Running Shoes In History

1886RunningShoe

This running shoe comes to us courtesy of the mists of time… Well, it does have a date attached, 1889. It featured a ripple sole, with heel, toe and forefoot supports in the upper, and that was pretty much it. Of course this timeframe would have been earlier than the revival of the modern Olympic Games, by about seven years, but it would have been no stranger to the athletic contests of pedestrians as well as athletics aficionados, who would have been running on the tracks and roads of the late 19th century. Cinder tracks would have required spiked soles for optimum traction, but that is another story.