The past few weeks has been rather rainy. As such, I have been dealing with wet waterlogged shoes quit often recently. There is nothing worse than putting a pair of damp shoes on the next day. But have no fear – if you follow these simple steps – your favorite pair of treads will be ready to hit the pavement with you by morning.

It is really simple to dry your sneakers, but before I get to that here are a few other tips:

Keep your last pair of running shoes to use when it is raining really hard out. A run in the rain will not ruin your new sneaks, but it will make them dirty looking!

Never ever dry your shoes in the dryer The dryer can shrink the uppers and/or ruin the cushioning and/or weaken the adhesives – Just Don’t Do It



The proper way to dry your sneakers:

Newspaper, more newspaper and then some more newspaper After your run remove the insole from your running shoe Stuff your sneaker with crinkled up newspaper I usually use 2 full sheets – 1 in the toe-box area and one in the heel area Let the newspaper soak up the wetness for 1 hour Replace the wet newspaper with 2 more sheets of crinkled up newspaper Let this newspaper soak up more water for 2-4 hours Right before bed, replace the damp/wet sheets with 2 new sheets of newspaper one last time The next morning – pull out the newspaper and place the insoles back in your shoes Your favorite kicks are ready for another run



Just as an FYI – 2 weeks ago I ran in my old shoes. They got waterlogged. Because they were my old shoes (and I was lazy) I did not perform these steps. Two days later I ran in my new shoes. It rained. They got waterlogged. I dried them with newspaper as outlined here. The next morning my new shoes were good to go. The old shoes were still damp 3 days later…and they smelled horrible!

The newspaper is not only for rain – if you sweat a lot (you cannot see it, but I am pointing at myself) – you can also use this “trick” to help sop up the sweat (how’s that for mental imagery?) and keep them smelling good (good may be pushing it…’less bad’ is more like it). I usually only have to use 1 round of newspaper if they are wet because of sweat.

There you have it – one less reason to run on a treadmill.