HOKA | Women’s Gaviota 5 Running Shoes – Bellweather Blue

Advice for Road Runners: The HOKA Women’s Gaviota 5 in the Bellweather Blue/ Evening Sky are maximally cushioned stability running shoes. That means they feel ultra soft and supportive. Perfect for keeping up with your weekly miles. 

Underfoot Feel

If you’re looking for soft feeling stability running shoes, the HOKA Gaviota 5 is a great option. That’s because the midsole features a thick layer of soft foam. The curved midsole rolls your feet forward when you strike the ground. Helping to lower the work done by your calf muscles.

While some stability running shoes can feel firm, due to denser structures, the Gaviota’s unique support system ensures they feel soft. To explain further, an H-Frame (shaped like the letter H) sits on top of the midsole. Your feet sit into this structure, with soft cushioning sitting directly under your heel and forefoot. This holistic like support stabilises your feet and legs, particularly if you fatigue in longer runs.

Upper Fit

The upper of the HOKA Gaviota 5 feels accommodating. By this, we mean the upper suits a range of foot shapes, including broader feet. If you’re looking for a more locked in feel, the gusseted tongue ensures you can get just the right fit. While it’s not overly obvious from the images, the HOKA Gaviota features an ultra plush heel collar. Perfect for stopping unwanted rubbing on long runs. 

In case you don’t know, HOKA only converts the women’s size from US to UK by one and a half. Most running brands convert it by two full sizes. We recommend choosing your normal US running shoe size.

Ideal Run Type

We recommend the HOKA Women’s Gaviota 5 running shoes for runners who want to take maximum stress of their legs. This is because they’re so soft and cushioned. That means you could run in them for short recovery runs, steady aerobic runs and long distances. With this in mind, the Gaviota 5 are great marathon training running shoes.

As the Gaviota 5 features a holistic style of support, they’re well suited to runners with differences between their feet and legs. If you know that one side needs more stability than the other, these should work well for you. This is mainly because the support kicks in when you need it and doesn’t inhibit you when you don’t. 

If you’re looking for maximally cushioned neutral HOKA running shoes, you should check out the Bondi. This effectively a neutral version of the Gaviota. 

Shoe size is a personal preference and everyone’s feet are different, but we want to ensure you avoid any pain or discomfort from bruised toenails, rubbing, blistering or pins and needles.

Your running shoes should have enough width to allow you to spread your toes and should have some space at the front (we recommend having a half to one thumb’s width of space from the end of your longest toe to the front of your running shoes).

This usually means that your running shoe will be at least a half size bigger than your regular shoe size though this can vary from brand to brand.

Technical Features

• Approximate weight: 259 grams
• Forefoot stack height: 28 mm
• Heel stack height: 34 mm
• Drop: 6 mm
• Durabrasion outsole rubber for enhanced durability
• Inherently stable geometry 
• Recycled content in engineered mesh upper and poly laces