Originally Posted by
Brittain
Maybe someone can point me to some unbiased studies, but I tend to think the idea that shoes need to be replaced after a certain number of miles is a myth perpetuated by the shoe companies (and repeated by endorsed athletes and coaches) in order to boost sales. That's not to say that shoes don't indeed wear out and need to be replaced, but that depends on a great deal more factors than "miles" put on them. How heavy your footfall is, where you run, the quality of the shoe in the first place, etc. I will replace my shoes for sure, but my feet will tell me when that time comes.
I've always just replaced by shoes at the beginning of heavy seasons. I agree whole-heartedly with you on this. Running in college you see a lot of different opinions on this sort of thing. I think the majority of people changing shoes with under 500 miles on them were paranoid about injuries. We mostly ran on country roads (gravel, grass, dirt...etc) so the miles we put on the shoes didn't really weaken the support as much as concrete or asphalt would.
I never had any issues with injuries and would run in my shoes for 600-750 miles or upwards. I actually ran in a pair for nearly a year (well over 1k) and just kept buying quality insoles because I couldn't find shoes that fit the same anymore.