Waffles

I am here to freely admit: I am a brand snob.  I tend to find a brand of something, and if it works I will consistently use the brand because I know what I am going to get when I use it.  Let us just say, it puts me in my comfort zone and truly that is where most of us want to be anyway. And one of my favorite brand of running shoes is Nike. At the end of last year, I received a gift card and since I was cleaning out the house of old shoes for recycling decided to swing by the Nike Clearance Outlet to see if they had anything good on sale.  

I walked in and on the main display aisle, they had Air Max’s on sale.  I have not been a fan of the Air Max mainly due to the “bubble” in the heel of the shoe.  At the same time, I was intrigued to see what would happen if I returned to the original waffle iron tread of Nike.  In the past, I have always felt I had more shoe life out of the waffle iron tread as opposed to many of the modern tread designs used on some models.  And at that price, I was only coming out of $2 from my own pocket, so I snagged a pair.

I must admit, one of my many downfalls is I never break in a pair of shoes before going out for a run unless I am trying out a new brand.  So I took my shoes out on a Friday night and relaced them into a runner’s pattern freeing up room in the toe box. The next morning as I headed out for my run I admittedly noticed the toe box was slightly smaller than I was used to comparing to the other Nike models I usually run, causing some discomfort in my big toe on my right foot.  Before my next run, I loosened the laces a bit further near the bottom giving myself more room and quickly dispelling the notion I was going to hate running in the Air Max’s. After my long run on Sunday, I decided to check the tread on my shoes and was pleasantly surprised to see very minimal wearing on either shoe.

So I have definitely fallen back in love with the waffle iron tread design from Nike, and definitely, continue to use it for training runs.  I may switch back into others just for race days, have not decided yet, maybe I will wait to see what race times look like first. But I now have three favorite waffles:

1. Belgian waffles
2. Nike running treads
3. Honey Stinger organic waffles