This review was written by Sarah Barber. A lifetime resident of Boise, Idaho, Barber has been a Life Flight Paramedic for seventeen years and currently works in a dual capacity as a clinician and a Quality Manager. When she’s not flying in helicopters or collecting data for continuous quality improvement, she can be found trail running with her dog and camping with her husband in the mountains of her home state and throughout the northwest.
Now that “super shoes” have taken flight, it’s become increasingly difficult to stand out with a unique product in the road running market. A shoe without a carbon plate seems so last year. Despite that, Vimazi’s new line of kicks are definitely not your grandpa’s sneakers. Though not yet on everyone’s radar, they’re doing something no one else is doing. Still, even after multiple rounds of wear-testing, their concept of “pace-tuned” shoes leaves more questions than answers.
Vimazi was founded by runners who wanted to create a more personalized running experience. Recognizing that the ground-strike forces generated when running a 4:50-mile are much greater than those generated at, say, a 10:00-mile, they designed a line of footwear to optimize cushioning and efficiency at a given speed. This was accomplished using different foam densities in the heel and the midfoot, along with adding a FastPod to the forefoot to aid propulsion. Vimazi founders express skepticism about studies suggesting that certain shoes actually improve performance, but cite their own research that might have Isaac Newton either smiling down at them or rolling over in his grave—I’m not sure which. (Read more about the physics behind the design here.)
With separate men’s and women’s product lines, six different road running models tackle everything from blistering pace ranges under 5 minutes per mile to more laid-back speeds exceeding 12 minutes per mile. Vimazi’s pace-tuned trail shoes will drop in the second half of the year. This is where my questions begin, and there’s no end in sight. What if I encounter a steep incline and my pace slows? What if I’m doing an interval workout after I warm up—do I need to change shoes? What if I’m a pocket-sized male or a gargantuan female—surely weight should be a factor?
Feeling like a brown-haired Goldilocks when I unboxed two pairs of Vimazi road shoes and viewed them side-by-side, the only obvious difference I noted was the color. Both share a 5 mm heel-toe drop and 29 mm stack height, although these numbers vary up and down the line. The model names, Z40 and Z50, are found in small print, along with the size, on the tag inside the tongue of each shoe. As this is a typical friction point on any shoe, I don’t expect the model number to still be visible after a few months of use. However, each shoe model only comes in one color, and each color is different. All I need to remember is this: mostly black shoes = easy maintenance runs. Mostly white shoes = tempo/intervals/threshold. But what was this peculiar upper made of—vinyl? Would it be pliable enough not to rub?
Having established a color-based mnemonic, I did what any normal runner would do. I put the Z40 on one foot and the Z50 on the other and ran around the block. Now the difference was apparent. The Z50 had shock absorption. The Z40 punched back. Both models placed me decidedly forward center-of-mass, but the rebound of the Z40 evoked Dennis Rodman while the Z50 was still posting up at half-court.
I put the Z40 on one foot and the Z50 on the other and ran around the block.
Since the Z40 expected me to be pushing an uncomfortable-for-me pace, I felt a level of implied pressure to perform. And I didn’t like that. So I swapped the Z40 on my left foot for the other half of the Z50 pair and went for a jog. Fifteen miles later, my feet were still happily bouncing along—and being able to lace up a new pair of shoes for a relatively long run without consequence is one mark of a quality build and anatomically correct design. Was my easy pace supposed to feel easier or simply “better?” But isn’t feeling “better” at the same pace the same as feeling like the pace is easier? My questions were becoming more philosophical and less logistical with every step.
Several days later, I woman-ed up and committed to an interval workout on the track, thinking that the Z40s would be disappointed with my warm-up pace but might help me get through some 800s at goal 10k pace. Expecting to get launched forward like a thoroughbred out of the gate at Churchill Downs was a mistake. But at least I felt faster than a Budweiser Clydesdale. The fact is that Vimazi’s shoes are designed to elevate performance within a specific pace range. They do not promise to help one achieve said pace ranges—that’s what intelligent training is for. The ranges are wide enough to accommodate good days and not-so-good days, with the speedier end of the pace ranges probably better achieved through race prep tapers.
But wait—if my race pace is made more efficient by a particular shoe, then wouldn’t that make said pace sustainable for a longer duration? That seemed plausible. And as most athletes know, much of what we do is governed, or at least influenced, by what we believe. So using the right model of Vimazi shoes might actually make a particular pace feel more doable long-term, even as the effort is chipping away at muscular endurance and wearing down mental fortitude.
What if I only want ONE pair of road shoes? Am I stuck within a given pace range? At the risk of sounding like a shoe fetishist, I recommend keeping at least two pairs of Vimazis in the quiver so as to select the appropriate weapon for the style of the run. However, if a trail runner only needs one pair of road shoes, I’d steer her towards leveling up; that is, pick the Vimazi model that’s one pace range faster than you think you need. The extra propulsion will spark an involuntary smile, and you might surprise yourself when you go full-send on your neighborhood Strava segment.
As I said at the top, Vimazi is doing something no one else is doing. And the reality is, so is each of us! We have our own pace, our own stride length, our own unique form—so why wouldn’t we benefit from running in a shoe that supports our individuality as runners? Vimazi has convinced me that there is a different runner in each of us, and there is a shoe to support whichever runner you are.
The Z50 and Z40 can be found here.
Editor’s tip: Read reviews of Brian Metzler’s book: Kicksology here and here to learn more about running shoes.
