How to Buy the Correct Running Shoes

The Marathon season is around the corner, leading to a spike in shoe sales. Now buying shoes is easy business right... Wait for 40% discount season, walk into the store and look for the best colour and design thats available.

Unfortunately not, when it comes to buying running shoes, one needs to take special care. While Running on the treadmill/road your joints, archs, feet come under so much stress and one could do severe injury to oneself if one is not careful about ones running... While there are other precautions that one needs to take while becoming a full fledged runner, when it comes to shoes it is imperative to buy the right shoe according to your feet type and running style.

Heres a small note on how to purchase your running shoes:

Process for buying Running Shoes:

Step 1: Check out feet type, whether its flat feet , normal arch or high arch... you can do this test by dipping your feet in water and leaving an impression on a plain piece of paper. If you can see the imprint of the entire feet you are flatfoot if only little bit of the midfoot is visible you have normal arch and if the middle portion imprint is almost invisible you have got high arch.. There is no best feet type to have. Just the correct running shoes for it.

Diff foot types require diff running shoes...

for eg flat feet require lot of stability and midsoles so that your feet does not bend at your ankles. These type of runners usually go for stability shoes.

Normal to High archs require shoes with plenty of flexibility to encourage foot motion. These type of runners usually go for cushioned shoes, from neutral to high cushioned depending on normal to high arcs.

While the wet foot test is fairly used across the world, it is not fool proof as it fails to determine your running Style.....

Step 2: Style of Running... This is the most important process in buying a shoe. To understand the style of running,one has to understand a concept known as pronation. Pronation is the bending of your foot every time it lands on the ground. The degree of rotation varies from people to people...

To understand how you pronate, the best way is to check your old shoes... Understand where the wear and tear is taking place. Look at the front and midsole and find out if the wear is happening on the outside part of the shoe or the inner part of the shoe...

Ideal (or neutral) wear will be in the middle of the toe, Underpronation or Supination would be indicated by wear towards the outside of the toe & overpronantion would be shown by wear on the inside portion of the toe

Note: "We shouldnt look at heels for this assessment as most of the runners land first on the outerpart of the heels..."

Step 3: Weight and Toe Box...

If you are a heavily built runner you require different types of shoes as compared to if you are light weight runner. Also check out if your toe is wide, if its so then you may need shoes with a wide toe box....

To Wrap Up...

1) Find out your feet type with the wet test...

2) Find out where the wear of your current shoe is happening.

3) Is your toe Box Wide enough. Does it cause discomfort when your little finger in the feet hits the fabric of the shoes...???

The Kind of shoes for you:

If you have a neutral to high arch and are more likely to underpronate: look for Cushioned shoes
If you are a moderate to flat feet and are likely to overpronate: Stability and Motion Control Shoes

The above recommendation is based on the assumption that for majority of runners, certain arch types go with certain pronation styles, but this is not sacrosanct.

In case you are not in the majority, and you have to make a choice, buy shoes according to your running style(pronation style) rather than foot size...

Hope this post helps!!! Happy Running...

Confessions of an Average Cricket Lover

Confessions of an Average Cricket Lover: So there I was vociferously jumping around like a stock broker who had just made millions. Dhoni had just slammed a six to start the biggest party India has seen since probably Independence. Involuntary tears flowed down my rotund cheeks as the Indian players hugged, cheered, cried together. First things First… Am not your maniacal head tonsuring cricket fan, neither am I the indifferent EPL lover. For most of the Indians born in the late 70s and early 80s, Cricket started with Kapils Devils lifting the trophy at Lords. It would be a lie if I tell you that I remember the 1983 World Cup. I was a 2 year old toddler in a houselhold with no television. So lets fast forward a bit… My earliest remembrances of Cricket were Sunil Gavaskar scoring his maiden ODI century against New Zealand and Ravi Shastri driving around an Audi though not necessarily in that order. I also faintly remember my father trying to explain the game to me. Iam sure he had an easy time as compared to fathers of today who probably have to explain referral systems, Powerplays, Duckworth Lewis, Poonam Pandey and the works. Allow me to get a bit nostalgic.. and Why shouldn’t I… Those were simpler times… Fodder was meant only for animals,Coffins for dead people, MBAs did not command the kind of dowry an Engineer or doctor could, everyone wanted to have body hair like Anil Kapoor, people could name atleast 4 players from the hockey team and Krishi Darshan would have beaten IPL hollow in TRPs. Cricket was no exception, Dawood Ibrahim was a respected figure in cricketing circles, India dreaded playing against Pakistan in Sharjah on a Friday, No Asian player used to feature in Bush Great Catches, and a Yorker was supposed to be dug out and not helicoptered out of the stadium. It was during this unblemished age that the 1987 World Cup was conducted in India. Frankly I don’t remember much of this tournament either. It was quite surprising considering that slowly but surely I was transforming into a couch potato with little or no talent in actually playing the game. What I do remember is my father explaining why the Eden Gardens is the greatest stadium in the world and a picture of Allan Border and his team holding the trophy in Times of India. A few boring years afterwards, I saw a curly haired lad along with Kapil Dev claiming that Boost was the secret of his energy on Television. That lad was already being hailed as the next demi god after Kapil Dev, though my class mates were unkindly mentioning how he would never get the Palmolive endorsement to his credit. However Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar remained in the background for quite some years as Kapil Dev tried hard to match Richard Hadlee’s record, Pakistani bowlers found ways to cast a spell on the ball. This era was probably known for India playing mostly against Pakistan, England or West Indies, getting walloped in the process. And then just when international cricket was getting a bit too stale for my liking, 3 things happened… 1) My Dad bought a Color Television 2) Manmohan Singh and his now famous policies resulted in cable revolution 3) Nelson Mandela was released from Prison and South Africa was welcomed back into the cricketing fraternity This made for a heady mix as we came to know for the first time, how South Africans due to years of isolation from the rest of the world had forgotten all about gravity, that lightning was fast and had a colour. It was around this time that the 1992 world cup began in NewZealand and Australia. For the first time I watched open eyed as I realized that cricket grounds were meant to be lush green and that cricket could be captured from more than 2 camera angles. The Production Quality of matches in Australia would in years to come still maintain its superiority over the desi channels. I remember New Zealand was a strong favourite back then with the likes of Mark Greatbatch, Martin Crowe in the lines, but what I also remember is rain doing India in, Duckworth and Lewis playing spoilsport with those unlucky South Africans and a young and surprisingly lean Inzamam blasting both New Zealand and England on their way to win the world cup. That Sachin was promoted to the role of an opener and he was very successful at that was only read by me much later as I slowly started reading the sports page of the newspaper before the front page. It was around this time, that I finally figured out what exactly TEST matches were. Not that I was too keen to watch them as they were as engaging as Jeetendra in Justice Chaudhary. My father had now started seeing Cricket as a potential threat to his son fulfilling the family dream of becoming a doctor and hence just at the beginning of my 10th standard, the cable guy was asked to take a walk. Unfortunately like Anna Hazare, I could not go on a hunger strike because more than cricket I loved food. But more about that later. Luckily for me, the World Cup that year was held in India and I can vouch for the fact that inspite of my board examinations I followed all the weekday matches( Both my parents were working and I used to have preparatory holidays) .Heck I even watched the South Africa vs UAE match where Kirsten scored that magnificient 183. The 1996 World Cup remains the most distinct World Cup ever for me… Sachin piling on runs, Jadejas charge against Waqar Younis, the Venkatesh Prasad Aamir Sohail faceoff, South Africa again knocked out during the quarterfinal after being the best team in their group, Warne bringing back Australia from the brink of defeat in the semifinals against West Indies, Heartbreak for India and Vinod Kambli crying at Eden Gardens, and finally Sri lanka deservedly winning the 1996 World Cup. The next few years saw the emergence of 2 young stars on the cricketing horizon Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly. And also a barrage of so called fast bowlers and wicketkeepers whose names I have trouble remembering. The year 1998 was a special year with Sachin scoring 9 ODI centuries something Salim Malik has hit in his entire ODI career. The innings at Sharjah, his disdainful treatment of bowlers around the world along with the Tony Greig commentary made for some spectacular viewing. It was also around this time that I entered college, started playing cricket and became an full blown addict. The 1999 World Cup was extremely boring what with the venue being England, India crashing out pretty early, but not before giving us the pleasure of seeing Dravid and Ganguly mauling the SriLankans. There was just two moments in the world Cup that will remain entrenched in my mind, forget the onesided final, forget the dropped catch by Gibbs, forget Indias early exit… What you cant forget is Sachin returning to play even after his fathers demise and Lance Klusener and the runout with Allan Donald. That day, it was not just South Africans who were in mourning. Come 2000, the supposed Y2K problem fizzled out, but what hit instead was bad, very bad. The Match Fixing Scandal…. More than Azharuddin, Jadeja, it was shocking to hear that Cronje that much loved captain was involved in cheating the cricketing fans. This incident cannot be looked into in isolation. It had irrevocably damaged the psyche of every cricket lover in India, so much so that every close match from thereon was viewed with lot of suspicion for over a decade. I remember discussing with my college buddies the South Africa vs Australia match at Durban immediately after that. Never had I seen South Africans play with such passion as that day after the scandal. Specifically remember Pollock dedicating the win to Hansie. In between these years, lot of incidents happened. Some memorable, some not so… Some of the memories that will forever remain stuck in my mind are… Gangulys captaincy, Kumble and Srinaths mothers jumping in the stands as they watched their sons forge an unlikely winning partnership against Australia, Hrishikesh Kanitkar becoming the out of nowhere hero for that spectacular 4 in the last over against Pakistan, Saeed Anwars brazen 194 in Chennai, Sachins highest score against New Zealand, a Sachin look alike only a lot fatter making it into the Indian team, Yuvraj and Kaif chasing Englands total at Lords prompting Ganguly to do what Poonam Pandey never did. So it was with a mixed feeling that we entered the 2003 World Cup. No one expected us to win when we were at an early stage almost expected to bow out. A dream Quarter final win against Pakistan drained the Indian team so much so that they were totally outclassed by Ponting and his team in the final. The Chapell era didn’t do much for the Indian team; with the early exit in the 2007 World Cup courtesy Bangladesh , and advent of IPL, my interest in ODI cricket started waning so much so that I stopped reading even the newspapers. To quote from LOTR, it was then when all hope was lost that a young lad from Ranchi and an ex-South African Batsman turned Coach together embarked on a mission to make India the no 1 Cricket playing nation in the world. But again it was that innings from that Shivaji Park lad who scored a magnificent 175 against Australia in Hyderabad in a very tight finish that told me ODI was not over, not as long as there were innings like these. That he went onto hit a double century against South Africa was simply another ornament in his shining armour. As I stood there at Wankhede watching the fireworks, I realized this was not about a Sachin Tendulkar, not about a World Cup coming home but about an entire generation justifying those millions of hours spent either playing or watching the game. The Dhoni Kirsten era will be earmarked as the most successful era in Indian cricket winning everything from the T 20, Test and ODI championships. Sachin is THE best batsman in the world with the only thing that eluded him now in his cabinet, Dhoni has taken India to the top of evey ranking possible, Indians have fielded as good as any champion team…. Sachin will probably play for another couple of years ensuring that even a revival of Pontings fortunes is not good enough to beat his records, Dhoni will go on and become the most sought after celebrity for Advertisements, IPL will have 92 teams by the year 2016 and we will Finally Finally Finally not be subjected to videos of Balwinder Singh Sandhu bowling out Gordon Greenidge.. So what now from here??? Logic says it can only be downhill from here.. I mean when you are the top the only way to go is down …The easy thing is to retire… “Reaching the top is easy, Its staying at top that is gonna be tough” Now if it took 28 years and a Sachin Tendulkar to reach the top, Iam just wondering how tough it is for India to remain at the top…. But I shall be there India, I shall not retire, I shall continue watching, criticizing, applauding you as you enter the tougher part of the battle… Australia 2015, Here we come….