Ice Running Shoes for pennies !!

Now that the roads and paths are coated with sheets of glassy ice I thought I'd share this idea that I saw on line a while ago that lets you carry on running despite the underfoot conditions being deadly.

If you want to carry on running when it gets icy one option is to buy grips that fit over running shoes such as Wintertrax or Yaktrax, but I've no idea how comfortable they are to run in or if they stay in place. Another option is to buy spikes that you can put into the soles of running shoes,  like those sold by www.icespike.com, which have the advantage of giving grip without having to stop and start to put on grippers, but these are £15 per pack of 32.

The option I used was to buy a pack of 100 hex head self tapping screws for about £4, the ones I bought were 13mm long with a 7mm head like these -

Then I dug out a pair of old running shoes and using a drill and the driver head shown in the picture (it's much easier that trying to do it by hand), I screwed them in to the sole of the shoe at various points -

I thought that they would be uncomfortable to run in and would be felt pushing through but they are completely un-noticable. I would avoid putting any through the sole immediately under the balls of your feet though.

I have used them a lot while I wouldn't run at 7 minute miles in them they do give superb grip letting me run over frozen puddles & icy tarmac without any problem, something that if I had tried in normal shoes would have resulted in my looking like bambi. And when the ice disappears and conditions are normal underfoot you still don't notice the screws.

One other word of warning - don't wear them in the house if you have wooden or laminate flooring !!