The steamy summer months combined with my increased running schedule have made for unpleasant conditions in my running shoes. Early this summer, I bought four pair on the theory that “letting them breathe” would reduce the odor. The result is four pair of stinky shoes and this appeal for help.
First, I prefer to stay away from aluminum-based foot powders (not because of the Alzheimer’s-link urban legend). I’ve tried baby powder, to no avail. My shoes are too nice to toss into the washing machine and dry-cleaning them seems, well, a tad pretentious. Some runners have suggested removing the insoles and washing the shoes out with Dial soap, but others say this will cause shrinkage and is not a good long-term approach. (BTW, yes, I wash my feet often.) One marathoner told me that cedar chips work well, but another said running shoe odor is a fact of life if you pile on the miles.
Although the details escape me, I read perhaps a year ago in some magazine of an inventor’s new device that completely eliminates shoe odor. All I recall is that he isolated the specific guilty chemical compounds and developed some way to effectively neutralize them. The article (Men’s Health?) said it really worked. And, no, it’s not merely soap.
Hi I run a whole lot. I regularly wash my shoes in the kitchen sink with dish washing liquid, warm water, and a soft brush. I get the requisite 300 miles out of the shoes. Because of the way I cycle shoes(I use 2 pair of shoes staggered at 150 miles). I have plenty of opportunity to compare the soles of the old ones with the soles of the new ones. The elasticity seems to hold out just fine. If you think about it, the sole is the most important part of the shoe, the uppers just hold the sole to you foot. The sole performs all the important cushioning. With hand cleaning, you mostly focus on the upper, and just brush off the dirt from the bottom.
I do not remove the insole, just scrub inside and rinse with plenty of cool/warm water. Don’t use hot water.
As for drying, I stick my shoes on PVC poles in my hot water heater closet(well away from the heater). That dries them in about a day, I then put a shoe tree inside to straighten them out.
Reebok, I think, had a device a few years back that was essentially a hyperbaric chamber. The idea was to reinflate the air pockets in the soles. According to my expert at Run On, they made the soles hard as rocks–maybe entrained water.
Not so. The midsole is the most important part of the shoe and it is the midsole that deteriorates in time, causing you to replace the shoe every 300-500 miles. More if you are a light runner. It’s the midsole that provides the cushioning.
The heels on the outsole wear down. You can use a glue gun to build it back up - or goo. I actually glue on a polypropelene tap, sold by the Hale Co, which, unfortunately, is now out of business. You have to keep the heel up to snuff, but that doesn’t provide the cushioning. If the heel wears down without repair, you can develop Achilles tendinitis due to the excess strain of the Achilles.
I’ve had hundreds of running shoes (not including tennis and cross training) and have never washed any of them.
I’m behind you 100% on this. My current method is based on years of ruining shoes. The first shoes I ruined were a pair of Nike Waffle trainers. I guess that would have been around 1977 or '78. I machine washed and dried them. That completely destroyed them: the soles fell off. Off and on, out of pure laziness, I’ve thrown shoes in the washer. It always does the same things: Screws up (deforms) the heel counter, plucks foam out of various parts of the upper, pulls strings loose, Bunches up the foam filling in the upper, and knots up the laces beyond belief. It also does a rather poor job of actually cleaning the shoe because shoes seem to float like boats anyway. The machine also leaves detergent in the shoes, which I don’t want against my feet.
It is my personal belief that a clean shoe is a good shoe. I feel that the accumulation of oil, salt, skin flakes, bacteria, fungus, lint, talc, etc just adds together to harden the insole, as well as contributing to, in my mind, an unhealthy place to stick one’s foot.
Thanks. I’ve experienced all of these myself when I used to wash my shoes. In fact, I would wonder what I was doing wrong, yet the shoes were never the same. Salespeople (most young and dumb) at the shoe warehouses say that washing shoes is fine. They’re wrong, of course. And putting them in a dryer afterward is the final insult.
at best, keeping the shoes cold will slow the bacterial growth (that’s why we refrigerate food).
you should have three pairs of running shoes and swap them out on a daily basis. that will allow them to dry out between use. It’s the constant moisture that encourages bacteria to grow. So if you can’t bear to WASH the shoes, consider tumbling them dry between uses.
get an ultraviolet light–the kind you need goggles with–and shine it on your shoes so that the light goes as deeply into the shoe as possible. germs hate that.
use two pairs of socks and wash your feed with antibacterial soap. use cornstarch (mexana is made of cornstarch).
Don’t use dial. It has perfume in it. Nothing smells worse than bacteria except trying to cover the smell of the bacteria with perfume.
you don’t have to put the shoes in a washing machine to wash them. Get a 15-quart bucket, fill it with warm water, put the shoes in, put in some antibacterial detergent or soap or detergent and bleach. let them soak overnight. Then dry them thoroughly.
This won’t help the shoes you already have, but there’s an antibacterial fiber called Biofresh that can be woven into socks, so it may prevent future stink-ups. I don’t know where you can get these socks, though.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been running for over 25 years (well, I have stopped occasionally to eat and sleep and work), and have never washed, cleaned, or otherwise handled my shoes. I let my feet do all the work. When I first started running, I did not even wear any socks! I started wearing socks only after I got a blister in a St. Louis marathon due to the seam on the insole of an Adidas. Now, I wear only one pair, usually a thin pair. And I have never had a foot problem. (In fact, I’ve never had a running injury at all, but that’s another story.)
But I do rotate my shoes. I now have over two dozen pairs. I know some of them have well over 500 miles on them, but as long as they don’t give me any trouble I don’t discard them. If I start feeling the pavement, it’s obvious that the cushioning in the midsole is gone, and I will discard them. If the midsoles really looks decrepit I also will discard them. It’s impossible or nearly so for me to keep track of the number of miles on every pair.
Appreciate the info, thanks. I’ve seen these before in running socks, but I’m a tad reluctant. Consider this:
“Triclosan, a chlorinated phenoxy antimicrobial compound, is EPA-registered and approved for use in fibers. Because it is incorporated during the fiber manufacture, it is an integral component of the acrylic fiber. The Antimicrobial agent is built into the fiber and maintains it’s effectiveness. The acrylic fiber is produced so that it reservoirs the antimicrobial agent particles. As some of the agent is removed from the surface as the result of abrasion, washing, or cleaning, additional active agent particles are released from reservoirs within the fiber and migrate to the fiber surface. Through this process, the Antimicrobial agent maintains its effectiveness even after multiple washings.”
Hmmm. While triclosan is admittedly an industry standard–found in anti-bacterial soaps, etc.–I recall recently hearing some concerns within the scientific community regarding it.
I might add, it’s pretty sobering when you’re working out in a gym, you smell something rather rank and wonder why the offending party doesn’t hit the showers–and then realize it’s your own cross-training shoes.
“cold doesn’t kill bacteria
at best, keeping the shoes cold will slow the bacterial growth (that’s why we refrigerate food).”
hrmm was always led to believe it was to slow oxidization the thing which causes food to deteriorate it until no longer fit to eat !
in my humble experience washing shoes always seems to make them worse ‘smell’ wise - specially after swimming in the sea - salty and maybe similar to sweat - what always seems to work is just let them dry out naturally in the sun/breeze whatever.
wash em and they smell bad soon.
Hm, so Triclosan is out. I understand your concerns. A bit more Googling around yielded Mad Mike’s Un-Stench (I hope this isn’t considered advertising - I just ran across it from a search and certainly can’t vouch for how well it works or not). Anyway, maybe you can give that a whirl.
This reminds me, I understand that silver is a natural antibacterial, so maybe you’d want to line your shoes with silver ingots? Way to make your shoes even more expensive.
This worked on my gym shoes. Try Febreze. It is odor eliminator that yoy spray on furniture, beds and stuff like that/ I sprayed into my shoes and the odor was gone. I had to spray it 3 or 4 times to work, but the worst of the odor was gone.
Believe it or not, I just realized what is causing much of the problem: I’ve been storing my shoes out in my garage this summer.
Living in a coastal area, the humidity and heat are such that it probably prevented the shoes from ever drying out properly and no doubt created the ideal environment for bacterial growth.
Now I’ve never tried this with running shoes, but it worked great with my old work boots:
Take two old socks, just make sure they’re hole free, and fill each with a good two or three cups of kitty litter. Use one of the more scented varieties for this. Tie the tops of the socks shut and when you take the shoes off put one sock in each shoe and let sit. I found that would dry the boot out quickly which seamed to be at least half the smell battle, and the deodorant properties of the kitty litter go to good use as well.
And hey, if it doesn’t work all you’ll be out is two old socks and a buck and a half for the litter.
