My trusty Mizuno Wave Riders are seriously at the end of their life, so I needed to buy new shoes. It also seems like an opportune time to try some minimal shoes. I tried on the Saucony Kinvara (way too narrow) and the Nike Free Run+ (good feel, but also narrow, and with way too much height to be actually minimal) at Fleet Feet, but that was all they had in the category. After calling around with not much luck, I did more research online, and decided to order a few shoes from runningwarehouse.com (btw, runblogger.com has a 10% off coupon for Running Warehouse).I decided on trying the Mizuno Ronin (I've been pretty happy with my Mizunos, and the Ronin is supposed to be a step more towards minimal than the Rider), the Asics Gel Hyperspeed 4, and the Inov-8 F-Lite 230. The Hyperspeed was recommended by folks on the Chirunning forums: people with wider feet seemed to like it, and it stil has some cushioning, so it was mentioned as a good shoe for transitioning to minimal. The Inov-8 was mention on runblogger.com in the minimal shoe roundup, and since I enjoy trail running more than road running, I figured it might be a good choice.The shoes arrived yesterday, and the Mizuno almost immediatle disqualified itself. Unlike the nice flexibility of the Wave Rider, the Ronin has a much stiffer sole, which is something I just can't abide by. It was a much closer match between the F-Lite 230 and the Hyperspeed. Both have a good amount of flexibility and feel good. However, the F-Lite 230 was a little large, and I had ordered the last one that Running Warehouse had in stock. Also, while I fancy myself a trail runner, right now I tend to run more on pavement, and the softer sole in the Hyperspeed seems much more suited to that. Lastly, the Hyperspeed is $60, and the F-Lite 230 is $95. That pretty much closed the argument.So I'm going to do my lunch run today in the Hyperspeed 4's and see how things go.
Update: Somehow I think this post got caught by Posterous's spam filters, and I must have missed the email that told me that I needed to tell posterous that yes, I was the one that posted it. But now that I've noticed that, I've posted it. Yay.