Extend your running shoe life cycle

I'm the odd female -- I don't like lots of shoes. I probably wear less than six pairs of dress-up shoes and my feet are never happy the next day. A granola girl, most of the time I'm in jogging shoes, Teva sandals or my Merrill hikers.

Okay, so my personal shoe carbon imprint is fairly small. Beyond my lack of interest in shoes, I rarely totally wear them out. My dad purchased my very first pair of jogging shoes when I was around 14. After retiring them from running, I wore them around casually for years, graduating them to 'around camp' shoes, with one sole finally cracking completely through in Idaho's Sawtooth Mtns when I was 28.

In honor of Earth Day today, I wanted to share a few environmentally-friendly tips from Brooks on how to extend the life cycle of your running shoes.

• On Your Feet: After your running shoes wear out, slip them on for casual street wear. Once they're past that stage, transition them to gardening, lawn, painting duties.
• Donate: If your shoe is in decent shape and you don't need another gardening shoe, donate them! Look to a local charity, a community drop-off box or even ship them to Soles4Souls, a national organization facilitating the distribution of new and gently used shoes to those in need around the world.

Running shoes are replaced fairly often. The goal here is to try and avoid a landfill whenever possible. It'll take a little extra effort, but our Mother Earth is worth it.