Three Runners, One Prototype

Dateline: Melbourne Marathon Festival, Victoria, Sunday 12 October. Three elite runners, competing across three different distances, test the same prototype racing shoe. The results: two of them run personal bests, while one of them simply has a hell of a lot of fun getting in some more practice for his target race later this year.

The shoe in question was Mizuno’s Prototype Pure, a featherweight 137-gram carbon-plated racer that won’t hit the market until December. But its impact was immediate at the MCG finish line, where Mizuno ambassador Abdi Rhoble sliced time off his marathon PB, accredited dietitian Sophie Houghton knocked 15 seconds from her 10K best, and runner Connor Johnston cruised to a comfortable half marathon finish while keeping plenty in reserve.

For Abdi, the marathon delivered everything he’d hoped for. “I ran my PB!” he announced afterwards, still buzzing from his 2:18:52 finish that placed him 7th overall. (The Melbourne-based Somalian marathoner’s previous best of 2:20:46 was set on the same course a year ago.) “The weather is very nice and it’s a very good course. I wore my new Mizuno shoes, helping me to get my PB. They were very comfortable – I had no problems at all with them on the course. They’re perfect shoes.”

Coming from a runner who’s just covered 42.2 kilometres at serious pace, that comfort verdict carries weight. But it was Sophie’s experience in the 10K that perhaps best captured what makes this prototype special.

“I genuinely didn’t feel like I had anything on my feet,” Sophie reflects after her 36:31 finish. “They were so light, and I think that also shows how comfortable they were. A lot of the time I finish races and my feet are pretty sore and you get pretty beaten up from super shoes. But I could have kept jogging and cooled down in them, to be honest, because they just felt so comfortable underfoot.”

For context, Sophie’s previous 10K best came in July, racing at lakeside 10K, a pancake-flat course known for fast times. The Melbourne course, with its undulations and turns, typically runs slower. Yet she managed to better that mark by 15 seconds, crediting the shoes’ responsiveness for helping her maintain pace even after a hot start with the lead pack.

“They felt really different to anything that I’ve raced in before,” Sophie continues. “I think I’ve raced in a lot of really high-stacked rockered shoes. These felt different, but they felt really fast and like a perfect shoe for me for that five or 10K race. They felt really responsive and really snappy.”

Sophie’s appreciation of the shoe points to its relatively modest 34mm heel stack and 3.5mm drop – dimensions that place it closer to traditional racing flats than the current generation of thick-soled super shoes. Yet despite this lower profile, the Prototype Pure packs serious technology into its minimal frame. The midsole features Mizuno’s new nitrogen-infused PEBA-based Mizuno Enerzy XP foam, paired with what the brand calls a Smooth Speed Plate, a proprietary Carbon Wave Plate tuned to stabilise the ultralight midsole while delivering propulsive transitions.

Connor, treating the half marathon as a tune-up for the Auckland Half Marathon in November, had been instructed by his coach to run conservatively – targeting 70–71 minutes rather than chasing his 1:09:46 PB from Christchurch. His 1:11:11 finish hit that brief perfectly, but perhaps more interesting were his observations about how the shoe performed across 21.1 kilometres.

Like Sophie, his idea of a good race shoe is one you forget you’re wearing. “You don’t want to think about the gear that you use in a race. You don’t want to be thinking these shoes might come undone, or this is weighing you down at any point, or they’re sort of bulky. It’s super important to have equipment where you can block that out and just focus on the race and the run ahead,” Connor says.

But Connor also picked up on details that might escape runners in shorter events. “The biggest surprise for me was actually the grip,” he says. “I was really surprised at how well they gripped, especially going around a lot of the tight corners. And also through the aid stations where there was a lot of debris on the ground.”

That grip comes courtesy of Mizuno’s G3 outsole – a configuration that delivers traction while keeping weight to an absolute minimum. It’s the kind of detail that matters when you’re cornering at speed or navigating devastated drink stations deep into a race.

The minimal woven upper also caught Connor’s attention for its breathability: “The upper is super minimal, so it really helped get a lot of heat out of my feet.” Combined with what he described as excellent lockdown from the lacing system, it created a package that simply disappeared during the race – exactly what elite runners want when they’re pushing pace.

There’s something telling about three runners, across three different distances, all arriving at similar conclusions about a shoe. Where modern super shoes often feel event-specific – marathon shoes that feel clunky in a 5K, or tempo specialists that wouldn’t hold up over 42 kilometres – the Prototype Pure seemed to find a sweet spot.

“They looked really sleek,” Sophie adds, touching on another departure from current trends. “You know how a lot of the race shoes can just look really chunky and big? These just looked sleek.” Connor was equally taken with the aesthetics: “A triple-white shoe with white socks is super clean. I felt fast out there and looked fast too.” Admittedly, the all-white colourway is for the prototype; expect more traditional colours from the Japanese brand when these drop at the end of the year. But we’re with Connor – the white is super clean. We say this colourway deserves its own release.

To get back on topic, Connor’s controlled effort perhaps offered the most intriguing glimpse of the shoe’s potential. Running within himself, waving to spectators and “having a ball”, he still managed 1:11:11 – roughly 90 seconds outside his PB. “If my coach told me to go for it, yeah, I could have had some fun out there,” he grins. “If the game plan was race and go for a PB, I probably could have got it out there.”

That untapped potential speaks to what might be the Prototype Pure’s greatest achievement: creating a race shoe that doesn’t demand everything from the runner. Where many carbon-plated racers feel like they’re pushing runners toward a specific pace or rhythm, the Prototype Pure seemed to adapt to what each athlete needed – whether that was Abdi hammering through a marathon PB, Sophie chasing down a pack in a 10K, or Connor cruising through a training run at threshold effort.

When the Prototype Pure launches in December, it will enter a crowded market of carbon-plated racers. Intriguingly, Mizuno Australia has teased that it will sit alongside two other carbon-plated shoes: the Prototype Elite and the Prototype Pro.

With the Prototype Pure, Sunday’s results suggest Mizuno might have found something different to other brands’ competitors: a race shoe that works across distances, adapts to different running styles, and delivers performance without the bulk that’s become synonymous with modern racing shoes.

For runners who’ve been wondering if the super shoe arms race has gone too far in the direction of stack height and aggressive geometries, the Prototype Pure offers an intriguing alternative. As Connor put it: “It’s always interesting to see new race shoes from different brands and what they’re pushing. The market’s such an interesting place – it’s cool how they’re all reacting to each other and trying to provide their athletes the best equipment they can.” Based on Sunday’s evidence, Mizuno’s contribution to that conversation weighs just 137 grams but carries considerable impact.