Running Shoes History

Words: 646
Pages: 3

“Happiness is in a brand new pair of running shoes.” Runners everywhere normally form a bond with their running shoes, why? Our running shoes are our only tools. They are important because of the impact they have made on any runner. Running shoes are relatively new, have gone through many stages of evolution, and helped famous Olympic runners.

The running shoe is a new edition to our world; it’s just over 200 years old.

Running shoes were first made out of leather but if they got wet they would stretch out. People wanted a shoe that was lightweight, gripped the ground and did not stretch out.

The shoe has been handed around to different inventors that helped evolve the shoe.

In 1832 Wait Webster had an idea of putting rubber soles into the shoes. In 1852 another Britain Joseph William Foster the founder of Boulton what is now Reebok created the process of putting spikes on the
…show more content…
Next came the action of vulcanization, this is the process of taking rubber and fabric and melting them together. This made the shoe lightweight, flexible and silent when you are running in them. The creator of the modern running shoe was Adolf Dassler, who began his evolution of the shoe in 1920. His shoes had a special design and had had a different number and set up for the spikes, this was determined by distance. This was also the first time shoes were categorized in a type, depending if you were a sprinter or a distance runner. In 1936 Adolf’s shoes were being worn by Olympic athletes including Jesse Owens. Jesse Owens received 4 gold medals at the Berlin Games wearing Adolf’s shoes. During the 1936 Olympics Hitler used the Olympics to help support his idea that Aryan people were the dominant