of being, well, frumpy. I just didn't consider it sufficiently cool to run in Brooks. Again, as you can see my decision-making process wasn't built on a firm foundation.

The upshot of the whole experiment was that after trying on and running in just about every motion control shoe made in the Western World, I came out of the store with a pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS (star of the movie above) and Saucony's Grid Stabil MC.

The Saucony (pictured) either is, or runs like it is, a bit heavier than the Adrenalin, and is what I now use for runs in which the performance of the workout is not an issue. This is the better of the two shoes when motion control is the specific desire and a longer, slower over-distance run, or an easy recovery run, is what's on the schedule.

The irony, of course, is that the frumpy Brooks shoe is what I use when it's a more performance-specific workout—a tempo run, for example. Now my view of this company's image is a bit different. Note, however, that you'll not generally find this shoe listed in the "motion control" category. It's considered a "stability" shoe. This is just indicative of the gradient from motion control to cushioning to lightweight trainer. The shoe works for me because it's got quite a bit of medial support, and it fits me superbly.

When I entered the store, I was on a "cost no object" mission. I did not even look at the prices of the shoes I was testing. My mission was to leave the store with the best pair of shoes for me. What I left with were two pair of $90 shoes (the Adrenaline is pictured adjacent), and each company makes motion control and stability shoes in the $110 to $120 range (Brooks' Beast, Saucony's Grid Courageous and 3D Grid Hurricane). The (happy) moral of the story is, there doesn't appear to be a direct correlation between price and function, only between price and feature, and in my case the features of the expensive shoes didn't appear to add any functionality. That said, if the more expensive shoe would've worked best for me, I'd have headed out the store with those. It's just not that much extra money to spend when you consider what the proper footwear means to you.

As we all know, sometimes you don't realize how badly you miss something until you lose it. Last weekend I competed in Brad Kearns' World's Toughest Half, and I raced in the Brooks Adrenalins. I found on Wednesday, my first intended run since the event, that I'd left my shoes up in Auburn, California. More importantly, I'd left my orthotics in those shoes. If you're an overpronator like I am, there's just no existence without orthotics.

I've written twice about my shoe savant, Jim Rice, and the orthotics he makes for me. Having written two articles about this guy, there is absolutely no need to write a third, except danged if he didn't save my life again. I called him up and explained in a panic, "I need new orthotics, and I need them in a hurry!"

"No need to scream," he answered. "I've got your foot profile in the computer, I'll stick a couple of blanks in the mill right now and I'll have the uppers glued on in two hours. Is there anything about them you want to change?"

I immediately drove down to San Diego and picked them up, and yup, they are an exact match to the previous pair.

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