My All-time Running Shoes

In retrospect, as I review my top two, I can't help but wonder if something else was responsible for my favorite shoes going the way of the Dodo. Afterall, these are NOT pretty shoes. In fact, I remember trying them on, only to wince at the color/design when they were taken out of the box. And yet, I saved the worn versions of all of them (see photos below). That being said, I present a list of my top two training shoes of all time, in no particular order:

My friend Tim recently blogged his top two jogging (training) shoes ("over the years"). It prompted me to write a blog about the same. Although Tim found it a bit difficult to narrow his list down to a top two, I had no problem, rattling them off without a second thought. The fact of the matter is that, although I have worn nice shoes over the years by Asics, Adidas, Brooks, New Balance, and Saucony, there's few shoes I considered "great." Maybe ONLY two. And much to my dismay, every single "great" shoe I have worn has either been discontinued or upgraded to something that only remotely resembles the original. Bill Dieter at Second Sole two time told me I represented only ten percent of the population when it came to jogging gait. A podiatrist two time told that watching me walk looks like my feet belong on two different people. Maybe that is why it's so difficult for me to find great shoes, and I have been relegated to searching the shelves in discount shoe stores looking for the two remaining pair, in my size, that slipped out to the general public. It doesn't happen often but when it does, it's akin to finding buried treasure.

Adidas Ozweego (original): these shoes had an upper that looked like a quilt and they were the first Adidas shoes I ever saw without parallel stripes - I used to call these my "clown shoes" because of the way they flared out at the ball of the foot, and because it was the only shoe I ever wore in women's size 10:


Asics Gel Lyte Ultra: two of the lightest training shoes I ever wore, it had the most comfortable tongue of all time (it was hard-wired to the flaps) - this shoe came out when the Gel Lyte series version number was "3" and there was no "Asics DS" series:


Asics Gel Lytespeed: a racing flat with loads of cushioning and small tread, and in neon colors, another comfortable tongue design - the "split tongue" which was more like extra padding along the flaps - I ran my first Boston Marathon in these shoes:


Saucony Grid Azura (original): these shoes looked like they were made out of "stocking" material with a blue tiger stripe pattern, but, were they comfortable, and light and airy - these shoes could never be worn in the winter:


Last of all, the honorable mention goes to the original Saucony Lady Jazz (from 1981) - my first real pair of jogging shoes, received as a Christmas gift from my parents after extensive research in Runners World magazines after school in my track coach's classroom. I don't remember them being bad-looking, but it may have been because I retro-fitted them with Star Wars shoe laces.


New Balance 826 (a relatively new shoe): I ran in these shoes last year, only to find, when I went back to get a new pair, they were discontinued and replaced with something cost-prohibitive (for me) - I have since combed the net for a single remaining pair, only to come up empty handed time and again.