Mizuno Wave Rider 20 Running Shoe Review

Josh gives you a look into the next evolution of a popular Mizuno line, the Mizuno Rider 20. This is an everyday essential for high mileage runners and comes with a favourite feature of the Mizuno running shoes, the stable heel counter.

It's a great partnership for runners that use an orthotic, have a neutral foot type or an under-pronating foot type. Smooth Ride technology gives you a plush feel for rolling up the step count on your pedometer in breezy comfort.

Check out the full review with transcript below.

Welcome to Sportitude. My name's Josh and I’m here today to talk to you about the Mizuno Wave Rider 20.

The Mizuno Rider 20 is a fantastic shoe. They’ve completely re-engineered the upper of this little guy from last seasons model. We've found it's actually a slightly more flexible upper through the forefoot which does tend to allow for a slighter wider foot type to run in the D width model.

Keeping with Mizuno’s theme which they’ve done with the past few models is the nice stable heel counter. It’s been one great selling feature for the Mizunos.

For a runner who has an orthotic and obviously looks at a neutral shoe, this has been one of the go-to shoes for us over the last few years. The reason being it does have the slightly deeper heel counter. Depending on the depth height of the heel raised orthotic, this fits really well.

Removing the orthotic from the actual scenario, it does fit and is designed to cater for a neutral foot type, slightly higher arch or supinator foot type.

We have had some success putting someone who mildly pronates inside this shoe and that’s myself included. I do require some arch support and I have ran in this shoe and it's very comfortable.

For the Mizuno runners out there that understand the range and actual tier levels, this little guy here sits just underneath the Mizuno Wave Enigma.

Many Wave Enigma runners love that shoe, the reason being they have a beautiful toe off phase. If they haven’t been able to run the Wave Riders in the past like 18 and 19 because they’d slap the ground too much with the forefoot, this little guy here does have a beautiful toe off phase.

The way I’ve explained this shoe to a lot of people is that it fits and feels like an Enigma but runs like a Rider. It's lightweight and soft but performs like an Enigma.

Being a high mileage running shoe, the actual stack height is that 12mm gradient. We’re looking at a nice heel fit through the forefoot. For any runners who experience lower achilles pain, calf pain and are really worried about how much gradient you're getting out of your shoe, we are looking at a 12mm stack height. 

We’ve found this shoe to be suitably softer underneath the foot then we’ve found with the Rider 18 and Rider 19. The reason I talk on the Wave Rider 18 and Wave Rider 19 is because that shoe engineering wise was the same underneath the foot, it’s just a different upper.

Talking about that toe off phase, they have it in a technology called Smooth Ride through the forefoot. Smooth Ride is Mizuno’s fancy way of saying nice plush toe off feel underneath the foot.

It’s built on a beautiful sprung last through the forefoot. For runners looking for that beautiful toe off getting ready to put their heel down again, it's a fantastic shoe. 

Wave Rider 20, love it, love for you guys to try it, check it out.

Happy running guys, we'll see you next time.