Road to Eugene Reviews: Saucony Endorphin Shift
A brief intro to this: I figure it’s about time I put my shoe and running experience to use. For new readers, I am a regular runner in the midst of training for the Eugene Marathon on May 1, 2022. I’m targeting a Boston Qualifying time, which means I’ll likely need to run at least 2:55. I also work at Fleet Feet Seattle, so I’m fortunate enough to try a great many shoes in my training. I’ve worked in shoe retail for 3 years, formerly with Dick Pond Athletics in Illinois. I’m going to share my experiences with each pair in a series of posts leading up to — and possibly beyond—Eugene race day.
Saucony Endorphin Shift (ver. 1) | Color: Dia de Los Muertos “Speedskull”
Specs:
$140 at launch (now discounted) | 4mm drop | Neutral | weight oz
My specific statistics in the shoe:
Size 11M | 206.4 mi (3/13/21–3/17/22 and counting)
Primary setting: Urban running (Seattle), some park trails.
Activities: Recovery runs, tempos, long runs.
About Me:
Size 10.2M Right, Size 8.7 2E M Left | Neutral, medium-high arch | Midfoot strike pattern | Common injuries: Shin splints, ITBS | 25 y/o man
Fit:
Consistent with most Saucony models. A bit wider than average in the forefoot, which suits me very well. The Speedskull has a different upper than the other versions of the Shift 1; it’s a knit piece with no underlays or overlays on the front half. The ceiling of the shoe is extremely accommodating with no strange or obnoxious flex points. The tongue is well-suited to higher insteps and those will lower volume feet may have trouble getting a secure fit through the midfoot without cinching the laces extremely tight.
Alright, this shoe took a little while to settle in for me. Purchased on extreme sale thanks to a generous Saucony discount code, I made sure to snag the extremely slick “Speedskull” color. I really intended it more as a cool shoe to have around the store, until I realized I really hate standing around in a shoe with a strong rocker. I took the Shift out for a few shorter runs, where I was promptly… disappointed. Pitched as the “recovery” shoe in the Endorphin line, I was expecting something with more cushion. I’ve been with Saucony for a while, specifically in the Kinvara and Freedom lines. I can handle a shoe that’s light on cushion, but this was a mystifying combination of high weight and stiff cushioning. PWRRUN in its base form is frankly just not very notable (I had a pair of Ride 13s for a while and felt the same way about those. Just about the most basic-feeling trainer you can imagine).
However, the rocker was noticeable in a very positive sense. I had purchased a pair of Endorphin Speeds prior to the Shift and used them for a few high-effort fly-bys—the Speedroll, as Saucony calls its rocker setup, definitely translates across models. It’s the closest thing I’ve felt to running on wheels. In the Shift, it’s less like being strapped to a Roman candle and more like the shoe is just cutting down on cumulative effort. On a comparative scale to the HOKA Clifton 7, another shoe I’ll be reviewing shortly, the Meta-Rocker of the latter is a 3 (out of 10) and the Shift is closer to a 6 or 7. It’s potent, it never fully disappears, and it is the keystone at the center of this shoe.
I mentioned above that the shoe took a little time to work for me, and I’ll expand on that here. The Shift had a pretty significant break-in period for me, around 70 miles. When I moved to Seattle in August, it was one of just two trainers I brought with me on the initial trip. I forced myself to commit to that thick wad of PWRRUN, intending to just use it as a short run shoe to give the Cliftons a day off. Whether the PWRRUN just needed to breathe or I gave myself Stockholm syndrome, something clicked. The Endorphin Shift started stretching its legs as I stretched mine, handling an increase in mileage and intensity with the same smooth confidence of the Speedroll. There are a lot of hills in Seattle, and having a firmer, stable foam underfoot provided some much-appreciated security and control relative to the Clifton. It quickly cut into the HOKA’s role as the workhorse, carving out more of a 50–50 timeshare.
Today, as I write this, I took the Endorphin Shift for its longest test yet: a 16-mile long run, a far cry from the shoe’s initial 3-mile trial. The shoe held up wonderfully, even getting me smoothly through the final mile, which has a half-mile stretch at a 7% grade. For longer stretches of gradual downhill, I felt the shoe’s cushion struggle to handle the increased landing impact, but I would have likely been more worn down at the end of the run in the higher-cushion Cliftons, so I’ll mark that as a wash. All in all, it is a shoe I gladly purchased again (this time, the Shift 2) and I’ll have fond memories for it and the journey it took me on from underwhelming to underrated.
