For the last couple years I’ve been training about 50/50 on Saucony Fastwitch and a variety of other substantially more cushioned neutral gait shoes. My current pair of fastwitch shoes are about done and I was thinking about migrating to the A6 when it comes out this year since I’m focusing on short course racing this year, but I’m not sure if the shoe or my foot will have the durability to use it for half my training runs.
I haven’t gone as far as my A4’s for every day training but I have put a lot of miles on my DS racers which IMO are just a little lighter than the Saucony Fastwitch.
I had gone 10 days in a row on my A4’s but felt I needed more shoe for daily running.
jaretj
I did the vast majority of my training miles in 2010 in Asics Piranha’s (even lighter than the Saucony A series) including racing the marathon at Ironman Canada in them. I did the majority of my mileage in 2011 and 2012 alternating between two pairs of Saucony A4’s (to give them a chance to “recover” some cushion between workouts). However, after taking a big chunk of time off, losing my fitness, and gaining some weight, I have gone back to training in Saucony Mirages and Peregrines and racing in Fastwitches. I feel like I have to be light, fit, and have a good mileage base in my legs to have the durability to get away with doing all my mileage in racing flats. However, it does feel good and fast when I do.
How does the shoe itself hold up to the miles? I’ve read a couple accounts of the upper tearing up after only a couple hundred miles…
I never had any problems with the uppers. I could see how the open mesh could be susceptive to tearing up if you are hard on shoes, but historically I don’t tend to be. I finally retired my A4’s when some of the little glued on tread triangles started coming off around the “toe-off” area, but that was after 7-800 miles.
700-800 seems very reasonable. I’m at about that on my current fastwiches, and the upper is just starting to separate from the foam along the arch.
I have put in a lot of miles in my A5’s. It’s never been my “exclusive” daily trainer, but I’ve gone through periods where it was definitely getting out there 4x a week (I run 6-7 days). I think I got 400mi out of my first pair before the upper’s mesh started to wear through. My second pair is going strong though. I almost exclusively run in racing flats (7oz or lighter); I tip the scales between 143-150lbs depending on fitness, etc. It probably wouldn’t work as a daily trainer for a heavier runner (in weight and gait).
The A5 is a great shoe. It’s much more suitable for daily training than the A4 which I liked but was very “responsive” (ie firm bordering on hard ride). I didn’t like the A4 for much over an hour in training or racing and certainly not running a lot of miles in it. I did it, but definitely felt it in my legs afterwards. I can run 9-10 miles in my A5’s without feeling beat up. Having said that, now that the Asics Hyperspeed is back, I’ll probably do more running in that shoe and use the A5’s for faster running or races.
If the A6 is like the A5, you could probably get away with running in it just 1-2/week and then use it in races. Hopefully that doesn’t represent half your training runs. Then you have a training problem not a gear problem. 