How Do You Break in New Shoes?

That sounds like a good idea actually. With my method my feet were hurting pretty bad after that first mile! Although, no blisters.:)

Maybe I'll try just wearing these around the house a bit more at intervals.

Oh that is an interesting idea. I never even thought about high heels needing to be broken in. I am really bad about high heels. We have to wear them at the office, but I can only wear them with medium thickness socks so I always wear mine with socks. Maybe if I got some more comfortable high heels and just wore them with socks at first it would be enough.

These shoes have to be very fitted so I got them tighter rather than looser. For normal walking shoes though I try to just buy the right size. Although it is difficult because often the largest size is a 10 and if my foot slams right up against the end there isn't much I can do about it.

These new shoes definitely couldn't just be worn entirely for 2 weeks straight or my feet would be killing me. But I've noticed that does work when I buy new tennis shoes of the exact same type. As long as I'm not going on a hike in them or something, they'll be fine.

Good Luck.

Hmm, that is interesting. Actually the wet grass method does sound similar to some I've heard before. One I heard before was to wear the shoes in the bathtub. But I'm always afraid of ruining new shoes (I know, kind of silly since eventually they're going to be all worn anyway).

These could be the wrong size, I'm having a hard time being able to tell. I think if I end up getting more, I'll go for men's sizes just because they have a size that is only 1/8 of an inch larger. Unless of course these end up breaking in really well and then I wouldn't want to go with a larger size next time. I don't know why I didn't think of that in the store though, about just getting a men's size instead. I wonder if they'd be too wide though.

Ow! That sounds painful.

I will try to get a second pair as soon as I figure out if I like the shoes that I got. They were $95 so I'm not sure when I can afford a second pair, but it should definitely be long before the marathon date!

Thanks for the advice on this!

I sort of tried to do that the day I was walking/running in these all day. But then my feet and calves were so sore! I guess it would have eventually gone away though.

I tend to do that too though in very comfortable shoes.

Nice. Sounds simple enough for me. Thanks for your response!

I've had Nikes once I think, but not for running (never ran before really, except when forced to). I don't remember them being all that great but I'm sure I had the absolute cheapest ones you could possibly find. So I can't say I've given Nike a fair shot really. I will have to look and see if any look good and aren't made with leather.

I got the Vibram Five Fingers shoes, which haven't given me any blisters. But they seem to be taking awhile to stretch out so that they'll be easier to put on and won't feel so tight. They are fairly molded to my feet though just because that's how they're made. Except I don't quite have that much of an arch yet. Wearing them all day does seem to make my feet a bit sore too, but that's probably mostly because I'm out of shape I'm guessing.

Sounds like I should definitely get a second pair of shoes. So I will try to do that soon, once I figure out if I like these or not. Thanks for your advice!!

Oh that is an interesting idea. I may have to try that one since I've got plenty of papers and that way my feet don't have to be in the shoes so they could be broken in a bit more while I'm not even wearing them.

Hubby just read a hint that said take a plastic bag, stuff it in the shoe, fill it with wter, then put the soe in another bag and freeze it overnight. It stretches them just a little. I have a couple of brands I always buy and they never seem to need to be broken in.

it does work pigglies, but brown paper works better i think, newspaper tends to mush up aster than brown paper, my nanna used to do it all the time with our new school shoes and we would go to school the next day with shoes that don't hurt, you have to cram the shoe tight with the wet paper for it to expand, but it does work.

gerty that sounds like a great way od solving it, i must try that because i have a brand new pair of shoes and i cannot get them on without screaming...lol...so maybe the water and ice thing will be good...

I've got plenty of brown shipping paper here too so I guess I'll try that instead of newspaper. And then if that doesn't stretch them enough I'll try the freezing method.

I think the problem is that since shoes all tend to loosen up a bit over time, sometimes you just need them to be pretty tight because in the end you can't have loose shoes. For my walking shoes I don't mind if they end up being a little loose by the time I've worn them a lot. But for running I figured that wouldn't be good. I don't know if my figuring is correct though or not yet! I shall find out soon.

piggles, the brown paper will do the job, just let the paper soak for a few minutes, use cold water, wring the remaining water out of the paper, scrunch the paper up into balls then stuff the inside of the shoes tight until the whole shoe is full, leave them for a day or 2 then remove the paper and hey presto!...loose shoes, yes your figuring is good, but i do reccommend the wet paper method it worked for me...good luck, oh and please let me know how it went...i would love to hear about that....happy shoe stretching...lol...

Seems like it works! My shoes feel a lot better now. Although so much better that I over did the running in them. But I'm definitely happy that it seems like they fit right now. Especially since I spent $95 on them I would have been so disappointed if they didn't fit!

oh good, i knew it would work, especially spending that much on then, i have a pair of shoes and when they arrived i was so happy, i wanted to wear them for christmas because they are a classy shoe and matched the outfit i had, i put one on and that was fine, then the other was very tight so i ended up wearing another pair, so i remembered what my nanna said and the next day i did the wet paper method and they fitted perfect, so i got to wear then for new year

thankyou pigglie for the BR so glad that the wet paper worked, so now when you get new shoes, you know what to do if they are tight....

Around here it is pretty easy to find shoes for wide feet. But when I was younger I used to have narrow feet. I barely realized now that my feet are not narrow. It is great because I don't have to really worry about the width anymore. Although, ballet flats never fit more even now.