Saucony Grid Omni 5 – Shoe Review
When you joggle over over 1500 miles in a year you go through a lot of shoes. Recently, my latest pair (Saucony Grid Omni 5
another pair of Brooks Adrenaline but before we talk about them, let’s review the Saucony shoes.
Shoe Review: Saucony Grid Omni 5
Size: 11.5 USA, 45.5 Euro, 10.5 UK
Cost: $96.13 (US)
Bought: October 7, 2006
Retired: March 5, 2007
Total Days: 149
Miles Logged: 574
Cost per mile = 16.7 cents / mile
Overall Rating: 4 bean bags (out of 5)
Summary: This pair of shoes performed well and is a good choice if you’re going to run hundreds of miles on mostly concrete surfaces. They have good cushioning, feel good and provide good stability. Some quality issues need to be addressed but they are still a good value for the money.
Comments:
I’ve always liked Saucony. In fact, my first 8 years running I wore Saucony shoes mostly because my sister (who was a runner in college) said that’s what she wore, so it made sense for me to wear them. Add the fact that you could get a pair for around $50 and I was sold. Eventually, I branched out to see what other shoes offered so it had been over 3 years since my last pair of Sauconys.
At nearly $100, this pair wasn’t as inexpensive as my previous Saucony shoes. But 16.7 cents a mile made them a better value than my last pair of Brooks which cost over 19 cents a mile.
From a performance standpoint I couldn’t tell much difference between this pair and my last pair. They had nice cushioning, felt good, provided good stability and overall I still like Saucony shoes. Heck, I posted two of my top three fastest joggling marathons with these shoes and a sub-21 minute 5K. How can I not like these shoes?
But there were some problems. For example, within the first two weeks of wearing them some of the glue on the bottom of the shoe gave out so there was a piece of loose rubber. Quite annoying. The shoes also developed a hole in the back of the right pair. What can you expect from 570+ miles? The only other problem was that I got a blister on my left big toe after joggling the Chicago marathon. This hasn’t happened in over 7 years. Perhaps it was a fluke or maybe the shoes. It really didn’t happen during my training or in the subsequent marathon so I’m inclined to give the shoes a pass. But if you’re prone to blisters, you might think twice about getting these shoes.
Take a look at these pictures to see what happens to a pair of shoes after training and running 2 marathons, two 5Ks, a 10K, and 570+ miles.
The red circle at the bottom shows where the rubber came unglued. At the top of the picture you can see the uneven wear of the left shoe versus the right.
Click on the thumbnails for close up pictures of the shoe wear and tear.
This Post Has 3 Comments
Dear Average Joggler,
Now that it’s getting warmer, I’m going to ditch my brand new treadmill and start running outside. I’ll switch from watching TV while I run to listening to my ipod. I hate the eye phones that came with my ipod. They suck, they fall out, they are annoying. Can you recommend ear phones for running?
The Bachelorette
I just bought a brand new iPod and they have changed the shape of the headphones. They stay in a little better. You can find headphones that have different sizes of rubber caps that fit on the earplug so it will be snug in your ear. They can still fall out, but they may work better for you.
Rock musicians buy custom molded earphones that can cost more than $200. They remain in the ear very well. See Ultimateears.com.
finally a running post that i can relate too – shoes!
i’m surprised the average joggler doesn’t have more than one pair of running shoes so he can “rotate” them to match his running outfit. your wife would! just kidding, but is it good practice to rotate your shoes so you aren’t using the same pair every day if you run regularly?