Is it the Shoes?

I have been running for about a year and a half and never gave much thought to footwear until recently. For my first pair of shoes back in 2009, I knew footwear was important and that you shouldn't go cheap, so I went to sports authority and tried on shoes in the $100 range. These ones looked pretty sexy so I gave them a try.


Under Armour Proto Speed II's

They felt good enough so I bought them. They never caused me any pain or discomfort so I bought another pair, then another.
But once I increased my mileage and started running 10+ long runs week after week, I developed some nagging pain in the tendon behind my knee as well as my achilles tendons. I knew it was the shoes 'cause I was doing everything right.
And so I did basically the same thing as before. I did a little more research online and it seemed like people really liked these new barefoot inspired Nike Frees, so I went and tried them on. They felt great- like a glove.


With these shoes, you have to break them in much more gradually than normal shoes. They really are closer to barefoot running, meaning there is no support, so you have to allow certain muscles time to repair and all that.
Well, I love wearing these shoes. They are unbelievably comfortable no matter what you're doing. And I run fast in them. But I still have the same problem: pain after long runs.
Now that things are getting serious with this training, I knew I had to get some real shoes. I'm 200 lbs and going to run a marathon. Time to get real and get myself some good shoes.
Once again I did some research. But this time instead of just reading a few reviews, I looked at tons of reviews from multiple sites, took shoe finder quizzes, and read running shoe FAQs. I realized that I am one of the bigger runners out there and need a shoe that can handle my weight.
What I came up with was a need for max cushioning. I have no issues with pronation or flat feet or anything like that.
So I was able to narrow down the field quite a bit. There were 3 shoes that kept coming up:
Nike Vomero $130 retail
Asics Gel Nimbus $130 retail
Brooks Glycerine $130 retail
I trust Nike and couldn't find a bad review so I figured lets do it. I shopped and called around and found that the only place that had them was my local running store. I asked them to put them on hold and said I'd be in later that evening to pick them up.
When I arrived, I decided I might as well try them on, even though I was pretty sure I would like them. Well, when I put them on my feet, I wasn't actually crazy about them. There were certain places on my feet that were crowded and the stride didn't feel natural to me.
So I tried on the others. I had similar problems with the Asics. Perhaps a few runs would've broken them in more. But when I tried on the Brooks, they just felt right. Similar to the feeling I had when I first put on the frees.
Winner= Brooks!

As of today I have only 11 miles in them so I can't report much other than that I can see how cushioning can make a big difference- striking is was considerably less painful on my 5 and 6 mile runs.
Also, they're bad ass. I'm riding in the Cadillac of running shoes, or as close as it gets.