THE BULL$#!T DETECTOR - SIMON BARTOLD

Myth #3. Running shoes should be one size bigger than your standard casual shoe.
No, they shouldn't, but sometimes they can be because there is variation from style to style and also from brand to brand.

In the width versus the length?
Yeah. If your foot slides forward in the shoe, you will inevitably get blisters. They're a response to friction. I think fit is one of the most underrated things in footwear. Fit equals function basically. A shoe can't work unless it fits properly. It's a really, really underrated topic and it's something that will be quite an important area of research in the coming years. Do you know what a brannock device is?

One of those sliding foot measuring things?
Yeah, it was invented 50 years ago. It's a metal plate that gives you a very precise width and length fitting. Years ago, nearly every shoe shop had brannock devices.

People have different sized feet as well.
Absolutely. Most people are very asymmetrical. I've got one thumb that's way bigger than the other thumb.

Myth #4. There's too much marketing and not enough science in running shoes.
Yeah, I think that's right. I have a nice little pyramid and it has the distribution of dollars of marketing versus science and you can guess where all the dollars are distributed. It's one of the refreshing things about working with ASICS. I don't really want to sound like the ASICS guy, but they will kill their own product if they think it doesn't work properly. ASICS is driven by product first and marketing very much second, which is the reverse of most companies.