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Any physics experts out there? If not, a marketing expert will do.
If so, please help me with this one. I weigh slighlty less than my Jeep Cherokee. However I can in theory drive this vehicle on one set of tires over fairly rugged terrain at high speeds for about 30,000 miles before they need to be changed. As far as I know, it does not have any prontation problems.
Why then can't a running shoe company produce a decent product that doesn't break down for a 150-lb runner after a paltry 500 miles? Answer? They want to sell more shoes. Simple.
Or is it.
Another area where the technology to induce longer product life was superior to the will of the manufacturers to use it is guitar strings. Someone who plays daily goes through about a set ($7-10 er) a month. And the string manufacturers loved it that way. Two years ago one brave manufacturer (Elixir) broke the mold and improved string life by a factor of four with off-the shelf- technoloy. Others (begrudgingly, I suspect) have followed their lead. Let's hope a shoe company soon jumps to the fore. It may untimaely be a comapy in financial trouble with nothing to lose.
Enginnered shoebreakdown is a topic that will NEVER be covered in the running magazines. You'll never see it in the letters to the editor column either. It is the ultimate taboo with their advertisers.
But as the price of running shoes for marathon competitors approaches an average of $80 a pair, we should expect -- and demand more!
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