I’m super excited to be able to give you a little Mizuno Wave Inspire 10 sneak peek. When Mizuno offered their 10th anniversary edition Wave Inspire for review I couldn’t wait to get my hands, I mean FEET, into them! I’ve seriously been stalking the front porch since I heard they shipped.
I will admit, I am a runner who has transitioned from a stability shoe to a more minimal platform and I was worried how these would work for me. My current running shoes are neutral and have a 3 mm drop and these stability shoes are sporting a 12 mm drop. Because of some foot issues lately, I also occasionally wear an older pair of stability shoes with a 10 mm drop, so I was game to give the Mizuno Wave Inspire 10 a try.
(Full disclosure: I’ve been struggling with some foot problems (a bone spur on my left heel and a suspected Morton’s Neuroma on my right foot) so no runs lately have been comfortable. I was hoping the extra cushioning and stability in the Mizunos would help alleviate some of the pain I’m having.)
The Pros:
- These shoes are extremely light weight. For a shoe with this much structure, I was shocked at how light they were. According to Mizuno, the Men’s Inspire 10 should clock in at just 9.0 oz, with Women’s at 7.6 oz, very similar to my Newtons.
- They felt like they provided adequate cushioning in the forefoot and surprisingly, my heel didn’t hurt at all when I ran 3 miles in them the day they showed up at my house.
- They feel like a very stable shoe. When comparing them with my other shoes, they offer a wider base of support through the ball of the foot and quite a bit of arch support (maybe a bit too much for me).
- The fit was great. Websites recommended ordering Mizunos a 1/2 size larger than what is normally worn and the 8s I received fit very well. (For reference, I’m a 7 1/2 Wide in Asics 2170s and a 7 or 7 1/2 in Newton Gravity depending on the model year.) I had plenty of room and the shoes never felt tight.
- No calf pain whatsoever. This has been an intermittent problem lately but my calves were happy campers during this test run.
The Cons:
- I’ll be honest, I’m not crazy about the color choices in the 10th anniversary shoe. Yes, I know they are modeled after art by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, but I’m a girl who likes loud, flashy colors. These grey ones I have are a bit boring and the white I’ve also seen in the Women’s model are not much better. One site had a pink pair listed, so maybe there are additional color choices depending upon the vendor.
- My neuroma area really started to hurt about 2 1/2 miles into my run. Now, this may not be the shoe’s fault at all because it hurts in other shoes too, but this was definitely more extreme than I’ve experienced in a few weeks.
- I felt as though I was slapping the ground in these shoes. Again, this may be a product simply running in a different style of shoe and not anything wrong with the shoes themselves.
Since I’ve only had one opportunity to try these shoes (coming just 2 days after a hard, 14 mile run), I’m definitely going to keep trying the Wave Inspire 10. There are some in the running community who advise runners to alternate shoes during training. I’m not 100% sure why you would do this other than to engage different muscles in the feet, ankles and calves as different heel/toe drops challenges different muscle groups. I figure at this point, it can’t really hurt.
Mizuno provided the Wave Inspire 10 free to review but the opinions are all my own.
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