By Warren Green & Ray Fredericksen, M.S.

Gone are the days of having to break in a new pair of running shoes. Thanks to new lasts (the foot form around which a shoe is constructed) today's shoes are narrower in the heel and broader in the forefoot so they fit a wider variety of runners' feet out of the box. Our 350 wear-testers noted these changes after we had them run in the following 27 shoes for a month. While every model went through these real-world tests, they were also scrutinized at the RW Shoe Lab--where we pound and prod hundreds of shoes to see how they perform. Runner's World is the only publication in the world that tests shoes this way.