Fall shoe review 2012-4:Spring Shoe Review 12 8/10/12 12:14 PM Page 1
Shoe ReviewS: Motion Stabilizing—iii • Performance—iv • Neutral—v look across the landscape of running shoes for Fall 2012 reveals more product diversity than in any season of the past decade. The potential for confusion points to the need for education, and we cannot stress this message enough: Runners need to know what their feet are like and get the shoes that meet those needs. This knowledge is not static. Rather, it’s a constantly changing equation where factors such as fitness, injuries, aging, and weight gain/loss, among other things, affect where you are on the running continuum. And you must monitor the role your shoes play in that equation.
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Two trends continue, both related to shoe weight. First, 20% of the shoes in this Review are new shoes—all of them in the Performance category—so we know that lightweight shoes are readily available. Second, more than 85% of the updated shoes are both lighter and a bit more expensive than the shoes they replaced. The maxim of the lightweight trend is apparently true: Less is more. That is, less weight costs more. The up-side is that the efforts to lighten these shoes have not compromised performance. Some of the new shoes follow the path of lower-profile geometry, allowing even more running footwear choices. It has never been more important to know the characteristics of your feet and what footwear choices will work for your current fitness level and your biomechanics. It’s our hope that this Review will help you make great choices! —Cregg Weinmann, Running Network Footwear Reviewer