The Nostalgia of Throwing Old Running Shoes Away
And how you can move on from them
There’s some type of special relationship I have with my running shoes. When they’re too worn out and it’s time to get rid of them and move on to the next pair, it’s hard to throw them away.
The most recent pair I tossed are the same shoes I used during my first ever college cross country season as well as my first half-marathon.
According to Fleet Feet, the average pair of running shoes last for 300 to 500 miles. Sometimes, I’ll take a pair of running shoes past a thousand miles, probably because I have a hard time moving on.
It’s hard because I associate the shoes with all of the memories I made with them — the routes, people I ran with, and how they helped me get into better physical shape.
When I look at my old pair of shoes, I see that they barely have any tread to save my footing on a rainy day. But I still feel connected to them for some reason.
Even if they’re discolored and badly beaten up, I can still visualize how happy I was when I first bought them. They fit nice and snug and I posed inside the store like I was a Victoria’s Secret model.
If you’re an active runner, you have probably had to toss a few sets of running shoes. It’s not easy. Even…
