I always have more than one shoe on the go - I feel it is probably healthier not to stick to one shoe at a time. It also appears necessary so that I have a shoe to fall back on when they do the dirty and tweak a shoe so much that it becomes unwearable. Aaagghh!
I have plenty of shoes at the moment: Asics Cumulus 6, Mizuno Waverider 8, Asics Kanyon, Walsh PB, Mizuno Wave Precision, Nike Pegasus, but it's the Cumulus and Waverider which are my work horse heavy mileage shoes.
I've had a long history of the Asics Cumulus. I'm a wearer of orthotics, and they appeared (past tense) the ideal shoe for orthotic wearers (neutral, stable, well fitting). I started with the Cumulus III (they seem to like roman numerals) when I first got my orthotics. It was a nice shoe! The following year they brought out the Cumulus IV, with the usual tweaks. Unfortunately for me, one of the tweaks was to add a piece of PVC trim across where my little toe was. The result: I couldn't wear them! They caused horrible blisters on my little toe. I tried getting the shoe stretched, but in the end I had to bin them. Time to find another brand. I opted for a Saucony road/trail hybrid. Not ideal, but they were comfortable, and they lasted me for my first London Marathon.
The following year came the Cumulus V, and I thought I'd try them once more. Bingo! Gone was the PVC toe trim, and back was the comfort. I bought a total of 3 pairs over the year. Nice shoe.
Cumulus VI arrived and in their wisdom Asics chose to add 30g to the weight of the shoe. That's a lot! On the assumption that tweaks are improvements, why would you make a shoe heavier? I decided to seek out a lighter shoe and found the Mizuno Waverider - nice shoe. I stuck with the Asics as well though, splitting the mileage, and soon saw the difference the extra grams give you. Fast though the Mizunos were, they didn't last as long as the Asics - at least 100 miles less. Still worth keeping both brands going though - Mizunos for speed, Asics for mileage. I also bought a pair of Mizuno Wave Precision - the racing version - even quicker, and a blister free Cardiff Marathon!
So having replaced the Mizunos with a new pair of the same, a month later it came time to replace the Cumulus VIs with the Cumulus VIIs. Aaaagghhh! They've done it again!
Here is Mr Pig modeling my old Cumulus VI:
And here is a shot of the new Cumulus VII:
I'm sure you can see how different they are. The moldings round the upper are all different, the sole is different, and they've tried to make the upper more akin to a sock. This is a completely different shoe! Granted, it's lighter - it couldn't be anything else really - but it's not suitable for orthotics: your feet move around a lot in the shoe, and it doesn't feel like the orthotic is being held against your foot properly. A minor point, but on a freezing cold day, the wind was whistling through the mesh across my feet - this is probably a good thing, but it felt really odd.
I decided not to go with the new model. It just felt wrong on my foot, and I probably would only notice orthotic related problems after too many miles to take it back. Apparently Asics know about this problem - they are now aiming the shoe more at true neutral runners rather than orthotic wearers.
So I had to comb the shop for yet another brand of shoe.
I finally came up with the New Balance 1060, which felt closest to what the Cumulus VI used to be. I hope it works out!
I wonder what changes New Balance will make next year?
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