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

Many didn't survive. Oten, you'd see a guy finish a race in some Nike Zoom's and then you'd never see that guy again.

I kept my claim to trainers (though I'm quickly finding out there were many good options for trainers) specifically because I'm enough of a spike nerd to know the spikes were some of the best! Jasaris in the split colorway are legendary and the classic Puma Bees are up there as well. I'm also partial to the spotted Vents but my appreciation is purely aesthetic and nostalgic as my first pair of spikes were a pair of Nike Zoom Shifts circa 2009, though a teammate had the new Victorys in the USA colorway and I finally got a pair a few seasons later once I could convince my parents to drop $110 on spikes!

We were built different than the fluff of today

Shoes were never the problem in the 70’s for cyclists. A pair of Binda Extra toe straps on Campy pedals worked. Pounding the pavement meant going down & that was way more brutal than anything running could dish out. I have had 3 broken collar bones, & now run like a cripple - but that works these days.

In 1978, New Balance (I think) came out with the first squishy soft heel shoe. I ran in the Air Force European Championships and about half the runners were wearing them.

The heels would almost completely collapse after a few runs and they looked like some of today's shoes where the heels angle down to the ground instead of coming straight down from the heel. Oh, and these shoes scrunched when you ran. It was easy to tell if someone was coming up behind you. :)

They were pretty good shoes for their short life expectancy.

1500m WR was in Eldorets

I still have a couple pairs of Mariahs.

They are similar to the super shoes of today in some respect. A stiffer platform with a thicker rather inflexible forefoot (your footplant and toe off needed to match the rocker built into midsole of the shoe). They were road specific and were too unstable with a lack of traction for any other surface. If you were a forefoot striker and of the right weight, they offered lots of pop, bounce and rebound while saving your legs from pounding.

I distinctly remember fads like "energy return" that were sort of an imperfect precursor to modern-day super shoes.

I was also the first kid in my class to own a pair of "Nike Air" shoes. They made me feel like a BMOC for a short while.

The most specialized gear I had were a set of spikes for track and x-country. They were probably Nike's, too. A few decades later when I was training a lot, I switched to New Balance...and still grieve the fact that they don't make 890's anymore (and that the later versions of that shoe went backwards in perfection).

they were great-I raced in Mariahs for 5k/10k from '87 in high school when they came out to the late 90's; They were actually pretty cushiony for racing flats back then--I even ran a bunch of 15ks/halfs in them; some of my friends had Duelists and liked 'em. when you are 160 lbs soaking wet you could pound the roads with almost anything in the 80s! that being said my feet are feeling the effects now; I actually liked old school and happy we didn't have springboard shoes/GPS back then-you felt really fast in those flats!

I ran marathons in the zoom waffle...which was little more than a 1/8 in flat piece of rubber on the bottom of your foot. Won many mid level marathons and races in them. Wouldn't come close to considering them now!

100% agree-my dad raced on adidas in the 70's for marathons and they were like cardboard--I was lucky where the Mariah was out by the time I started racing in 1987--the shoes then were minimalist compared to today but terrible would be a stretch...

Americans were slow as shtt in the 90s and early 2000s. Sub 20 won local 5ks. Interval training was rampant. So yeah definitely different than today's tik Tok runners who worship Newbury parks 4:20 aint fast culture. I can see why you'd think you would have the upper hand though.

Runners didn't wear Air Max in the 90s. It was always seen as a gimmick.

Not related to shoes, but in 1993 the #1 high school 1600m and 3200m times in the country were 4:07 and 9:00. A couple hundred broke 9:00 last year. I trained in Nike's and thought they were fine. When they wore out after 3-4 months, just get new ones. The 1970s and prior had very questionable running shoes.

... except that phylon midsole collapsed after about 100 miles lol.

I never ran faster than I did in a pair of Etonics. Maybe it was me, maybe it was the shoes.

Shoes were still pretty terrible even in the "noughties".

Everyone seemed to wear Asics Kayanos, despite the fact that it was a shoe made for overpronators.

Even the neutral shoes were so "piece-y". The midsoles had too many different compounds of gel, plastic and dual density foams that the shoes always ended up feeling so clunky and unnatural. And don't get me started on how flat they were (rockers weren't really a thing until Hoka popularised them in the twenty-teens).

The uppers on these behemoths always seemed to bunch as well; cutting into the toes at the lowest eyelet of the laces. And there were seams everywhere.

Everyone seemed to deal with them though, as they didn't really have a better point of reference. I can tell you that some of the runs in these shoes were among the most enjoyable I've ever had.

I trained in Nike Elites (Flat) and Pegasus which was typical neutral trainer like today's Brooks Launch. I loved the Elite. I started them as racers and then when they got older used them to train. Then for some reason raced in them again and got more PRs. I like the old waffle racers too.