What Ruins Running

Tomorrow's marathoners who have suffered foot and knee injuries should ask: Is the problem their body or their shoes?

I'd been plagued by running injuries my entire adult life. I'd seen the best sports-medicine physicians and podiatrists in the country, and they'd all prescribed the same fruitless formula of orthotics, ice, and injections. Nothing and no one could cure me. So a few years ago, I looked elsewhere: to a tiny tribe of super-athletes in Mexico, who taught me that it's not running that's dangerous -- it's running shoes.

hat's right. Running shoes are a failed experiment. After nearly four decades of technological gimmicks and outrageous prices, they simply do not perform the function that's their only reason for existence -- protecting your feet. You can now buy running shoes with steel bedsprings embedded in the soles or with microchips that adjust the cushioning, but the injury rate hasn't decreased in almost 40 years. It's actually inched up; Achilles' tendon problems have risen by 10 percent since the '70s.