Hi, this is Debbie Boyle's coach at Mojo for Running with podcast number 40,

Running Shoes. This is the first in a series of three podcasts about running shoes.

In this first podcast, we'll talk about some general things that you need to know to buy shoes,

like whether the person who is the salesperson knows what they need to know to help you get into the right shoes.

In other words, whether they're knowledgeable, some common terminology and other things that will help you.

In the next episode, we'll discuss the whole minimal shoe movement.

And in the third episode, we'll discuss things like socks, lacing,

sizing, cleaning your shoes, rotating your shoes, etc. There's much to consider, actually.

If you make a mistake and you buy the wrong shoes, it could be that you waste your money

because after you've worn them, they may not take them back. But what is actually much worse is that wearing the wrong shoes can cause serious injury.

You could actually have an injury or a problem that's caused by your shoes.

In fact, I'll tell you this.

When people tell me that they have a problem with their foot or actually anything in their leg.

One of the first questions I asked them is, have you changed anything recently about your training?

And I mean anything like doing more speed work, upping their mileage, changing their cross training.

But I always, always make sure one of my first questions is,

have you changed your shoes lately?

And I can't tell you how many times people have a problem and when I'm asking them just a few questions,

all of a sudden it dawns on them that the problem actually

started during after they had only run one or two or three or five or six times after they

bought a new pair of shoes. And sometimes they've taken those shoes back, gotten either what they

had before or a different pair of shoes, problem solved. So always consider that.

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