The 9 Best Running Shoes We Tested This Year
Four hundred miles, one treadmill rig, and a lab that measures actual energy return. Three of these cost under $140.
Alexis Brooks
Senior Gear Editor
Every shoe in this guide logged at least 40 miles on the feet of our test panel, plus instrumented runs on the FORGE treadmill rig measuring ground contact time and vertical oscillation. We bought all nine at retail. Nobody paid for a placement.
How we test
- Five testers per shoe, each with a different gait pattern and weekly mileage between 20 and 70 miles.
- Instrumented treadmill sessions at 8, 10 and 12 km/h with force-plate data.
- A 200-mile durability check measuring midsole compression with a durometer.
- Weight, drop and stack height verified on calibrated scales, not marketing copy.
The headline: the gap between $160 super-shoes and $120 daily trainers has narrowed dramatically. Two of our top three picks sit in the value tier, and one of them beat shoes costing twice as much in energy return at threshold pace.
Fit beats foam. A $200 shoe that is half a size wrong will hurt you more than a $110 shoe that fits perfectly.
— Alexis Brooks, Senior Gear Editor
Written by
Alexis Brooks
Senior Gear Editor · Portland, OR · 302 articles
Has logged 4,000+ miles in test shoes and destroyed 63 pairs of earbuds so you do not have to.
