Last week it rained heavily when I was out running up to Rochasson from work. My shoes were too soaked to dry in 2 days inside. They stank wretchedly. So I took the laces out and washed them in the machine this weekend. So far so good.
Monday noon I laced my shoes for a run. I was not in a great mood anyway, and the laces were too short (as always)! I thought, “Why skimp on shoelace length? Is ASICS so focused on their margin that they cannot afford to put full length laces in their shoes?”
But as I got up to run it slowly occurred to me that I have an unusual way of lacing my shoes. Notice in the above image that there seems to be an extra eyelet.
An athlete named Seb explained to me that runner who need as much stability as possible (most normal humans?) should run the lace first through that eyelet, then through the second-to-last eyelet, creating a loop. Then run each end of the lace through the loop on the opposite side. Finally tie the shoe.
If you do that, you really could use some extra shoelace. I can barely tie my running shoes. Yet I do not have wide feet. I don’t know what people with wide feet do.
If you run more than 20 miles per week, you will notice the difference tying your shoes the right way though. When you start tying your shoes properly you will wonder what you were doing running around before with your shoes practically untied.
ASICS and other shoe sellers engineered, however, for the common case. The common case is probably people running a few miles a week. Or even buying running shoes to loaf around in. If the laces were long enough for me, all those people would be wondering why they have to tie double knots and keep stepping on the ends of their shoelaces.
If software were running shoes, much of it would come not only with extra long laces but also with features like holes cut around the toe box to relieve pressure, odd orthopedic inserts that belong to someone else’s foot, and standard cushioning designed for people who change shoes every 4 months or 1000 miles, which ever comes first.
Figments of a lack of imagination