80s & 90s runners: how did you survive the terrible shoes?

Same here. The Air Mariah has a somewhat thick forefoot midsole. I raced in that shoe for everything up to a HM. First pair of flats for road racing I bought had a paper thin outsole, no cushioning at all. No problem back then (early 70s) b/c I weighed 120-125. Tiger Onitsuka, mail order from Phil Knight's store d/b/a Blue Ribbon Sports.

When my shoes stated to fall apart I used trainers tape to get a week or two out of them; I was poor them.

Yep, that´s what my dad always said (baby boomer, elite runner in the 70s, early 80s). Got to wear some of his training and racing flats in early 90s, then got the state of the art trainers, flats and spikes. Incomparable in terms of comfort.

Still have some racing flats from late 90s, and when I try them on, they are very uncomfortable, even though I would swear they were the best shoes ever made. It´s called reminiscent optimism. We were young, fast and our bodies could tolerate the training load even in crappy shoes. The body got used to it, and runner became stronger... you ran in whatever shoes were available, and tried to squeeze every last mile of the body in the hunt to become faster.

As I have aged, I became more sensitive to comfort, cushioning of the shoes, springiness, etc. Today´s shoes are much better, more expensive and last much shorter. You cannot have it all. Since I am lucky to be able to run even after more than 30 years of pretty heavy mileage, I can compare. Back in 60s and 70s, only the strong, athletically built with runner´s body, could run competitively. In the 80s, running became more available even for sedentary, non-athletes. Nowadays - the technology allows for some form of regular running even for people that should probably not run at all...

Men were men. None of this transgender bs. We trained hard and raced even harder. The equipment didn’t matter but the man did. Very different than the girly boy “super” shoe era of today.

Yea the shoes were terrible. In 1986 George Mason was sponsored by adiddas and these shoes were terrible. In the early 90's ran in a variety of shoes that all sucked.

Recently have been sent free Kayano's from Asics and can't believe how good these shoes are. World of difference from back in the day.

+1 on that mid 90s Nike Windrunner. It was their cheaper option - like today's Winflo or something. It was a fantastic shoe and lasted forever. The Pegasus was around, but I found my old pair in my parents basement, and that thing was a brick, with a huge stability post. I'm guessing that Windrunner was like 35 bucks in '95

I started running in the late 60s and ran 90 up to 140 miles per week. The training shoes weren’t bad once Nike introduced the waffle trainer, but the marathon racing shoes sucked until Nike introduced the Mariah in 1980. That was the super shoe of the day. You could crush marathons and ultras with them right out of the box.

todays plush shoes are a little much for me because they bounce too much and throw off what stride I have left. I do like the racing shoes however!

The plimsoll was perfect running shoe if it had been lighter say under 180g and wider for toe splay. The shoes these days are injury causing clown shoes that remove all proprioception ground feedback. Running in them supershoes islike trying to play darts with a blindfold on.

All the corrective shoes were crap. Big flat bricks. Anyone remember the Mowab? Trail runner that WAs the first minimalist shoe amongst All Those pieces of crap

I started running in the 90s and wore Adidas, Reebok and Nike and raced in Nike flats. They weren't terrible. I remember being very comfortable for 50+ mile weeks. I hurt more now because my body is beat down.

2010s & 20s runners: how did you survive the terrible shoes?

I began running in 1972 as a high school frosh; was v. high mileage, 70-80/week mainly on roads (young and stupid). Can't recall what trainers I wore, but they were really inadequate. Racing flats were like slippers. Ran a couple road 30Ks in high school in those shoes and couldn't walk for several days.

Basically, wasn't until early 80s that shoe manufacturers started to make sense and produce trainers that had decent support. Honestly, though, I don't know how we survived before that. And it wasn't because "we were tough back in the day." GIMME A BREAK, old guys. If super shoes had come out in 1978, you would've bought them in a flash!!

Was talking recently to a 70-year-old buddy of mine who's been a serious skier for 50 years. I explained how current-day training/racing shoes are vastly superior to shoes from, say, 1980. I asked him: "Would you want to be using the same skiing technology you were using in 1980?" Of course not.

I'm 66 years old. Super shoes can help me knock off 5 seconds per mile in a 5K -- should I feel like a cheat?

I ran all through the 80s...shoes weren't bad. EVA and blown EVA are good materials for midsoles.

I'm sure shoes were heavier then compared to now, which wasn't great.

I'd say one other thing: in the 80s the industry pushed the 'must stop overpronation' story very heavily so anyone with knee problems was shuffled into heavy 'motion control' shoes. Which in retrospect probably made things worse - hauling around heavy weights on your legs in the form of stiff heavy shoes couldn't have helped.

And we used to think we had to do intervals in heavy training shoes. Only wore racing shoes on race day. So we had very little time in racing shoes, so they felt weird on race day. Not the smartest, and neither was spending 20 minutes stretching every day.

I ran in the mid to late 70s and for a while used Chuck Taylor's lowtop. I used Addias SR72 and SR76. Got over 4000 miles in one pair which was a mistake.

Putting emphasis on the word "survive", I would say that it was not shoe related. Always tried to run on soft ground, mostly trails in the forest and it helped save legs. Also, always took a winter break when was usually (XC) skiing, while the running-induced injuries were healing.

I kind of chuckle at this post being a guy who started running in the early '70s.

In the early '70s there were basically only Adidas and Puma (if you could find them). There was no such thing as a "running shoe" store.

By the mid '70s there was Nike and Tiger and you could make a tracing of your foot and send it off to Boston and have New Balance make you a pair of shoes.

By the late '70s things completely changed. The running boom had hit. Jogging/running was the new fad and even the really cool people started doing it. There were 5Ks every weekend for the public where there literally were only a handful of races for hardcore types just a couple of years before.

Running shoe franchises like Athlete's Foot, Athletic Attic and a bunch of others started popping up in malls everywhere (which also were popping up everywhere).

Shoe companies came out of the woodwork. Too many to even mention.

We thought we were seriously in a high tech age back then with all these new shoe options.

And then... in about 1979 they came out with lightweight wrist watches that had stop watches built in, nylon running shorts and singlets, running socks!!! It was frickin' space age compared to just seven years before.

And then in the '80s bicycles went through the same thing after they "invented" triathlon in circa 1980.

80s? 90s? You've got to be kidding. That was great. Try 1960s or even 1970s. I think NIKE helped make a big difference with innovation that rippled through the industry. I had great shoes in the 90s. Even in the early 70s, we felt we were in a 'golden age.'

When I started running, name brand running shoes were not in the budget for my family. My sister and I just ran in the knock-off sneakers we happened to already own. They made my feet bleed occasionally but where otherwise fine. We eventually bought the very cheapest non-air Nike runners. Again, also fine.

Shoes make a difference at the top end of the sport, but for your average runner, if they're not causing you actual pain, you're fine.

If super shoes came out in 1978 I'd have had to choose between selling a major internal organ on the black market or not buying super shoes.