Why I Got Weirdly Emotional About Retiring My Running Shoes

There comes a moment in every runner’s life when you look down at your shoes and realise the relationship is over.

Not because you fell out of love. Far from it. The affection is still there. The memories are still there. But the cushioning has the structural integrity of a damp sponge and every step now feels like mild punishment.

That moment arrived in late January when I looked at my old ASICS Gel Stratus 4 and my Kiprun Cushion 500s and accepted a hard truth.

The lads were finished.

Not completely destroyed. Not disintegrating in the dramatic way shoes sometimes do after a thousand brutal miles. No holes in the upper. No sole flapping around like a loose tooth.

But the magic had gone.

What made retiring them slightly more emotional than usual was this.

These were the shoes that carried me through my return to running after nearly a decade away from it.

For years the running had stopped completely. Life moved on, fitness quietly disappeared somewhere along the way, and the idea of marathon training felt like something from a previous lifetime.

Then, slowly, I started again.

The first awkward runs. The heavy breathing. The deeply humbling realisation that running fitness evaporates far faster than it ever arrives.

And through all of that, these two pairs were the ones that came with me back onto the road.

The Shoe Rotation That Got Me Through Dublin Training

They were not just part of a training rotation.

They were the shoes that carried the first miles of a comeback after almost ten years away from running.

And it was a very honest little rotation. Nothing flashy. No carbon plates. No marketing slogans promising world records.

Just two dependable pairs of trainers quietly doing a serious amount of labour.

The Kiprun Cushion 500s were responsible for the easy work.

Recovery runs. Gentle miles. The slow plods around the roads when your legs feel like wet concrete. The Toyota Corolla of the two pairs if you will.

They were comfortable, forgiving and extremely versatile. The sort of shoe you can throw on without thinking. No drama. No fuss. Just get out the door and clock up the miles.

The ASICS Gel Stratus 4 handled the business end of things.

Tempo runs. Speed sessions. Long runs where you try to maintain the will to live.

These were the shoes that came out when you wanted to feel like a slightly more professional runner. They had a slightly firmer feel and just enough responsiveness to make you think you were still capable of running properly.

Between the two pairs they covered everything. Easy days. Hard days. Long days.

Looking back, it was a very salt of the earth rotation.

No champagne. Just two dependable pairs of trainers quietly doing their job.

The Hamstring Incident

It was during one of those training runs that my hamstring decided it had seen enough of this nonsense.

The injury happened while I was wearing the ASICS pair.

Now before anyone starts pointing fingers, I would like to formally state that the shoe was not responsible.

The blame sits entirely with the idiot inside the shoe.

Runners love blaming equipment. Shoes get blamed. Socks get blamed. Sometimes the weather gets blamed.

But the truth is usually simpler.

The fault lay with the eejit who didn’t stretch properly because he was “in a rush”.

The ASICS were merely innocent bystanders while the adult male attached to them made poor decisions.

The hamstring injury caused a fair bit of panic at the time. Anyone who has trained for a marathon knows that sinking feeling when something goes wrong late in the build up.

But in the end the story did not finish there.

The hamstring settled enough, the training limped towards the start line, and when marathon morning arrived those same ASICS Gel Stratus 4s were the shoes I wore for the race itself.

My first marathon in a long time, and the same pair that witnessed the injury ended up carrying me the full distance as well.

Shoes See Everything

Running shoes witness things.

They see the parts of your training that nobody else sees.

The early morning runs where the streets are desolate.

The rain. The wind.

The long runs where everything feels manageable until it just doesn’t.

They see the full emotional life cycle of marathon training.

Optimism. Confidence. Overconfidence. Doubt. Despair. Hope. Elation.

In this case they witnessed something slightly more dramatic than the usual training cycle.

They saw the slow return of a runner who had not properly trained in nearly ten years.

They saw the awkward first miles.

They saw the gradual improvement.

They saw the moments where running began to feel normal again.

They also saw the finish line of a marathon. 

The same pair that happened to be on my feet when the hamstring went wrong ended up carrying me through the race itself. 

In the strange logic of running, that somehow felt appropriate.

And through all of it they kept doing their job.

Step after step.

Run after run.

Quietly absorbing the punishment.

The Slow Decline

At first you do not notice when a shoe begins to fade.

The change is subtle.

One run feels slightly harder than it should. Another run leaves your calves feeling unusually tight.

You tell yourself it is just fatigue. Or poor sleep.

Then it happens again.

And again.

Eventually you look down and notice the outsole has worn smooth in places. The midsole feels flattened. The bounce that used to be there is now more of a dull thud.

You still keep using them, of course.

Runners are nothing if not stubborn.

You convince yourself they still have a few more miles left in them. Maybe a few more weeks. Maybe another month.

But deep down you know the truth.

The end is fast approaching.

The Final Runs

By the end of January, drifting into early February, the moment had clearly arrived.

The final few outings with those shoes felt different.

Not dramatic. Not catastrophic. Just tired.

Every step felt slightly heavier. The ground felt slightly harder. The shoes that once felt lively now felt like they had done their time.

You finish the run and look down at them in the hallway.

There is a moment of silence.

A quiet acknowledgement between runner and shoe.

Right lads.

It has been emotional.

The Retirement Ceremony

Retiring running shoes is a strange ritual.

Nobody really talks about it but every runner has their own version.

Some shoes become walking shoes.

Some are promoted to gardening duty.

Some end up permanently beside the front door for quick trips to the shop.

In this case the ASICS and the Kipruns have been moved to the back of the wardrobe where retired trainers go to live out their days.

If running shoes could talk, that section of the wardrobe would sound like a pub full of retired footballers.

Stories about long runs. Arguments about the worst weather conditions. Wild exaggerations about how many miles they actually covered.

The Next Generation

Their replacements have already arrived.

Two new pairs now sit by the door ready for duty.

Fresh foam. Untouched outsoles. The optimistic energy of shoes that have not yet experienced a miserable twenty mile run in cold rain.

These ones are slightly different though.

They came all the way from China.

Two very interesting additions to the rotation that will now carry me through the next phase of training, including preparations for the Belfast Marathon.

But that story deserves its own article.

In the next piece I will take a look at the two Chinese running shoes that have replaced these old veterans and explain why I decided to take a chance on them.

A Quiet Thank You

It might sound ridiculous to thank a pair of running shoes.

But these two pairs did more than just rack up miles.

They carried the first steps of a running comeback after nearly a decade away.

They were there for hundreds of miles. Through good runs and terrible runs. Through injury scares and small training victories. They saw me over the finish line in Dublin. 

They carried the weight of every step.

And in the strange world of distance running, that counts for something.

So here is to the ASICS Gel Stratus 4 and the Kiprun Cushion 500s.

Two honest pairs of trainers.

No nonsense. No drama. Just solid dependable shoes that quietly did their job until the very end.

Now resting peacefully in the retirement section of the wardrobe.

And probably still judging the newer pairs for not knowing how easy they have it.