The fortunes of old shoes

I ran yesterday for 40 consecutive minutes, the longest distance since January. My knee was fine throughout; it felt stiff but there was no pain at all. Earlier in the day I bought new running shoes – New Balance shoes trimmed in fiery orange – and I think they probably helped my ITBS since my regular shoes were really old, like 4 years old or something. I returned to them after my knee started giving me problems, like a sad child looking to her favorite blanket for comfort. Long before the injury, I had been leaning on my beloved Mizunos, and as I've been slogging (as in, slowly jogging) and recovering, I've been avoiding their hot-pink temptation, reaching instead for the old trouble-free standbys (in the most dependable colour, blue). It's as though I connect the Mizunos with the injury and I'm not sure why, except that I was wearing them when the first twinge made itself known, but that might not be the fault of the shoes. Everyone claims a different source for this injury - insufficient stretching, worn out shoes, leg length discrepancies, overtraining - and who knows, any or all of these could be factors. Anyhow, I didn't train that much in the old shoes, and had demoted them to gym use for weight training and the odd turn on the elliptical machine. They haven't given me any trouble yet, but I secured a new pair just to be safe. Old shoes are better for the memory, not the feet. I read that in a fortune cookies once. It's true.