Funny timing on this one.
I spent last weekend going through a couple of items I had had in storage for awhile. One bag (my high school-branded duffel bag, by the way) contained some interesting items: old running shoes.
To be more specific, it contained my high school spikes and waffle racing flats and my college training flats and spikes.
You should cue Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" here while I explain how much the high school spikes mean to me. I had a lot of great victories in those shoes including state championship races. So I imagine I will keep them forever.
The college shoes are a different story. I was injured throughout my college 'career' and don't hold many fond running-related memories (although I had a blast helping officiate at U of MN meets!)
Perhaps more indicative of my college athletic days were the other items in that bag: the molds made from my feet when the team had orthotics made for me, along with a couple of different types of orthotics. Why the doctor gave me the molds escapes me. Why I kept them is perhaps the greater mystery.
So why do I keep these things? I don't know. But it seems as though I'm not the only one. In fact, I might be unusual in that I've only kept a few pairs of shoes.
Read this article from today's edition of The New York Times to hear about another runner's shoe collection. (It's a short written introduction and then audio - click on "Nicole Hunt, 39.")
I promise I'll post photos of my shoe collection ASAP. How many old pairs of shoes have you kept strictly for nostalgia purposes?
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