Glycerin 23 vs Triumph 24

The Glycerin 23 is Brooks at its plushest: a max-cushion daily training shoe built for the soft, unhurried side of your week. This is not a shoe chasing a personal best. It is the one you reach for on recovery days, easy miles and long relaxed runs when you want your legs coddled rather than told to work. The DNA Tuned midsole is deep and forgiving, with a tall 38mm heel stack and a moderate 8mm drop that suits heel and midfoot strikers alike. At 300g it is not light, and it never pretends to be fast, so if you want a snappy tempo shoe look elsewhere. What you get instead is comfort you can rely on, mile after mile, in a neutral running shoe that feels like it was tuned for pure cruising. If you want the same plush ride with a touch of support, the Glycerin GTS 22 adds guide rails. We rate it as one of the most dependable soft daily trainers going.

The Saucony Triumph 24 is the brand's plush, do-everything max-cushion running shoe, the one you reach for when comfort matters more than the clock. At 250g with a towering 43mm heel stack, it is genuinely light for how much foam sits underfoot, and that is the story here. The new IncrediLUX A-TPU midsole is the soft, springy kind of cushioning that soaks up long miles without feeling dead or mushy. This is a neutral daily training shoe built for easy runs, recovery days and marathon-distance base miles, not a firm tempo tool and not a racer. In a max-cushion field that includes the Nike Vomero 18 and the Asics Gel Nimbus 28, the Triumph 24 leans into a livelier, bouncier ride than most. We rate it as one of the most comfortable plush trainers you can buy, as long as you want cushioning first and speed second.