Let's Talk About Shoes

It's the shoes right? It must be the shoes said Mars Blackmon. The shoes make you run faster and jump higher said P.F. Flyers, Right? wellllllllll maybe. Let's start with some history. In the bad old days, as in my formative years in track from the 5th grade through the 8th grade, we boys who ran track, ran in these:

That's right, Converse, Cons, Chucks, whatever your name for them, THESE were the shoe to wear. What was good about them was the look and the weight. What was bad about them was that these shoes have no arch support, no mid sole and no heel counter. Add all that up and running in these shoes for any length of time equaled a lot of blisters and maybe flat feet.

In the late 1960's and early 1970's, a small Japanese Company called Onitsuka started exporting a shoe called the Corsair. Using traveling salesmen, the shoe was marketed at track meets and at junior and senior high schools. You may have heard of one of these salesmen, his name is Phil Knight. He later received permission to have Onitsuka or "Tiger" as the company became known to have the Corsair made with a different stripe, called the "swoosh." The now famous symbol for Nike. Knight called his shoe the Cortez. Here is the shoe that I dreamed about and mowed many lawns until I had the money to buy it.

At the time these shoes were introduced, it had state of the art technology. A real mid sole-see that blue stripe? A real heal counter, that's that half moon shaped thing on the heal of the shoe, nice tread and something you can't see in this photo, a real padded arch support. The outer was made of leather, heavy in the best of conditions, when it got wet, it added 5 pounds to your own weight. Other than that it was a great shoe for its time. In the mid 1970's through the mid 1980's, the running shoe changed very little other than the leather outer being replaced by nylon. Then came the late 1980's and until now, most running shoes look something like this.

We've come a long way baby! Note the extra plush mid soles, the nylon and poly outer. What you have here is a Ferrari compared to the Model T Converse or the 1955 Chevy Corsair. Is this the ultimate shoe? Will this shoe be the perfect shoe for everybody? The answer is NO! Choosing a shoe will be addressed in the next post.