Keeping running shoes clean and dry after jogging in the rain
With this recent rain I realized that there are both good and bad features with my running shoes. The good features are the tread on the sole of the shoe. It has many grooves, flexible cuts, and deep protruding rubber areas for good traction on wet and slippery roads. The small cuts help with the flexibility of the shoe for comfort. The top part of the shoe is nylon and soft that also helps with the comfort of the shoe. The bad features are the tread on the sole of the shoe. It has many grooves, flexible cuts, and deep protruding rubber areas for good traction on wet and slippery roads. Those features also have a strong tendency to pick up a lot of mud on the road from the rain. With all the mud in those grooves any attempt to not track footprints on the floor is almost always a failure. The location of a chair, bench, or a medium height porch edge, is necessary for any outdoor work on removing the mud.
I found a small flat head screwdriver works best for grooves, small cuts, and those deep protruding rubber areas. I never realized how many grooves, small cuts, and deep areas are on the sole of a running shoe until I tried to remove the mud from them. The groove and cuts cleaning comes after the layer of mud that makes the sole one flat pancake of mud that needs to be removed. After all the mud has been removed from the sole of the shoe you find that there is a small pile of mud chips around your feet. Since you are barefoot or in socking feet you are reluctant to stand up. And the mud pile will only double in size when you attempt to clean the other shoe. If you have done this cleaning off of the mud from your shoes before you are prepared for the mud at your feet. You have positioned a broom within an arm’s reach to sweep the mud away so you can stand up.
The reason there is mud is because of the rain. The wet surface of the ground invariably gets the nylon top of the shoe soaked. There are a few options for this dilemma. One is to open up the laces and tongue of the shoe and lean them against a wall to dry out. The nylon portion will usually dry in a day. The inner rubber sole will not dry for a minimum of two days. That means you need a minimum of two, and preferably three, pairs of shoes to use on consecutive days. This way you can continue running and still have time to dry the shoes between runs.
The fact that it is recommended to have three pairs of running shoes is a good point. If you run in the same pair of shoes every day the inner sole of the shoe is compressed and needs time to return to its original cushion. The constant compression of the inner sole from wearing the shoe every day prevents the inner sole from returning to its original shape and the shoe will wear out much faster. Having a different pair of shoes to wear over a period of three days will actually extend the wear of the shoe significantly.
Whether you buy the same model shoe for all three pairs, or have three different brands and models, is a matter of preference. I tend to favor trying different brands to add variety and each one has a different feature that your foot must adapt to. The changes in foot placement produces stress on different muscles and helps prevent an ‘over use’ injury by using the same shoe every day. This over use injury is a rare possibility but the more your muscles and feet have to adapt to changes helps to strengthen them.
The one point to be made when you buy three different brands of shoes is that you try them all out for comfort and fit. If one of the shoes seems to change your foot placement too much it is better to put it back on the shelf and try another brand. You want all three shoes to be comfortable and feel good when you run. Different brands of shoes have different ‘life spans’. Some wear out faster than others. This is good as then you only have to buy one pair of shoes to replace the worn shoe. Buying a pair of running shoes one at a time is less expensive and the shoe will last longer.
One other point to make is you need to visit a lumber or hardware store to buy a small flat head screwdriver to clean your shoes when you run on muddy days.
