Running Shoe Wear Tester

In the spring I was sent a email asking if I wanted to be a wear tester for Brooks. Basically, I had to fill out a bunch of details about myself: age, mileage, types of runs, etc. You get the picture. Then, they ask the types of Brooks shoes that I wear.

I went through a list and checked off the shoes that I liked.

At this point, I basically became a candidate wear tester. If one of the shoes that needed testing was chosen, they would reach out to me to see if I was interested in testing them.

Well, several months went by. In the latter part of May, I got an email asking if I was willing to be a wear tester for the Brooks Glycerin 8.

Heck, I couldn't think of one good reason to turn down a free pair of running shoes.

Then about 2 weeks later, the Glycerin 8 arrived in the mail.

As a wear tester, I had to log my feedback to their web site. This included my mileage and days run in them. Also there was a ranking section – basically like to dislike 1-5 type of stuff. Each entry was finished off with an area for comments.

For 4 weeks in June, I provided my feedback.

Here's a little of what I shared with them.

I received the shoes the first week in June and after a short break-in (basically walking around in them) period, I started wearing the shoes every other day. This was done to give the shoes time to recover after each workout.

I used the shoes for daily runs, speed work, and long runs. For speed work, they were a little heavy in my opinion. But otherwise, they worked just fine.

For long runs, they had adequate cushioning and support. The one thing that I noted to them; the cushioning did break down when the temperature pushed above 90 degrees on runs over 2 hours.

Interestingly, I did notice is that outer wear held up very well for both uppers of the shoe and sole of the shoe. Most shoes start to show wear pretty quickly, but these didn't.

I considered this to be a pretty good sign since I averaged between 30 and 40 miles per week in these shoes.

 

To summarize, this was the first time that I have ever been a wear tester. But getting a new pair of shoes with the only cost being that I provide feedback on my likes and dislikes about the shoe, I would take the opportunity any time.

 

Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner