More Newtons. More running.

Today (a Thursday) I had a great tempo run.  Tuesday and Wednesday had put a total of 24 mi of moderate pace work in, so I was a bit slow to warm up.  It took me a couple miles to get to my ~8:15 pace.  After 4 mi came the tempo part.  I was kind of looking forward to this because over the last couple of weeks, I've finally felt like I REALLY had a good-feeling stride down with the Newtons, particularly when running faster.  Faster turnover, lighter touch, etc.

It turned out that the tempo section wasn't exceptionally FAST (averaging a few seconds slower than 7:00/mi), but my HR was very low for that pace.  The average for 5 mi was 149 bpm.  Pretty cool.  Must be doing something a little more efficiently these days.  Possibly a bit of fatigue from the previous two days kept the pace a little slower than it might have been.  Hard to say.

This also gets me back to the Newtons.  As you read about them on line, a common (and reasonable) complaint about them is the very high cost.  They list for $175, which is about $50 more than other "high end" shoes usually go for.  (Obviously if you shop around enough, you can get a 10-20% discount, but that brand hardly ever goes on sale - it's usually a store-wide sale.)

As of today, I have 476 miles on my first pair of Newtons, and I took the following photos a few days ago, when the total was 440.  You can click to enlarge.

 

The left image shows the wear pattern on the more-worn shoe.  The inner lugs are more worn than the outer ones, but 1.0-1.5 mm of rubber remains on the front of the more worn lugs.  The red/orange coating on the toe area is starting to bleed through to the yellow beneath.  I haven't detailed the photo, but there is some visible wear on the far outside of both heels, but it's the kind of wear you'd see for <50 miles on a normal pair of shoes.  (This is kind of a funny place near the break of the black area - further to the outside than the typical heel-striking spot...can't figure out exactly what it's from.)

Supposedly, there's not much on the "inside" of these shoes to wear out, like a normal foam midsole on a typical running shoe, i.e., they "wear from the outside in".  If that is really the case, I could easily get 600 miles out of these before the front lugs wear down to the ground.  Granted, a large fraction of this running has been indoors, but that kind of total is double what I've been getting for other shoes.  If i can get 600 mi on a $175-list shoe - all other issues of stride/technique/etc aside - it's a bargain.

Do you wear these shoes?  If so, what kind of mileage do you get out of them?  When do you replace them?  How does the wear compare to your previous shoes?