Remembering Tom Osler

Dr.Tom Osler  Photo Elizabeth Robertson Philadelphia Inquirer

Tom Osler often called Browning Ross the George Washington of American Distance Running for Browning's efforts in founding the Road Runners Club of America, and the resulting explosion in the popularity of distance running in America.

If Ross was the American running's George Washington, then Tom Osler who passed away on March 26, at the age of 82, was the sports Ben Franklin.

Just as Franklin helped to draft the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, Osler was present and assisted in the Paramount Hotel in New York (along with Hal Higdon and a handful of other runners) on February 22, 1958, when Browning Ross drafted the structure and founded the Road Runners Club of America.

The RRCA is credited by running historians for igniting the distance running boom in the United States and around the world.

Like Franklin, Osler was also an author, an inventor, and a great thinker.

As a longtime friend of Tom's, I believe his life's arc mirrored Franklin's in one other important aspect—Tom's thoughts turned from the pragmatic to the spiritual as he got older.

I first met and because friends with Tom in 1974 when I was 15 years old. My track coach, Browning Ross took us to Cooper River in Pennsauken, NJ to practice, and Tom was there.

I asked Tom how far he was running, and he answered "Oh, about 20."

I asked him if that was minutes, and he answered, "No, miles. 20 miles each way from my house in Glassboro and back." Suddenly, 3.7 miles around Cooper River didn't seem as far.

Tom had grown up close to Cooper River in nearby Camden, NJ. Camden was also the home of his favorite poet, Walt Whitman. Whitman spent the last portion of his life in Camden.

When I think of Tom, I think of Whitman's poem "Song of Myself."

Camden's Walt Whitman

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his supper?

Who wishes to walk with me?

Tom contained multitudes.

Tom and Kathy Osler

Tom proposed to his wife Kathy on their second date and he remained a loving husband to Kathy for 48 years. He was also a proud and loving father to Eric and Billy and his grandchildren and great-granddaughter.

Tom was a writer. He published close to 150 Mathematical research papers and 3 influential running books: "The Conditioning of Distance Runners,", "The Serious Runners Handbook", and co-authored "Ultra Marathoning" with his close friend Ed Dodd.

I think Tom and George Sheehan influenced more runners through their books than any other runners who did not coach.

Tom was an artist. He was a runner who won three National Championships, and the 1965 Philadelphia Marathon. He even took a turn as race director of the Philadelphia Marathon.

Tom won National Championships wearing hush puppy dress shoes because there were so few good running shoes available.

Tom said, “I remember picking up Browning Ross-style prizes for the race including ashtrays to be given out as prizes. None of the runners smoked but some of their family members did.”

Tom ran for over 62 years and competed in over 2000 races. He ran everything from the mile to ultramarathons.

Tom was one of Running’s Founding Fathers and pioneers and was present along with Hal Higdon and Harry Berkowitz when his mentor Browning Ross founded the Road Runners Club of America in 1958.

The ultimate competitorTom Osler

A Few of Tom’s Essential Contributions to Running

Dr. Timothy Noakes, author of the bestselling book" The Lore of Running” said "The latest scientific testing in South Africa bears out the training principles of "Conditioning." What are these principles?
Easy, steady running for long periods of time year-round. This running should be comfortable -- but is not jogging. Then, faster, harder training; half-mile repeats, for example, six weeks before your championship race. If done right this peak should last about four weeks. If you dig too deeply into your reserves, you will have a much shorter peak, and run yourself into a slump."

When I interviewed Olympian and author Jeff Galloway, he gave credit to Tom for originating his pre-planned walking breaks to run further. Galloway utilized the breaks in his training plans to help runners run further and complete long-distance races without a lot of training that might lead to injury.

In the mid-1970s Tom also wrote about adding sugar to drinks to more easily cover long distances. He was also one of the first to recommend not adding salt to your food to acclimate to hot weather runs in an age when some coaches were still handing out salt tablets.

Tom was the first person as far as I know to come up with the rule of thumb that one day of recovery is needed for each mile of a race. His formula seemed to work for me and most runners I’ve talked to as a way to recover without over-racing.

A few years ago, Tom was contacted by a Japanese publishing house that wanted to translate and publish “Conditioning of Distance Running” in Japanese. Tom agreed and refused all profits just like he had in the 1960s when he earmarked the book to help pay expenses of Browning Ross’s Long Distance Log publication.

 Tom Osler's influential running books

Runners World founder Bob Anderson credited Tom with helping Runners World survive its early years. “I founded Runners World in 1966, influenced by Browning Ross’s Long Distance Log. Runners started sending in their $1.00 for a one-year subscription and some people like Tom Osler sent in another $5.00 to help me out.”

Tom remembered, “I sent him a check and a note along the lines of I know there aren’t enough runners to make it profitable but here’s a check. Of course, I was wrong, in time Runners World had a subscription of close to a million subscribers.”

Tom mentioned to me that he had been contacted by Runners World’s publishing house about his book “Serious Runners Handbook a few years after its publication when sales had tapered off.” They called me out of the blue and asked me if I wanted to buy the remaining 500 copies or so of the book that they had on hand. The stipulation was I had to come up with the money in a week or they would destroy the books by dumping them in the ocean or something similar. I said no, it was awfully short notice. Looking back, I wish I had said yes and purchased them all.”

Tom is a member of a number of Running Hall of Fame including the National Road Runners Hall of Fame. Tom said,” I am probably most proud of my induction to the Gloucester County (NJ) Hall of Fame. Browning put forward my nomination and it is one of the last things he did before he passed away.”

Tom also won many National Mathematics awards during his teaching career.

Tom was one of the first people I know to own a home computer.  I stopped at Tom’s house in the early 1980s and he showed me his Mac computer and asked me the times I had run in (Rowan) track and cross-country. He had written a program that converted times to equivalent times at other distances. Those equivalency tables are commonplace now, but he had written the program from scratch with his mathematical knowledge. It seemed like magic to me at the time.

Tom told me his identity was a teacher. “I love to get in front of the class and perform.” Tom taught mathematics for over 50 years to thousands of college students, mainly at Rowan University where he also founded a Rowan Math-Physics called the Mathematics Colloquium.

He was instrumental in influencing other colleagues including runners Seth Bergman and Sky Waterpeace to join the Rowan faculty as Math Professors.

Erin Donohue Livvichi, Jack and Tom

Tom was also a loyal friend. Here are some of my favorite memories of Tom's friendship:

Tom wasn't afraid to share his emotions. My wife, Maryanne said he is one of the few men that would freely share his emotions. He cared about his friends.

He also liked to assign nicknames to his closest friends. He tagged me with "Very Famous" after I published a book about his friend and mentor Browning Ross. I changed my nickname to "Almost Famous." He changed it back to "Very, Very Famous."

I went to college at Rowan and ran track. During my first semester, I asked some of the upperclassmen on the team for course recommendations. "Don't take Dr. Osler was the surprising answer from a few. "He's too hard, no one from the track team has ever passed his courses." "Yeah, I don't think he likes runners, they all wind up at Drop and Add!" emphatically answered another runner. (False!)

Meanwhile, Tom showed up at a cross-country practice as "Tom the runner". The practice was a 5-mile time trial to pick the 8-12th runners on the traveling team.

I had a good vantage point as the pack of 25-30 college runners circled the track at the start in a close pack while Tom was still on the straightaway on the track.

The pack was out of sight as Tom exited the track. A little over twenty minutes later, a solitary runner approached the track for the finish. It was 39-year-old Tom Osler. The second runner was nowhere in sight. He had caught the pack of college runners and finished comfortably ahead.

I thought my best strategy to change the narrative of runners struggling in his class was to work hard and keep a low profile. I was surprised when I heard the always businesslike Dr. Osler mention my name: "I have a wager for the class. There is a student in the back, Mr. Jack Heath. I would like to arm-wrestle Mr. Heath. Should he pin me, I would like to add 10 points to everyone's test score." A rousing cheer went up in the class, along with words of encouragement. Dr. Osler continued, "However, should I pin Mr. Heath, I will deduct 10 points from everyone's test score."

Immediately the cries turned to "Wait, don't do it!' Someone suggested he instead challenge a sleepy-looking student who looked like a football player instead. "No, it's got to be Mr. Heath."

Another programming class taught by Dr. Osler featured a student with a cowboy hat (CH) sitting up front who frequently interrupted the class. He seemed to want to share as a co-teacher in the class. I wondered how Dr. Osler would handle the distraction of his finely tuned instruction as he prepared to hand out the first exam.

Dr. Osler teaching

"Dr. Osler" (CH) asked, "Did anyone else besides me get a 100?"  Without missing a beat, Tom said "I will now proceed to hand out the exams in ascending order, lowest score first."Mr. (CH) "Your exam first." That seemed to quiet his cohost for the rest of the semester.

Saturdays with Tommy

Like Mitch Albom’s book “Tuesdays With Morrie” about Albom’s weekly meetings with his Sociology Professor Morrie Schwartz, I met with Tom at least once a week for decades until the pandemic.

The meetings started with a salutation including greeting each other with our nicknames. Next,  “Awesome Tom” would put me on notice not to be boring or he would leave. We would always discuss how much we missed Browning Ross. Then Tom would ask me about my family by name. “You really have a wonderful family,” he would say.

He would update me on his sons and tell me how much he missed his dear wife Kathy.

Saturdays with Tommy

Each of our meetings featured an eclectic conversation. Tom might ask me what I thought about Irish poets like William Butler Yeats, or the hymn “Jerusalem.” He would sometimes ask questions in a Socratic style: “What is your favorite version of Jerusalem and why?” I mentioned Emerson Lake and Palmer’s version of the hymn. Tom looked up the ELP version on YouTube and agreed it was very good on our next visit.

Tom was also an enthusiastic astronomist, a lover of music, especially opera, and a film buff. One of his favorite directors was Franco Zeffirelli. Tom especially loved the 1972 Zeffirelli film "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" about Saint Francis of Assisi. I also like the original “Hunchback of Notre Dame”, “Inherit the Wind”, and a film of the 1960 Rome Olympics that featured barefoot Abebe Bikila winning the marathon.

Tom always discussed how much he still loved teaching. “Students today have a whole world of knowledge at their fingertips with cell phones and the ability to Google information. There has never been a time like this in history.”

He did wonder if some cultural literacy was being lost and about cell phones being a distraction. “Sometimes when I start a class half a dozen students are still looking at their cell phones when I start to teach. I started doing a dance in front of the class. That gets their attention really fast. Then I tell them “All the excitement is up here, look at me, not your phone! It works for a while.” And, “One of my older, long-time colleagues in the Math Department stopped to see me near the end of the class. When he left, I told the class, ‘That man fought in the Civil War!’  Most of the class said ‘Really?’ They actually believed me.”

Tom and Jack

We also talked more about running in our meetings for the articles about Tom I wrote for
Runners Gazette. Tom said, “When I google myself those articles you wrote always come up.”

I injured both my knees in 2008 and appreciated Tom's encouragement and continued visits home once a week or more while I recovered. It was at this time that he also started encouraging me to write a book about Browning that we had talked about.

He mentioned it every time we met. On one visit I showed Tom the volumes of scrapbooks and clippings of research material I was going through.

Tom Osler holds the finish line for his hero Browning Ross.

"Don't look at all that information!" he urged. "Research can be a black hole that will suck you in when you have that much stuff and you will never get through all of it!"  I told him I had to read everything I had about Browning's accomplishments no matter how long it took or I might miss something.

Tom once gave me a piece of art he created out of fractal images. He combined his artistry with his mathematical prowess to create a one-of-a-kind piece of art that I proudly hung on my wall. On one of his visits, Tom gently let me know that I had hung the piece upside down. Oops!

Tom always mentioned his three mentors" Jack Barry, a runner and training partner from the 1950s and 1950s, Ted Corbitt, and Browning Ross.

Tom’s personality also had elements of Henry Thoreau. When I asked him about traveling, he said “Why would I travel to other places when I haven’t seen everything in Glassboro yet?”

 

Professor Tom Osler

Health issues

 When I visited Tom at his house, he would often urge me to take some of his running-related publications for prosperity. I would refuse and he would say, “I know you’ll take care of it, and we Oslers don’t live long. He said that through his fifties, sixties, and seventies but he did have some health issues in those years to battle through.

He had a stroke. He checked himself into the emergency room after not feeling well but not knowing the cause. A doctor reporting to duty happened to walk by him and looked Tom in the eye and said “You’ve had a stroke!” Tom said, “I answered I don’t have strokes which was a crazy thing to say and the doctor luckily made me go to the stroke unit to get treated.”

Tom’s heart stopped after a race and he was immediately resuscitated by a nurse and paramedics.

Walt Pierson a runner and friend of Tom’s remembered, “Tom got a pacemaker and I saw him at a race about a month later. I asked Tom what did his doctor say about racing. He responded that he didn’t ask. And added that he was 64 years old and didn’t care.”

Tom ran continued to run daily with a defibrillator and a pacemaker. One year he returned to the starting line bloody a few minutes after the start of a race I was directing. He went out very fast in the race and his defibrillator fired knocking him to the ground.  I took that as a sign to stop holding the race.

I thought Tom’s running during his sixties and seventies was one of his most impressive athletic feats. He ran two races almost every weekend, often totaling over 100 for the year and every race was consistent.  He ran the same in high heat and humidity, or cold and wind as he did in moderate weather. When I mentioned this to Tom, he pooh-poohed it. “I’m not running that fast, just fast for my age group.

Tom at one of his thousands of races, the Browning Ross Bob Kupcha 5k

Tom supplemented his running with daily swimming and walking. He often walked around the Deptford Mall in the morning when it opened and on one walk fractured his hip.

I called Tom right before his hip surgery to find out when it was scheduled and planned to meet him a few hours after his surgery in his room.

When I got to the hospital a few hours later I saw a man briskly walking around the hospital grounds with a cane. It was Tom! He was up and about and walking immediately after his surgery.

The hip replacement was what ended Tom’s running career and he missed running terribly.

He went to one or two races to watch and help out but stopped after deciding he missed running in the race too much to attend.

His vision was also starting to fade. He used a computer to read when it became difficult to read printed words on paper.

I thought of something Tom had once told me:

“If God gave me the opportunity to relieve 10 moments of my life, many of those would be races. I enjoy that moment in the race when you must use willpower to overrule the body. There is always the spot in the race where the runner is tired and vulnerable to discouragement. I am most proud of those moments when I was able to beat a superior runner by using my head. That is what you remember, and those are the moments I would relive in my life.” And.” running offers both pleasure and pain. There is nothing like the purification of the soul through running. Running helps you connect with what is important in your soul.”

Running Legends: Harry Berkowitz, Tom Osler, Browning Ross and Herb Lorenz

Remembering Tom

Tom was a proud member of the South Jersey AC, and Woodbury Road Runners Clubs and gave encouragement to all of the members of both clubs over the years.

Walt Pierson is also a member of both clubs and shared some of his favorite memories of Tom:

“Tom was a sharp dresser— handmade clothing from overseas, leather pants with zippers.

(Tom was a fashion model for an online Jeans Company).

Tom was a changeable competitor—- I remember one race he would seem overweight; the next you could count his ribs he was so thin. On one of his diets, he used children’s size toy dishes to keep the portions small.

Tom was always experimenting with his running shoes. To reduce the weight of his running shoes one time he cut the heels narrower and cut off all the trim such as the Nike swoosh. He was a true pioneer of the sport. Sadly, we won’t see the likes of Tom and Browning Ross again.”

Ed Donohue: “We all wish Tom had lived to 102 instead of 82 but he lived a full life and impacted so many people in a positive way. What a great life.”

Tom said that both Corbitt and Ross had "many saintlike qualities." Tom had those qualities as well. It is some consolation that all three men are possibly together now looking out for us as saints are said to do.

Tom was fond of the African proverb “When an old man dies a library burns to the ground.” Meaning the person takes a life of accumulated knowledge with them. In Tom’s case, it isn’t quite true. We have his books and his mathematical publications and the memories of Tom with us always.

Tom Osler and Ed Dodd

   

Ed Dodd, Tom’s lifelong friend, and co-author: “I first met Tom in the summer of ’62, that began a friendship of more than 60 years. We took hundreds of long runs together and race many times.

"I only beat Tom one time in a race under 24 hours, and that inspired him to develop the famous “Oslerian pickups” in training that he wrote about where he would accelerate in training. (Note: Amby Burfoot credited the Oslerian pickups and reading about Toms’s training as a factor in his winning the Boston Marathon in 1968.)

Tom was responsible for my Ph.D. in Mathematics and my career as a teacher, and my interest in ultra marathons.”

I remember some of our long runs together when Tom would sing (the Woody Guthrie and later Grateful Dead) song “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad.” “I’m going down the road feeling bad, don’t want to be treated this way.”

I’ll think of Tom every day. I hope we all have found or will find those to love, like Tom
did with his wife Kathy, his sons, Eric and Bill, and his grandsons Gabe
and Zack, and his great-granddaughter, Zoey.

I also hope we all have or will find a way of life that fills us with joy and happiness,
like Tom did with running and teaching.

I also hope that that way of life will make this world just a tad bit better off
for us having been here for our short time.

I know the world has been made better by the life of Tom Osler."

Hopefully, this gives the reader a small sense of Tom Osler’s accomplishments and influence on me and others that were lucky enough to meet and know him. Sadly, the article cannot capture Tom’s voice or his laugh, his unwavering friendship, his constant encouragement, and his kindness. When I think of Tom now, I think of the Greek storyteller Aesop. His name might have come up during our visits together.

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” –Aesop

 This article was written by Jack Heath for Runners Gazette. 

Tom Osler interview

Using Hot Baths To Acclimate for a Hot Outside Workout

 

Too hot outside for a workout? A hot bath can actually help.

Acclimating to hot weather is a good idea for anyone who wants
to reduce risk of heat illness during their outdoor workout

By  Gretchen Reynolds, Washington Post

April 19, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

When springtime temperatures spike and your usual outdoor ride, run and walk suddenly feels sizzling and punishing, it may be time to take — a hot bath.

Acclimating to hot weather is a good idea for anyone who wants to reduce the risk of heat illness and feel more comfortable exercising outside or just moving around. But getting our bodies used to the heat can be time-consuming and uncomfortable, often requiring weeks of slowly ramping up the time we spend working out outside, in nature’s blast furnace.

But there’s an alternative. Recent research suggests we may be able to rapidly acclimate to the heat by lounging in a hot bathtub or sauna for at least half an hour a day, preferably after a workout.

This method, repeated for multiple days in a row, seems to offer a relatively simple and accessible way to start preparing for hot weather.

Studies show it’s appropriate for both robust athletes and many people who are more out of shape or older.

The idea, said Edward Cole, a doctoral candidate at Hull University in England, who studies exercise and heat, is to make heat acclimation “available to more people.”

But there is a catch. Pleasant as it may sound, sitting for prolonged periods in a torrid tub can be surprisingly hard.

Why you need to acclimate to the weather

Hot weather, especially when it shows up suddenly, makes outdoor activities draining and even dangerous. As we move around, our bodies generate internal heat, which we must shed to keep our core temperature stable. Otherwise, we risk heat exhaustion, illness or even stroke.

To dissipate this heat, our hearts pump warmed blood away from our core and up to the skin. We also sweat. But when the air is warm and humid, these processes barely keep up. Our hearts labor to move more blood, sweat pools on our skin, each step feels laborious, and we grow hotter and hotter.

Acclimation helps. If we slowly get used to exercising in the heat, we add blood volume, reducing strain on our hearts. We also start perspiring earlier and more profusely and should feel less flattened by soaring temperatures.

But this type of acclimation is not easy. In athletes, 10 or more hot workouts of gradually increasing duration and intensity during the hottest part of the day are usually needed, a regimen that is unlikely to be attractive or even achievable for many of us.

Enter hot water.

Why hot baths are like exercise

“Using passive heat acclimation methods like hot-water immersion certainly removes barriers” to acclimating, said Andrew Greenfield, who studied exercise and acclimation while a graduate student at California Baptist University in Riverside, Calif.

It turns out that slipping into hot water is, in some ways, indistinguishable from exercise, as far as our bodies are concerned. It raises our core temperature, heart rate, and sweating.

So maybe, some scientists have speculated, it also can stimulate heat acclimation.

A pioneering 2015 study put the idea to the test, with 17 healthy, active men running on treadmills at an easy pace in a normal-temperature room for 40 minutes and then sitting up to their necks in water warmed either to a coolish 93 or steamy 104 degrees for up to another 40 minutes.

After six days of this, the men who had marinated in the hot water showed many of the hallmarks of acclimation. While exercising in an overheated lab, they started sweating earlier and reported feeling less hot than the other men. They also ran farther and faster in a 5-kilometer time trial.

How anyone can acclimate with hot water

Since then, researchers have lightly parboiled other volunteers in a variety of experiments, including older people, ages 68 and up, who, in a 2021 study, either exercised in hot conditions for an hour or rode a bike slowly for 30 minutes and then soaked in hot water for another 30 minutes. After five days of these routines, they all felt less hot and moved around more quickly and easily in the heat.

Even young men who only soaked in hot water for 40 minutes, without exercising first, showed signs of heat acclimation after three days in a 2021 study.

But whether hot tubbing is the best — or safest — way to acclimate remains in question.

“Heat is much more intense in hot water versus hot air at equivalent temperatures,” said Greenfield, who led the 2021 study of young men. Most of them could barely tolerate remaining in the water for the full 40 minutes, he said.

Michael Zurawlew agrees. Now a postdoctoral research officer at Liverpool John Moores University in England, he led the 2015 study that helped ignite interest in what is often called passive acclimation and has conducted many related studies since. In his groups’ experiments, the volunteers rarely were able to stay long in the 104-degree water at first, he said.

But their tolerance “gradually increased so that by the sixth day, they could complete the full 40-minute bath,” he said, and be considered, at that point, heat acclimated.

Start with a 20-minute bath

Want to prepare for your own imminent heat wave or upcoming hot-weather race with a long soak? Zurawlew recommends starting slowly. Fill up your tub with water heated to about 104 degrees, then “complete a 20-minute bath” on your first try, he said, and gradually add to the amount of time you gently stew over the coming days.

“If you start to feel dizzy, lightheaded, or nauseous at any time, you should carefully remove yourself from the bath,” he said.

Immerse as much of your body as tolerable. In most acclimation experiments, volunteers sat covered to the neck, although sometimes only to the waist or with just their legs dangling in the hot water. But less skin in the water usually demands more time in the tub, Zurawlew pointed out, to heat up your insides and prompt your body to adapt.

That’s also why he and many other researchers recommend exercising first. It gets your body appropriately hot and bothered, even before you soak.

The good news is that acclimation starts quickly, usually within three days, Zurawlew said, although you’ll be better acclimated after about six or more days of fervid exertion and soaking.

You can tell you’re acclimated when the same hot water you could barely withstand two days ago feels bearable today, he said.

But even then, remain cautious during hard workouts in the high heat. Drink water; seek shade if you feel ill, and head out in the morning, if possible, when ambient temperatures tend to be lowest.

Do You Really Need Expensive Running Shoes?

 What You Do (and Don’t) Need in a Running Shoe

It’s tempting to believe the right sneakers will help you run faster or avoid injury. Here’s what experts know.

By Cindy Kuzma New York Times

Cindy Kuzma is a health and fitness writer. She has completed 23 marathons, including seven in Boston.

March 30, 2023

Humans have run for hundreds of thousands of years, most without the benefit of cushy, brightly colored footwear. But take a stroll around a sporting goods store or scroll through a running website, and you’ll find a dizzying array of options. Some promise speed, others comfort and injury reduction — and nearly all carry hefty price tags.

To help you sort fact from fad — and stability shoes from super shoes — we consulted research and experts.

What makes a running shoe a running shoe?

Traditional running sneakers are designed to blunt the impact of hitting the ground and provide traction, said Geoff Burns, a sports physiologist for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee in Colorado Springs.

As with other athletic shoes, running sneakers are made of fabric, foam and rubber, but they’re engineered to meet the specific demands of the sport. For instance, they’re typically lighter and more flexible than basketball shoes, which are designed to protect your foot during lateral, stop-and-start movements.

The biggest difference in most running shoes is in the midsole, made of cushy foam. Other types of athletic sneakers have midsole foam, but there’s more in running shoes and manufacturers say it’s tapered toward the front of the shoe to assist with forward motion, Dr. Burns said.

In addition, most running shoes have features integrated into the uppers — the fabric parts that make up the top the sneaker — meant to keep your foot secure, said Matthew Klein, a physical therapist, assistant professor in the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program at West Coast University, and founder of the “Doctors of Running” website and podcast. You might notice a stiff piece of cardboard or plastic on the back of the sneaker called a heel counter, for instance, or extra strips of fabric, called overlays, that run across the upper.

Do specialized running shoes actually do what they claim?

Shoe companies invest a great deal of money in biomechanical research, said Allison Gruber, an associate professor of kinesiology and a biomechanics researcher at Indiana University Bloomington.

However, marketing departments and running-store clerks often oversell certain features, especially to newer runners, said Dr. Klein and Dr. Kevin Vincent, a physiatrist and director of the University of Florida Health Running Medicine Clinic.

Stability and motion control shoes, for instance, are popular among runners and are said to prevent injury by correcting for overpronation — when your ankle collapses too far inward as you walk or run. Some models have rigid posts that reduce side-to-side motion, though many newer releases use subtler systems, such as making the shoe wider on the bottom than the top, Dr. Klein said.

What should you look for in running shoes?

Most runners — including those who are lacing up for the first time — should consider opting for what’s known as a neutral daily trainer, Dr. Klein said. These shoes don’t attempt to change the way your foot interacts with the ground — they simply place some cushioning between the two.

But there are a few reasons to consider other options. While specialized shoes, like maximalist and stability sneakers, don’t seem to ward off running injuries, clinicians like Dr. Klein and Dr. Vincent said they sometimes recommend them to patients who are already coping with certain types of pain or injury.

If, for instance, you have arthritis, plantar fasciitis, or other types of pain in your feet, maximalist shoes — especially those with rocker bottoms — may help, since

there is some evidence that they might decrease the pressure on your feet and the demands on your Achilles and ankles. In these cases, consider seeing a sports medicine provider, who can guide you on treatment and prevention.

And if you regularly log miles on craggy, muddy or steep terrain, trail shoes have added traction for better grip, especially on downhills, Dr. Klein said. Some also have a stiff plate embedded into the midsole to protect your foot from sharp rocks.

And, above all, make sure your shoes feel comfortable, he added. Comfort, more than matching your shoe to your gait or foot type, is what will keep you running over the long term, he said.

Running shoes are expensive. How often should I really replace them?

Most name-brand running shoes cost over $100, and specialty super shoes can run upward of $200. You can also pick up other trainers for around $50 at a discount or sporting goods store — but many runners find that they don’t feel as cushioned or comfortable, likely because they use less or lower-quality foam, Dr. Burns said.

Studies conducted in the lab and in the real world suggest running shoes do lose significant amounts of shock absorption within 300 to 500 miles, if not earlier. That’s about three to five months if you’re a serious runner, or perhaps around nine to 12 months, if you’re getting out there a couple times per week, said Hiruni Wijayaratne, an elite marathoner and certified running coach. But it isn’t clear when this breakdown begins causing problems for your feet or legs, Dr. Burns said.

Much depends on the runner and the shoe, he said. Higher-mileage runners, those who train on harder or rugged surfaces, or people with uneven gait patterns may have to replace shoes sooner, and super shoes tend to break down faster than neutral trainers.

If you’re accustomed to running, you might feel when your shoe is nearing retirement — perhaps your arch or shins ache slightly, or your knees or heels grow sore. Visible signs of damage, such as cracks or worn-through rubber, also indicate it’s time to move on, Dr. Vincent said.

You can extend a shoe’s life by wearing it only for running and not to other workouts or the grocery store, Dr. Burns said. And if you have the funds, alternating between pairs helps too, by allowing at least 24 hours for the foam to restore its shape. There’s also some evidence that cycling through more than one model — whether it’s in a different category, or a similar style in different brands — reduces injury risk, perhaps because it slightly varies the repetitive stresses on your body.

Finding the right sneaker can feel daunting, but don’t stress too much about getting one perfect pair, Dr. Burns said. Instead, recognize there’s likely a range of shoes that will work for you — and the search is all part of the running journey.

A version of this article appears in print on April 4, 2023, Section D, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: Do You Have to Buy Fancy Running Shoes?