I have drunk the koolaid...

Just as a preface, my pre-marathon routine is to get a new pair of shoes about a month before my marathon and run in them just enough so they are broken in but fresh. I'm coming up on marathon #5 & went and picked up a new pair of Pure Flow 2's exactly like my old pair and the pair before that. Did not anticipate any sort of difficulty. I could NOT have been more wrong! OMG! The shoes nearly crippled me! I am not kidding...the top of my left foot hurt so much after just a couple short runs that I was seriously worried that I might have a fracture. Something on the left shoe was off and the shoe was bending in such a way as to severely bruise the top o my foot. I couldn't even wear my regular nurse shoes at work last week! 

I switched back to my old shoes (that have 500+ miles on them...yikes!) and they felt ok when I tried a short run. In desperation, I headed to Ithaca to the running store to see if thy could help me. I wasn't about to try the same pair again! I spent over an hour trying shoes and doing laps of the commons until I found something I thought might work. But NUTS, I wanted it just a titch bigger. The very patient owner of the store called their other store and they had my size...phew! It is a bit of a ways away but luckily today's XC meet was close to Binghamton so I was able to finally pick up these:

Newton Energy's

Tomorrow I take them for their inaugural run. Please send some good vibes that they still feel good! I'm only 2 weeks out from Wineglass Marathon!!!

So as I was talking to the guy at the store today, he told me that they have had a ton of quality issues with Brooks shoes lately. Like major defects including shoes being of 2 different heights and misshapen toe boxes! Anyone else have a Brooks shoe issue lately? Sounds to me like it could be a huge problem for them. I've been a loyal Brooks buyer since the Pure Flow line came out but I'm afraid I can't risk ruining my feet again. Sorry Brooks, I wish I could trust you, but I just can't.  :(