My default approach when it comes to clothing is "wear it until it falls apart." Works nicely for a lot of things, but running shoes, not so much. Once the padding wears down, the shoes lose their ability to support the arch of the foot, leading to all kinds of unfortunate injury possibilities. Particularly if you run on hard surfaces, such as the asphalt on the streets in my neighborhood.
To be honest, I'd already let this go longer than I should. Most of last year, I noticed increased pain in my calves. That's a warning sign that you aren't getting enough support from your shoes. So I probably should have done this a while ago, but better late than never.
I went over to Gazelle Sports to find my new shoes. There are cheaper options, but I like having someone who knows what they're doing help me make the right choice. Having the right shoes means less wear on my body, which is worth the extra cost to me. Plus I tend to have some trouble finding the right sizes. Helps to go somewhere that can offer some non-standard sizes, particularly extra wide.
At Gazelle, a nice young lady named Micah recommended a few different options for running shoes with good padding. She very patiently helped me go through about a half-dozen pairs of shoes, most of which were either too narrow (but the right length) or too long (but wide enough). Finally, we found a pair of Nike Air Zoom Structures that fit well enough.
