For years I’ve been running in Asics Gel Nimbus running shoes. They are neutral (no motion control) and supposedly have the most cushioning of any running shoe. And they worked great for 3 years. Until now.
This year, they decided to make the toe box narrower and the tongue has padding in it. This combination meant that all of a sudden, my foot was bound by the shoe more tighter than before. After about half an hour of running, my foot started to swell and then caused bruising against the edge of my hard orthotics. Bruising the ball of your foot is no fun. You can’t really run hard until it goes away and it’s pretty painful to walk on.
This went on for about 3 weeks with me trying to figure out what was wrong. After 3 weeks of trying new tying methods, taping the orthotics down, new padding, etc. it boiled down to the change in the basic design of the shoe.
ARG!
I had 3 weeks of painful running because Asics chose to change the design of their shoe! The old design was fine. Why did they mess with it?
So I tried out the new Adidas A3 Microride which is extremely cushy in the forefoot, due to its cushioning cylinders which run along the bottom of the shoe. And they don’t bind my foot and make it swell.
Sorry Asics. I made the switch. You and other manufacturers should learn that you shouldn’t have keep messing with a working formula.