Aw Crap... I Chose the Ugly Shoes

It was time to buy some new running shoes. I was hanging out with my
sisters Jessie and Jo (Heather was with us too) so we headed to
Phiddipedes in Ansley Park... one of the better places to buy shoes in Atlanta.
They are all runners and consult with you to find the best shoe. This is
important to me because I had a knee injury about seven years ago that I
haven't completely gotten over.

We started with a neutral shoe. I ran a little inside the store so that
they could see how my feet moved. I had a slight pronation. They picked
three pairs of shoes and in each I ran a little bit.

Then we chose three more. After six shoes I had a sense of what I was
looking for. I narrowed the field to three models. The three contenders
were Nike, Adidas and Asics. The models themselves were not fancy.
While the top end running shoes are at the $150 price range, these all
ran (hee hee, that's punny) around $75-90. Apparently there just isn't
that much extra value at the high end of the price range. The important
thing is to find a shoe that fits, not one that looks cool.

They then told me to put one model on my right foot and another on my
left. I did and ran around a little. This made it much easier to
compare models. Unexpectedly, the Asics wasn't doing too well compared
to the other shoes. I narrowed it to the Adidas and the Nike.

The Nike looked good. The Adidas did not. I wanted to choose based on
performance, not based on looks so I asked Heather and the Phiddipedes
guy to randomly choose one model for my left foot and another for my
right. I closed my eyes while they chose and then went for a run...
opening my eyes, but not looking down.

The blind shoe test. I heard the Phiddipedes guy say that he had never
seen such a thing... which surprised me... if the goal is performance
over looks then you have to remove your own bias. I think they should
recommend the blind shoe test. They could even provide little shoe
booties so that even if people did look down they wouldn't be able to
choose based on looks. This seems to fit the Phiddipedes value
proposition... a marketing campaign could be built around the
concept of the blind shoe test. Anyhow, I digress...

I took a few laps with both shoes on my feet. They both felt good but
the one on my right foot felt like it had the best balance of support and
cushioning. I chose it and then looked down.

The shoe on my right foot was the Adidas.

In my head I thought "Aw crap, I chose the ugly shoes."

I did. The Nike shoes looked much cooler. But the Adidas were
functionally better.

So I bought the Adidas. They're ugly, but I'm sure they'll do an
excellent job. Damn idealism.

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