I get up most weekday mornings around 5:30 a.m.

I usually head out in the near-dark for a run through the west end, down to Lake Ontario and back. I occasionally see another runner but most often, I’m alone. I have run three marathons, each with an under-four hour finishing time. I’m now training for the 30-kilometre Around the Bay Road Race in Hamilton.

I’m not the fastest runner but I’m committed. I’ve worn through countless pairs of running shoes. It had never occurred to me that women’s feet could be so different from men’s that they needed their own shoe. I recently tried the Adidas PureBoostX, which the sports company says is the first and only running shoe designed specifically for women runners.

Finally, I thought. A shoe that understands me. A shoe that listens.

“Flawless look. Effortless feel. A women’s running shoe like no other,” is how the marketing material describes the PureBoostX, which were released earlier this year and retails for $130 on adidas.ca.

But what is women’s running? This sends me in a tailspin of doubt. My own runs, during heat waves and rain and Toronto’s annual Snowmageddon don’t feel effortless. Black toenails and salt stains don’t look flawless. Trust me.

I’m a bit skeptical but Adidas seems to market the women’s shoe for distance running.

“The longer your runs, the more kilometres you log each week. And the longer you keep up your routine, the less you’re willing to put up with shoes created for a man,” the company’s Canadian website says.

During my first couple of test runs, including a hill repeat workout and an easy 10K to the lake and back, the shoes feel bouncy at first. But near the end I can feel the pavement a little too keenly.

As part of my race training, I was due for a 24-kilometre run. I wanted to see how the shoes would do. I ran along the Martin Goodman Trail from Parkdale in Toronto to Long Branch Park in Etobicoke and then home.

By the halfway point the bounciness seemed to give way, especially under the midfoot and toes. It felt like my own body weight was crushing and flattening the foam sole. I found myself wishing I had the beat-up trail runners I’d been wearing all winter.

When I told Adidas about my experience, the company said through a spokesperson that my discomfort wasn’t surprising, since the shoe is really designed for distances between five and 10 kilometres, for women who include running as part of a larger workout routine.

I also spoke to an Adidas official about the rationale behind the shoes.

Distance running was once predominantly a man’s sport but due to a “dramatic shift over the last 10 years,” women now outnumber men in North American road races, Angus Wardlaw, director of futures for Adidas, told me.

“It’s moved this big, fundamental shift away from the serious, competitive aspect to much more of a social aspect dominated by female runners,” Wardlaw says.

While it’s true more men than women enter marathons, more women than men enter road races at all other distances, according to a 2015 report from Athletics Canada. American races have seen the same trend.

But the marathon boom has included women. In the U.S., just one in 10 marathon participants were women in 1980. In 2015, it was more than four in 10, according to Running USA. And more women than men enter half-marathons, no small feat at 21.1 kilometres.

Hmm. The half-marathon — or in my case, the 30K, which organizers told me was an even split between male and female participants this year — still seems like serious running. So women are less competitive than men? Really? Somehow I don’t think Lanni Marchant wanted to qualify for the Rio Olympics any less than Eric Gillis.

The company wanted to build a shoe that moved with the foot, particularly around the arch. All testing and research focused on women using a size 7 shoe, rather than a men’s size. That would keep the materials flexible, Wardlaw says. A sleek silhouette was also important to focus groups.

The new shoe’s mesh upper wraps around the foot, leaving a gap under the arch, like compression tights but for feet. It’s called a “floating arch.”

I had also read that arch support for the PureBoostX happens on a “proprioceptive level,” according to comments an Adidas official made to the website Quartz. Proprioception is a bit of running jargon that refers to a body’s sense of its own position and movement.

I gather that means the support is more about perception.

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“With the compressive arch that adapts to your foot, people have this positive, supportive feeling,” Wardlaw says. “It’s about the information your brain feels. It’s a very personal sense.”

Maybe that’s what distinguishes “women’s running” from running: feelings.

I like the idea that a sports company is catering to women — Adidas insists it has big plans for the future of women’s running — but not what this shoe seems to imply: that we don’t seriously want to run. We just want to feel like runners.