Dirrrty

Remember these lovelies I bought back in January?

Now, they look a little more like this:

The color was my greatest concern about the shoes when I bought them. My old running shoes were black and despite being pretty beat-up, they still looked clean. The mesh portion of my new shoes has gone from gleaming white to dingy gray. What's a girl to do?

I've done the prerequisite Googling only to find a lot of contradictory information. One site will say to put them in the washing machine while another will say that's the worst possible thing to do. Another said the dishwasher was a good way to clean running shoes...but the idea of shoes in the same machine we clean our eating utensils just seems gross (and not much better than a washing machine if it's indeed so bad to do that).

To this point I've taken a wash cloth to the leather parts, but that hasn't done much good for the mesh areas. I feel like getting them soaking wet is a bad idea for preserving the integrity of the shoe. I paid a pretty penny for these, so I'd like them to last that full 300 miles if possible. But, who wants to run in grungy shoes?

So, I turn to you, fellow runners...How do you keep your good running shoes clean? Any techniques, tips, or tricks?