The Best Places to Buy Running Shoes

The best place to buy running shoes is in a specialty running shop. This is especially the case if you’re not sure which shoes to buy. Sure, you’ll find a decent selection of shoes in sporting goods stores and even department stores, but those stores lack the knowledgeable salespeople who can help you find the model that’s best for you. The workers in a running store are going to be runners like you, who know how important it is to find just the right shoe and who spend their time fitting only runners, not runners along with basketball, football, soccer, and baseball players.
Also, a running specialty store is likely to stock a wider variety of models. The second-tier running companies, who pretty much concentrate on running shoes and don’t have big national promotions budgets, make some of the best shoes out there. But these shoes are often hard to find unless you go to a running store.
At a running store, you’ll be encouraged to pick up, examine, and try on several models until you find the right match. If the staff won’t let you take a short test run in a shoe you’re interested in, or if all their recommendations are for the higher-priced models, take your business elsewhere. Keep the following tips in mind when trying on running shoes:

• Try on both shoes—one of your feet is probably bigger than the other.
• Try on shoes in the afternoon, evening, or after a workout. Your feet are their largest at these times.
• Try on shoes while wearing your running socks and any inserts you plan on wearing.
• The shoes should flex where your foot does—in the forefoot, not in the middle of the arch area.
• When you stand up, there should be a thumb’s width from the end of your longest toe to the front of the shoes.
• The shoes should feel comfortable immediately, rather than needing a break-in period.

Once you find a model that works for you, then it’s OK to buy it wherever you can find it the cheapest. Several running mail-order businesses sometimes offer significant savings over what you’d pay in a store, but I don’t recommend buying shoes through the catalogs unless you’ve previously used the model you’re buying.