First Impressions of the Saucony Guide 5

I made my first foray away from the traditional running shoe dimensions by picking up a set of Saucony Guide 5s. Until now, I've been alternating between the Brooks Adrenaline and Saucony Guide 4, both of which are over 11 oz and have a 12 mm heel-to-toe drop. By contrast, the Guide 5 weighs 10 oz and has an  8 mm heel-to-toe drop.

I'm going to wait until I've run longer in these shoes to totally geek out about them, but here are my first impressions:

• The 4 mm heel-to-toe drop makes a huge difference. I feel very strange running in them, since the lack of suburb heel cushioning does force you to land more on your front foot. More on this in a future post.
• The cushioning in these shoes - concentrated in the mid and front foot - is simply sublime. Feels like wearing a shoe with space-age padding!
• I’m not completely comfortable in these shoes yet, because I feel like I need to increase my shin and calf strength in order to change my foot strike. Again, more thoughts on this in the near future.

In short, my first impression is that it's an amazingly comfortable shoe with moderate stability features designed to promote a forefront stride. I'm happy I bought them, but we'll see how effective they end up being. I'll report back after 50-60 miles in them.