[All photos by Jason Williams / @afrosoul4eva]
4 Heartbreakers were given early access to the new Nike Air Zoom Tempo NEXT% and we asked them to give us their feedback. Here's what Josh Mercado had to say:
"Running almost daily has been a way for me to maintain sanity during this hectic, sometimes overwhelming, year. A lower leg injury in June forced me to take time off and then cut my mileage in half, which meant half as much ~self care~ time. Rehab involved slogging through EZ PZ miles for the past 4 months, which at times felt more torturous than relieving. But now that I’m finally starting to turn the corner on the injury, these shoes have been a nice reward for my patience.
My first run in them was supposed to be an easy 5 miles along the river, “just to see how they feel.” I kept telling myself that I’d turn around for home at the next bridge. Then the next one. Then the next one. Once I finally did make it home I had run 10 miles at a pace that I hadn’t seen in months (if my PT is reading this, sorry!). Easy felt fast and fast felt fun.
I consider myself fairly well informed on the latest running shoe technologies and this one still put my brain in a pretzel. The shoe is different. There’s no other way to put it. From the offset lacing to the bouncy air bags, so much of the shoe feels alien, but in a very intentional way that ends up feeling more familiar than I expected. Whether you want to call it new fangled or innovative, for me, this shoe has brought a little fun back to running."
