Saucony Endorphin Pro 5 Review

The Saucony Endorphin Pro 5 is for you if...

You are looking for roomy comfort through longer races

You are seeking super shoe performance at a friendlier price

You really love the Endorphin Pro 4, but want a bit more aggression

What is the Saucony Endorphin Pro 5 made for?

Designed to be approachable for all runners seeking personal bests, from 5ks to marathons, the Endorphin Pro 5 is a do-anything-well racing shoe. The Saucony Endorphin Pro 4 proved its value and versatility, with a ride that felt snappy enough to push through shorter, faster races, but comfortable enough to tackle endurance feats like the marathon.

With the Endorphin Pro 5, Saucony has largely stuck to what was working. Their PWRRUN HG and PB superfoam combination stays intact. There is still a full-length carbon plate included, but it has been redesigned with the same "slotted" design that the Endorphin Elite utilizes, for some more adaptability and improved foam integration. All in all, the midsole has been adjusted to be just a touch more aggressive than before.

This sort of mentality permeates throughout the Endorphin Pro 5, with Saucony taking things that worked in the previous model and turning the dials just a bit. And while the shoe is still good, we found ourselves wishing Saucony had twisted those dials just a bit harder to keep pace with the other racing shoes on the market.

Comfort

We found the Endorphin Pro 5 providing a fairly average comfort level. Its upper is streamlined and provides minimal heel cup padding with no ankle padding, as is appropriate for the super shoe category.

The knit tongue is soft and stretchy, but we didn't like the way that it was stitched in one piece, sock-style. Tightening laces on narrow feet led to the tongue folding in on itself, forming long, full-length wrinkles across the tops of our feet. This wasn't outright uncomfortable, but it was annoying. 

Underfoot, the overall ride is on the firm side, with a balance of impact absorption and responsiveness that worked for us. That said, if you prefer your racing shoe to have softer, more dynamic foam, the Endorphin Pro 5 may feel firmer and stiffer than your liking.

For one of our reviewers, this longitudinal stiffness seemed to result in Achilles issues. Without the flexibility to bend along with our foot strikes, we felt our Achilles tendons getting strained to the point of discomfort. We stepped away and wore other shoes for a few weeks, while the discomfort abated, then came back to the Endorphin Pro 5s to find the Achilles issue popping up again. For runners who prefer zero-drop shoes, or who have never experienced Achilles discomfort before, this may be a non-issue. But we found the situation uncomfortable enough to warrant a mention.

Performance

The Endorphin Pro 5 is meant to be a high-end racing shoe, but the final result falls a bit short of that billing. At about 8 ounces, and without major updates from the Endorphin Pro 4, the shoe feels like it leans more towards a super trainer category. The foam and plate combination responds well in moderate to moderate-hard paced ranges, but doesn't have that extra explosive power that true, bleeding-edge race-day options provide nowadays.

The Endorphin Pro 5 will still have a lot of good use cases for the running and racing population, and can still serve as a race-day shoe for those who favor approachability over propulsiveness and high energy return. But it misses its intended target of being a sharp, dynamic racing option.

Fit

The Endorphin Pro 5 runs true to length with a generous, adaptive fit that should accommodate more foot types than before. The toe box is noticeably less tapered than the Pro 4 was, and the added volume continues through the midfoot and the heel. As a result, we found just a touch too much looseness in the heel and wished that particular area had been kept a bit more snug.

All around, the shoe feels bigger, which will be appreciated by some foot types, but may take away from the shoe for people seeking sleek, aerodynamic race-day options.