I completed the physical therapy for my knee a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, when I tried to run afterward, my knee pain kept returning. It felt like all the time, money, and effort I’d invested in the PT had done nothing. As a last resort before buying a pair of Rollerblades as an alternative, I tried an experiment: running in my old shoes, the ones I’d gotten on recommendation from the saleman at the speciality running store.

I’d run for many miles in those shoes with little to no problems at lower distances. They were comfortable, reasonably attractive, and provided good cushioning. Once their useful life had run out, I’d bought a different brand of shoe that I thought was similar, but my knee problem got much worse at some point after I started wearing them. I wondered if the new shoes might have been the problem, but I stubbornly believed I had chosen a good pair on my own.

I laced up my old shoes and headed to the treadmill to start a run/walk session. After the first minute of running, I felt no pain. After the second, no pain. And the third. After a total of 8 minutes I finally decided not to push my luck and walked the rest of the way, but the experiment had worked. I hadn’t run that much without knee pain in months. I can’t tell you how exciting that moment was.

I’m giving away my “new” shoes and running in the old ones for now, but I plan to get some new ones soon after our spending freeze is over (2 more days!). This time I’ve done lots of research and found a shoe made specifically for runners like me: flat-footed, with a neutral to underpronator gait, and on the large side for a runner. Two-hundred-forty pound guys have run marathons in these things. I think they can handle me.