Tips No One Told Me: Shoe Lace Tying

One of the most important if not the most important aspect of a running shoe is fit. If it doesn't fit right, I just don't go with the shoe, no matter how much I wanted to like it. What I didn't know when I first started off was just how much the shoe laces affect fit. It may sound extreme, but I feel like you can control the feel of the shoe almost as much as the original designers just by playing with the shoe laces. Ok, maybe not that much, but I definitely think you can ruin the fit of a shoe enough to be a deal breaker by having inappropriate lacing for your foot.

My go-to lace is the standard Criss-cross lace. I have this on almost all my running shoes. The key is that most shoes out of the box come with Display Shoe lacing, which is like Criss-cross but (and here's the key), the row closest to the toe is inside out. Display Shoe lacing tends to make the toes cramped. Flipping it inside out with the front row starting from under the eyelets frees up a lot of room. It was enough for me to finally keep my Mizuno Ekidens, which originally had Display shoe lacing. I'm even considering taking it a step further and trying it with Parallel lacing to free up even more room.

Lastly, for every single one of my running shoes, I use ankle lock lacing.

Here's another link with video: http://www.runnersworld.com/running-tips/custom-tie-your-running-shoes

And if anyone's tried the Lock Laces and like them, let me know, would love to hear how they are for runners.