I never thought that I would be a proponent of the shoelace-free sneaker -- I've always thought the elastic band look was kind of strange and couldn't be comfortable. But hearing a friend rave about them and watching him slip his shoe off easily after a run made me reconsider. I shelled out the $7 for a pair and laced them into my running shoes (see above). I'm now on my third pair of shoes using Yankz and won't go back to regular laces.
It takes a few steps running to get used to them but they seem to adjust to your feet/ankles quickly. Your sneakers aren't too loose and they're not too tight and you really can just slip them on and off easily. I put my second pair of Yankz on brand new sneakers and it took about two runs to really feel like they fit perfectly, so if they don't feel great at first, give it a little time.
One downside -- the Yankz people were smart enough to make them almost impossible to re-lace once the ends have been cut (they start shredding making it tough to get them through the lace holes) so you can't really re-use them with new shoes, forcing you to buy a new pair for each new pair of sneakers. This also means if you cut the ends off the laces prematurely (they automatically come too long so they can fit all different sizes -- you have to cut off the extra length) when you first lace them up you're in for a tough time trying to get them re-laced. So run a bit in them before cutting the ends off. There are pretty good directions on the box, but if you're struggling there's also a video of instructions on the website.
A big upside is how much easier they make triathlon transitions. Rather than fumbling with tying your laces with shaky, bike-cramped hands, you can just slip your sneakers on and go. Genius!
There are also "locks" that work in a similar way for your laces (LockLaces, Squeezums) but since I've never used them I don't really know whether they work or not -- if you've used them, let us know.
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