On Sunday, I wrote about how running on trails is good for your legs. Owning and running in multiple pairs of shoes, is also highly beneficial.  Why would you want to own and run in different shoes?

The first reason is injury prevention.  Most running injuries occur due to overdoing a repetitive motion.  If you only run in one pair of shoes, or one type of shoe, then your run mechanics will be highly repetitive.  Changing to a different type of shoe will change you mechanics ever so slightly.  This in turn, will help with injury prevention.

Rotating through multiple shoes is also good for the shoes, which in turn is good for you.  Whenever you run in a pair of shoes, the foam in the midsole gets compressed.  It takes time for the shoes to relax and for the foam to recover its original state.  If the foam doesn’t recover, the shoes don’t last as long, and your legs start to feel the effects of less cushioning.

It also helps to have different shoes for different kinds of runs.  A light shoe with less cushion might work great for speed work or short races, but is probably not ideal for that super long, easy paced run.  Road shoes don’t work well on trails and vice versa; you need different shoes for the different terrain.

I have five different shoes in my rotation right now. For my regular training runs, I have a pair of Asics Kayano and a pair of Karhu Fusion HiVo.  I use a pair of La Sportiva Jackal for running trails. Finally, I have two carbon plated Asics shoes, that I use mostly for races. A pair of Metaracer for short, fast races, and a pair of Metaspeed Edge for longer races.

Please consider using multiple pairs of shoes for your running.  It really is good for you and once you have a rotation set up, it is no more expensive than buying a single pair at a time.