Spring 2023 Shoe Awards

These shoes took a journey to get to you. As the final days of summer dwindled, we asked brands to show us their best in class. The leaves turned, snow fell, and our training calendars filled. We put more than 100 different models through their paces and considered each for a spot on these pages. After months of running and thousands of miles on the feet of our 280 wear-testers, the 25 here rose to the top. We evaluated them based on how each performed on the roads, trails, tracks, and racecourses with a focus on qualities like cushioning, flexibility, stability, and overall ride. This spring, the winners have arrived. And now you can finally meet them.

- JEFF DENGATE, AMANDA FURRER, AND MORGAN PETRUNY

Mizuno Wave Rebellion Pro 

PRICE: $250 WEIGHT: 7.5 OZ (M), 6.0 OZ [W]

DROP: 18.5 MM [M], 13.8 MM (W)

I ALREADY KNOW what you're thinking: gimmick. After all, look at that funky heel bevel, the crazy plate shape, an exaggerated wishbone cutout on the sole, and the full-length lattice of nubby rubber. But all that adds up to an impressively fast and fun!-racer.

The shoe has a massively thick midsole, but somehow Mizuno got it approved for racing by World Athletics (soles can't be thicker than 40mm). That really only matters for elites who are winning races; nobody's going to nullify your BQ if you lace up this chunky shoe. But, we have no idea how they got it approved because, in our lab, the heel on the men's shoe stacks up at 52mm thick. We measure the heel as the shoe sits flat, which puts the thickest part of that midsole in contact with the ground. And, on the road, we found that's how it behaves. There's no way anybody is heel-striking farther back on the thinner part of the sole at race paces. I wore the shoes for a tuneup half marathon in October and, running 6:30 pace, was kissing the ground right around the edge of that bevel with my slight heel strike. A tester much faster than me reported they felt a bump close to midfoot as they ran a turkey trot at low-5-minute pace.

The forefoot measured 33.5mm, meaning this shoe has an 18mm drop-that's a ski jump! (Mizuno claims a 4.5mm drop, but that all depends on where you measure the thicknesses.) When you load up the bouncy foam, you literally get thrown forward to toe-off. The carboninfused nylon plate makes that super-tall stack of foam more stable and creates leverage during the push-off phase of your stride.

Lighter than traditional rubber, the polyurethane resin outsole locked onto damp blacktop when we pushed the pace up a steep local hill on a lunch run.-Jeff Dengate