Running gear, reviewed for bodies over 40

Most gear coverage is written for 25-year-olds with springy tendons. This isn't. Every guide here starts from what actually changes after 40 — slower tissue recovery, stiffer ankles, thinner plantar fat pads — and works forward to what that means for the kit you buy.

Latest guides

• Shoes Best Running Shoes for Plantar Fasciitis Over 50

  The shoe feature most often prescribed for this — a stiff rocker sole — has been tested directly against the mechanism it's supposed to fix, and it didn't clearly fix it.

• Shoes How Often Should Runners Over 50 Replace Their Shoes?

  The 300–500 mile rule is a convention, not a finding. What the research on worn shoes actually shows — and the one habit with better evidence behind it than any replacement schedule.

• Tech Best GPS Watch for Older Runners: Simple Interface First

  Independent testing puts sports-watch distance error at roughly 3–6 per cent, and price doesn't reliably buy accuracy. The criterion that actually matters after 40 is whether you can read the screen mid-run.

• Recovery Best Compression Socks for Older Runners

  A real but small effect, strongest in how the next day feels — and an evidence base built almost entirely from young men. Plus when not to compress at all.

• Shoes Running Shoes for Wide Feet Over 60: Width, Not Size

  Feet get wider with age but not longer — which means the fix most runners reach for, going up half a size, is the wrong one.

Why over 40 specifically

Sedentary adults lose roughly 10% of their VO2max per decade after 30. Masters athletes who keep training hard lose about half that — and how much you lose turns out to be driven more by training volume than by birthdays, with one analysis attributing over half the variance in men to changes in training load alone. Muscle mass declines 3–8% per decade after 40, and tendons become stiffer and less elastic. None of that makes slowing down inevitable — plenty of people run personal bests in their fifties — but it does change the equipment calculus. More cushioning becomes defensible where it wasn't before. Recovery tools stop being indulgent. Rotation between two pairs of shoes starts paying for itself.

These guides try to be honest about which of those shifts are supported by evidence and which are marketing that happens to target an audience with money.

Not medical advice. Nothing on this site is medical advice. If you have persistent pain, a diagnosed joint condition, or you're returning to running after injury or a long break, speak to a physiotherapist or doctor before making changes.