I tend to overpronate slightly when I run so the store recommended a shoe with slight support. However, before they had told me I don't pronate when I actually did so I have an old pair of Nike Pegasus 33's.
I don't really like doing fast workouts in my bulky support shoes (I have the nike lunarglides and the new balance vongos). Would doing track workouts in the pegasus probably be okay?
Your ancestors ran in sandals. You will be fine in Pegasus. Just don't jump your mileage too fast and your ankle will adjust.
Don't listen to the "experts" at running stores. They are just trying to sell you the most expensive shoes.
Support shoes need to be eradicated. All you need is a neutral shoe and to run with a proper gait. Add some ankle strengthening exercises to help adapt to neutral shoes.
I am a 7 year "expert" at a "specialized" running store. It's impossible for anybody to be 100 percent sure that a specific category of shoe/or shoe in general is going to be perfect for you. Us "experts" can do our best in finding the correct fit and most of the time we do. However, most of the time it doesn't matter what you walk out with because it will be a whole lot better than what you had walked in with. Honestly, if you asked my opinion they should change the name of "stability" to "durability". What a stability shoe does for someone whose ankles pronate is prevent you from breaking down the medial side of the shoe too fast. It has nothing to do with supporting the arch. Take that original sock liner out and the inside of the shoe is completely flat. All the sock liner is there for is to prevent you from feeling the stitching on the inside. Sure they can add cushioning to that sock liner which would change the step-in feel, but nothing to do with arch support. It is important to find a category your best in though. If you have felt comfortable in both stability shoes and neutral shoes the really it's a matter of finding a shoe that is correctly structured to your foot. That comes with time and money unfortunately but once you find the shoe you like, the usual suggestion is to stick with what you know... now as far as your question...
There are plenty of light stability shoes that are the same weight, similar heel-to-toe transition, responsiveness, and overall comfortability as neutral shoes. For some reason the overall definition of stability for so many people is "clunky" or "heavy"... "bricks" even... that's not the case at all. If you want a lightweight stability shoe for speed training.. they have those, you just have to look. Catalyst, Pure Cadence, Vazee Prism, Adizero Tempo, Mirage... Just to name a few...
I switched from support to neutral mizuno's for a marathon build and race.
This was marathon #4
By the end of the race, I had fudged my feet so bad I had to take 14 months off running all together.
The only thing I changed for this buildup was the shoes :(
After running 6 marathons in a stability shoe with no injuries, I had my gait tested and was told I needed a neutral shoe. Since the switch I have had Plantar Fasciitis from a marathon last April and got 2 stress fractures from a marathon I ran in November and have been unable to run since! I have a hard time believing that this is no coincidence.
NB 1500v2 is an excellent light support flat.
ShoeQuestion wrote:
I tend to overpronate slightly when I run so the store recommended a shoe with slight support. However, before they had told me I don't pronate when I actually did so I have an old pair of Nike Pegasus 33's.
I don't really like doing fast workouts in my bulky support shoes (I have the nike lunarglides and the new balance vongos). Would doing track workouts in the pegasus probably be okay?
The only honest answer anyone can give is, "We don't know."
There are very few studies that examine the outcomes of choosing a shoe based on foot type. The ones that HAVE been done have some methodological problems, since it's expensive and difficult to construct a well-designed study on this topic.
The studies that we do have seem to suggest that there is not much of a correlation between matching the support level of the shoe to the height of the arch or the shape of the plantar surface of the foot. In fact, in at least one study, the correlation ran the other way - people who ran in shoes matched with their arch height actually reported MORE missed training days due to injury than people who ran in shoes that didn't match their foot type.
To my knowledge, there aren't any good studies that have supported the idea that if you pronate, and you run in a stability shoe, you'll be happier.