How many miles do you put on your running shoes before you throw them out? I have found that my knees start to get sore at around 350 miles. So, track them on Garmin and replace my running shoes at 350 miles max. This seems like it may be shorter than most people, but in my case, I can definitely feel it in my knees.
I am curious about what others are doing. I go through three or four pairs of shoes per year. At my shoe retirement rate, real runners could go through a dozen pairs per year.
500 to 700 on Mizuno Riders. Normally the uppers are worn out by then.
I don’t think it’s unusual for people to retire shoes at 350, for me that’d be only 8 to 10 weeks.
For me it’s pretty brand/usage dependent. I have two different shoes that I wear depending on distance/type of run (speedwork, long, recovery, etc). One shoe gets about 450-500 miles per pair, and the other shoe gets about 400 miles per pair. I also track on Strava, and I have to be careful when I get close to the max mileage to be aware of any warning signs, because for some reason when my shoes go it’s more like a blowout of a tire than a slow leak. Even one mid to long run in blown shoes can put the hurt on.
Over 1000km, i get rid of them when the tread wears down.
350-400. Shoes are cheap when injury is the alternative. Plus I love new shoes.
I’m in the 300-400 mile camp, depending on how worn the shoe looks and if I notice any detrimental effects from running in them. I typically feel it in my feet. I replaced a pair of NB Zante’s at around 200 miles because they felt dead, but I also used those as daily walking around shoes so that didn’t help.
I’ve definitely retired some shoes prematurely, but I like getting new shoes into the rotation.
Same as you, more or less.
I set the limit in Garmin to 400 miles. I typically rotate two pairs of shoes, new and old. I start running in new shoes when the old shoes reach mid-life. I typically use the newer shoes for longer runs, and alternate on the shorter/medium runs. Sometimes I might alternate by weeks, if I get lazy. Once the old shoes get up to around 350miles, then its sortof based on tread and shoe-feel how close I get to 400 or so. If its been all pavement, then 350 is more or less the limit. But, if I’ve spent considerable TM time, then I might get closer to the 400m limit before they start feeling squishy or no grip in the soles.
Once the shoes get retired, they become my work shoes. I run in Asics GT-1000, black. So, they do ok as a work shoe to go with bluejeans (engineer). Note, I use different color elastic laces to tell the shoes apart.
Like everyone else says…shoes are cheaper than injuries.
ETA: This 100/100 thing has accelerated my shoe usage. I just went and checked, and my “new” shoes are already at 240 miles!!! I’m gonna have to buy more shoes for 2019—I bought 3 pair back in November, thinking there’s no way I would double my annual average mileage from 2017 and 2018 of 630 miles.
I can usually get 500-700 miles out a pair of Nike free flyknit. Have around 500 on my saucony freedom iso now and am getting ready to put them on work duty.
I don’t track distance, but side of the bottom sole wears out on mine. Somehow my pinky toes make holes on the side on some of the shoes, so that’s another reason I have to throw them away. I buy same model a couple of different colors and rotate them. just for the heck of it.
I go about 400-450 miles max. Every now and then I have to replace sooner than 400 due to the worn tread on my shoe. I run in Asics Gel DS Trainer’s.
Run in On Cloudflow and get about 400-425 Miles. I think I may be able to squeeze a few more miles out of them but why risk it.
I’ve been consistently clocking ~800 miles in my Clifton’s (v2-v5) before retiring them to everyday/yard work shoes; most other shoes I’ve been lucky to feel comfortable after 300 miles
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I’ve been able to get over 500 in the Saucony Hurricanes no problem
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I always have two, and sometimes three pairs of shoes that I rotate from one run to the next. These days they are good for about 500 miles.
Back in the day (early 1980’s) it seemed like I was always using some Shoe Goo to patch shoes (especially where the tread at the heel met the upper) in order to get a couple of hundred miles out of a pair of shoes. Running shoes (along with vehicle and bike tires) have definitely improved.
I currently have 925 miles on one pair of Hoka Bondi 5’s, and 352 miles on my other pair of Bondi 5’s, and can’t tell much difference. I’ve got 58 miles on a new pair of Bondi 6’s. I sure hope the new model lasts as long as it’s predecessor. I’ll retire the oldest pair at 1000 miles, and give them to the next homeless person I see, and buy a new pair for the rotation.
Depends on the shoes - some maybe only 200 or so miles if they are strictly race oriented (like Nike 4% or Saucony Type A) up to nearly 2000 miles on a pair of Clifton 1’s that are my treadmill shoes (currently 1968 miles on them).
I’ve had pretty good mileage out of the probably 15+ pairs of Clifton’s I’ve gone through over the years. Even if the outsole looks real worn I’ve found they are still fine to run in - at least for me.
Nike Pegasus 4-500 miles.
Currently have 4 pairs in rotation, the 2 most heavily used have about 7-800 miles on them (little bit of guesstimating involved from my running data as I don’t actually update each run with the shoes I was wearing, but do know exactly when I bought them, how many miles I’ve done since, and how many pairs I’ve had in rotation during that time). Both are Brooks Purecadence. No holes in the uppers, the soles aren’t falling apart yet, and I’m not picking up any running niggles so planning to keep them for a while longer yet. I do tend to use newer shoes for long and tempo runs, the older shoes are used more on easy and recovery runs, and on treadmills.
From the responses above it seems I’m using my shoes a fair bit longer than most people. One factor may be that I do very little running on concrete. For the last 18 months I’ve been living near a beach running track that is slightly rubberised and has a bit of give/bounce in it, so have done maybe 80% of my running on that, with most of the rest on treadmills. Prior to that I was mostly running on pretty nice trails (think flat, even gravel surface next to a river, not dodging around rocks and roots). I’m also inherently sceptical when manufacturers tell us we should be replacing stuff regularly unless I can see for myself it needs replacing. Not just shoes but helmets, mattresses, toothbrushes, etc…
I currently have nine (9) pairs of shoes in my rotation - with mileages ranging from 64 miles to 1,075 miles.
I typically have a race pair, then three (3) pairs I rotate on my road runs, with the remaining five (5) pairs used solely on the treadmill.
The road shoes typically get moved over to treadmill use only at around 350-400 miles.
These shoes are all Brooks with a mix of Ghost, Glycerin, and Launch models.
I don’t find that I’m really sensitive to moving between most models.
There are two things that cause me to throw out a pair of shoes I like:. The uppers tearing or the outsoles wearing down. Midsoles are almost never a factor.
I cannot do anything about the uppers; It just depends on the shoe construction. Some start ripping after 100 miles. Others will last a lot longer . Eventually, they all rip
But I can almost completely prevent outsole wear by proactively applying a thin coating of Shoe Goo to the outsoles in the spots that tend to wear before the wear happens. If I do that, the cushioning almost never noticeably worsens. The upper becomes the only limiting factor.
With that approach, I’ve had countless pairs of shoes last over 700 miles. I’ve had maybe 5 or 6 last over 1000. One pair lasted 2000 (though the uppers started tearing at 1700 so I should have retired them earlier. But even then, they were just as springy as a new pair.
In almost all cases, the midsole compression that people talk about so much was simply not a factor.
My guess is that people often mistake outsole wear for midsole compression. Put an old pair of shoes next to a new model and the most visible differences you will see will be in the outsole. A couple of mm there makes a big difference.