Victory in Shoes

I honestly cannot say I love shopping. I don't mind the occasional pilgrimage to Best Buy, REI, or a bookstore, usually Barnes and Noble, but I don't shop for fun. The most intense shopping is when I am on a mission for a particular item.

As of yesterday I completed the longest mission yet, replacing my trail shoes. This has been an 8-month saga that began when I noticed that my trusty Nike trail shoes were starting to get cracks in the side of the toe box. Considering that I've had the shoes since early college and they've got uncounted miles of every type of foot travel possible from work wear to hiking the Rockies that's not really a bad run for shoes. Replacing them was supposed to be my birthday gift to me but that didn't happen.

My original goal was an exact replacement which meant light hiking stiffness with Gore Tex lining and a sturdy exterior material. After months of fruitless searching in which I relearned all to well how hard it is to find shoe to fit my feet (all but flat arches, wide front, narrow heel) I was ready to give up. In any problem solving process if you cannot find a solution restating the problem often helps. This is exactly what I did. After some serious thought I realized that what I needed was not an exact replacement, but a shoe with a moderately stiff sole with trail hiking lugs and good venting for coolness during warm weather hiking. For times its wet I can either use the Nike shoes that are still usable or wear waterproof socks.

This change significantly widened the range of choices and lowered the bottom end of the price range. After focusing on Nike since that is my tennis/running shoe of choice and buying a pair at the outlet mall that did not work out, I finally broadened my search in the return trip to the outlet mall. After almost two hours of trying on lots of shoes I ended up with a pair of Adidas trail shoes that meet the standards and are comfortable after a day of wear. The best part is that in purchasing the shoes I was able to use a gift card I won at the state meeting we had so there was no net cost to me besides the driving which probably adds up to the same cost as the shoes with the two trips to the outlet mall as well as two expeditions to REI in the initial search.

I hate shoe shopping.

On a separate note, here's some tips for increasing fuel economy from MSNBC.