Ardent Stride 5 review: the daily trainer that survived 400 miles

Every running shoe is good for the first fifty miles. The interesting question is what a midsole does over the following three hundred and fifty, and it is the question most reviews cannot answer because most reviews are written after a week.

91%

Stack retained at 400 mi

Class average: 78%

268g

Weight, UK 9

92mm

Forefoot platform width

What 400 miles does to it

We measure stack height at five points with a digital gauge before the first run and again at 100, 250, and 400 miles, on two pairs run by two people of different weights. Foam that packs out loses height, and losing height changes the geometry the shoe was designed around.

Test	Result	Class average
Stack retained, heel	91%	78%
Stack retained, forefoot	94%	83%
Energy return, fresh	68%	64%
Energy return, 400 mi	64%	52%
Outsole wear	No exposure	Partial exposure

Two pairs, 400 miles each, road and light trail. Reference is the mean of nine cushioned daily trainers between $130 and $170 tested with the same protocol.

Nine per cent of compression over 400 miles is the best figure we have recorded, and the practical version of that number is that the shoe at mile 380 still feels like the shoe at mile 80. Most trainers in this class go noticeably dead somewhere around 250, which is exactly the point at which people start saying a shoe “feels tired” without knowing why.

The ride

Soft at easy pace and surprisingly willing when pushed. There is no plate, no carbon, and no attempt at propulsion; what there is instead is a foam that compresses a long way and comes back without the wallowing that usually accompanies that much travel.

The 92 mm forefoot is the underrated feature. Wide platforms do the stability work that medial posts used to do, without the shoe fighting a neutral runner. Over eleven weeks neither tester reported the late-run instability that soft trainers usually produce when form falls apart.

Fit, and a warning

It runs short. Not slightly — consistently about half a size short of the Stride 4, confirmed across both testers and on a Brannock. Ardent revises lasts more often than it announces doing so, and if you are reordering by size from a previous pair, you will get a shoe that does not fit.

The midfoot is also narrower than the forefoot width suggests. Wide feet will find the front generous and the middle less so.

Against the Tempo Carbon

Different jobs. The Tempo Carbon is 79 g lighter and measurably faster below 5:30 per kilometre, and it is finished at around 200 miles. The Stride 5 costs $105 less and lasts twice as long. Most runners need one of these and think they need the other.

The verdict

The best daily trainer we have wear-tested, held back only by a sizing change nobody announced. Try them on, go up half a size, and expect to be running in them next spring.