Saucony Endorphin Azura Review

The Saucony Endorphin Azura is for you if...

You want a shoe that can handle uptempo speeds without needing a midsole plate.

You want one shoe to cover a range of speeds and run types.

You seek a balanced midsole feel. Not firm, but not overly soft and squishy either.

What is the Saucony Endorphin Azura made for?

For a long time, it has felt like there is a hole to be filled in Saucony's lineup. The Endorphin Trainer, Speed, Pro, and Elite all had the pop needed for workout days, but all of them were built around midsole plates. The Saucony Ride, Triumph, and Guide are all comfortable, plateless options, but not ideal for picking up the pace. The Kinvara was quick and plateless, but minimally stacked in a way that might have deterred comfort seekers. It has seemed, for a while, that some Goldilocks shoe was missing that could help bridge the gap between these worlds.

And now, we have it.

The Saucony Endorphin Azura is a comfortable, plateless daily trainer, built around 41 mm of supercritical PEBA superfoam. It's fast every day. It's comfortable, especially compared to other, plated performance trainers. We found that the shoe has some growing to do before it's a perfect 10 out of 10, but for an inaugural entry in Saucony's lineup, it does a commendable job of scratching a deeply satisfying itch.

Comfort

The Saucony Endorphin Azura is a streamlined performance trainer, which puts weight savings and responsiveness ahead of comfort. It never felt uncomfortable, even through our longer efforts, but we found the foam to be firm, and tuned to be stable and fast instead of plush.

We found that the Azura has plenty of underfoot protection for tempo runs or longer runs, and the wide net base of the shoe kept us stable even without the stabilizing agent of a nylon or carbon plate.

The upper is stripped down, offering some nice structure in the heel and a soft internal midfoot wrap to provide a seamless on-foot experience. The rest of the upper offers a lightweight, breathable mesh that's comfortable enough, but mostly makes a point of staying out of your way. 

Performance

An energetic trainer should perform well at a variety of paces. The Endorphin Azura does well from normal paces to faster paces, but does start to feel a bit compliant and out of its element at slower paces.

We found that the shoe felt best at marathon race pace and, compared to other shoes in the category, the large stacks of pure, uncompromised PWRRUNPB super foam provides a fun running experience that other shoes in the space will have a hard time matching. Its weight is right in line with the other performance trainers in its category, but it's the experience in the shoe that feels like it has been elevated above a lot of those rivals.

Fit

We didn't have any major complaints about the fit of the shoe. We found that the Saucony Endorphin Azura ran true to size and offered a good lockdown in the midfoot. While the forefoot isn't roomy, it offered just enough space to stay comfortable while still offering that faster performance feel. The upper is simple, and lacks many frills or cushioning, but it offers a good blend of support in key areas while remaining lightweight, and kept us feeling connected to the shoe without pressure or bunching.