Sample selection and running shoes
Dr Marti’s research team analysed 4,358 runners in the Bern Grand Prix, a 9.6-mile road race. All the runners filled out an extensive questionnaire that detailed their training habits and footwear for the previous year; as it turned out, 45 per cent had been hurt during that time. But what surprised Dr Marti was the fact that the most common variable among the casualties wasn’t training surface, running speed, weekly mileage or ‘competitive training motivation’.
It wasn’t even body weight or a history of previous injury. It was the price of the shoe. Runners in shoes that cost more than $95 were more than twice as likely to get hurt as runners in shoes that cost less than $40.
This has got to be a selection problem: the average person that purchases a really expensive running shoe is probably a poor runner that jumps into it too fast. They think that the shoe is the best way to get themselves in shape. Rather than picking a shoe based on feel and fit, they pick the most expensive one. These types of consumers and probably more likely to be runners that don’t train properly. The best runners that I know do not have the most expensive shoe on the rack; they have the shoe that feels the best.