Friday, July 23, 2010

New Balance M895SB Review

I hate these shoes. These are probably the worst running shoes I will ever own. I was going to give them to goodwill, but I feel bad doing so, knowing that some down-on-his-luck simple man will buy them and torture his knees until he throws them in the trash. I should burn them and then bury the ashes hundreds of miles from civilization in an air-tight ammo box. I hate these shoes. It amazes me that New Balance can make these and one of my favorite pairs of shoes-the M870OR (review coming). It's like Matisyahu's albums. Or a box of chocolates. You really just don't know what you're going to get.

I bought these at the New Balance Warehouse in Ontario, CA when I made a resolve to run a marathon a few years back. They were "irregular" and on sale. I said, "hey, I need a new pair of shoes to start training with if I'm really going to do this marathon." I was a fool. What followed were the darkest days of my running career (unpaid career that is). Excruciating pain and heelstriking, "'cause I've got a big old heel to soften the impact!" Never again my friends. I. Hate. These shoes.

"Well maybe you shouldn't have got the irregular ones."

Fair enough. But there's one problem. I can't find anything cosmetically wrong with them. They are even, flawlessly stitched. Unless there's some ingenious device implanted in the Frankenstein-boot sole, these shoes are just inherently bad.

After I scrapped them for running and made the switch to Vibrams, I figured I'd cut my losses and use them for work. I work in a pharmacy and am on my feet for extended periods of time. Nope. Still garbage. They hurt my knees so bad I took the insoles out to make them less cushy. Still nothing. I resorted to removing them and working in my socks because they aggravated my knees so much. Never again.

I almost gave up running altogether because of how I felt when I ran in these. There is a serious problem with how shoes have been made for the past few decades. Do yourself a favor-if your current running shoes look anything like these, go for a run with no shoes and note the difference. I did, and my running experiences have been enjoyable ever since.

1 comment:

  1. aw too bad for the shoes you hate it...I guess you need a good running shoes like saucony progrid...^_^

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