Rundefeated

Every seasoned runner has a secret vault of running wisdom they love to dish out to newbies. “Hydrate properly.” “Don’t eat spicy food the night before a race.” “Cut your toenails.” But the granddaddy of them all—the golden rule engraved in the sacred scrolls of running—is: never, ever, under any circumstance, run a race in brand new shoes. I didn’t invent this rule. I just watched enough people suffer to respect it like an ancient prophecy.

Let me tell you about my friend from 9th grade. He was fast, like the-wind-struggled-to-catch-him fast. He’d trained hard for the school’s annual running race, using his faithful old shoes—probably falling apart, maybe a hole or two, but those shoes knew his feet better than his own mother did. Then came a well-meaning teacher who decided those shoes were an embarrassment to the school’s reputation. So, just before race day, the teacher marched him to the store, bought him a shiny new pair, and declared him race-ready. If you’ve watched any horror movie, you know the scene right before everything goes downhill. This was it.

Race day arrived, and my friend looked sharp in his fresh, bright shoes. The starting gun fired, and by the first hundred meters, his feet felt like they were being punished by medieval torture devices. Blisters bloomed like unwelcome flowers. By the halfway point, he was limping. By the finish line, he was a cautionary tale. He didn’t even make runner-up. And to this day—twenty years later—he still brings it up over coffee like a war story. “Those cursed new shoes,” he mutters bitterly, eyes distant, probably hearing the sound of the starting gun in his head.

Now, you might think this was just a tragic one-off. Oh no, my friend. History loves to repeat itself, especially when runners get overconfident. Enter my other friend—a grown man this time—who decided to treat himself to a pair of brand new Asics the day before a local 10K race. “They feel great out of the box,” he bragged. Famous last words.

Race day came, and at first, he was flying. New shoe excitement is a real thing, you know. You feel invincible for about 2.7 kilometers. Then the pain set in. His feet felt like they were being beaten with tiny hammers, his heels rubbed raw, and by kilometer six, he was sitting inside the ambulance tent, eyes wide in betrayal. The shoes stared back at him from the corner like a smug villain. Lesson learned? Hopefully.

The moral of the story is simple: your shoes need to break in, and your legs need to adapt. Even the best, most expensive, carbon-plated, turbocharged supershoes need about 50 kilometers of breaking-in. Not because the foam needs to soften up (well, partly), but because your feet need time to make peace with them. The insoles start to shape like your feet, the uppers stretch where your bunions demand it, and your toes negotiate their space inside.

Think of new shoes like new relationships. At first, everything feels perfect. But give it a week, and suddenly you realize they leave wet towels on the floor, snore at night, or in this case, give you blisters the size of golf balls. Break them in during short runs, easy jogs, or maybe just casual walks to the warung to buy iced tea. Anything but race day.

So to all new runners out there: train hard, run smart, and for heaven’s sake, don’t pull a “brand-new-shoe disaster” on race day. Because one day, you’ll be sitting with your friends, reminiscing over old races, and the one thing you’ll remember isn’t your pace—but the shoe-induced agony that could’ve been avoided.