Now that I’m heavily back in to the running thing, I’ve gone through a handful of pairs of shoes in the past couple years. After ~300 miles, they’re still in very good shape. Typically, I reuse them as walkabout or chore shoes, but with my stepped up mileage, they’re beginning to pile up.

Solution? Recycle them! There are tons of groups that take them… BUT… I can’t find any that are local! If they are local, they want only new or “gently” used. Since I don’t know their definition of “gently” is, I’m not bothering with them. The shoes look to be in great shape, but the fact of the matter is, they have a lot of miles on them. [Edit: Oh! I just read that link a bit more closely and it seems people who cannot afford to buy shoes are not tall… the largest size they accept is 10]. My other option is to donate them to someone else. I really like Nike’s program, but what rubs me wrong about this is that I have to pay for shipping! Look, I’ve already disposed of a good chunk of income on these shoes that I didn’t wear too long (possibly to you, Nike), but now in order to give them to someone for free I have to pay shipping? Give me a break.

My shoes will continue to collect dust until they magically (I’m sure they’ve got some nasty chemicals in them) decompose OR someone comes up with a system that doesn’t require me to qualify or pay money.