Agree with what Swannie said. Shorter strides mid foot strike (as opposed to heel to toe) have been huge for me. Growing up playing sports that involved running as part of training but not ever being coached on how to run definitely left me with some nagging overuse injuries, more annoying than anything. Outside of what people have said, the Pose method is pretty popular right now and, while not religious about it, I have gleaned some good tips from that.
Since I have a good arch on the foot, its quite ok to run on anything… I initially ran with my old shoes and had heavy knee tendonitis issues. This was due to two things:
Wrong running posture - I met a sports medicine guy who himself is a marathoner. He told me its got something to do with my posture as I tend to get my chest in front of my knees (very very bad). He also did my running analysis on treadmill and he told me I am landing on the heel which can cause issues.
Horrible old shoes - I had a good arch and my old shoe was actually for people with flat foot!!!
So I would say as Ohai said, get your analysis done… And as with brand, it doesnt matter much as I assume you like me are not going to be a sports professional
Both ASICS and Mizuno are Japanese, so the Yen affects them equally.
For middle distance training, I’ve alwas liked New Balance without breaking the budget. I think for training purposes, you can get anything that has sufficient padding and comfort to minimize chances of injury. For the actual race, def consider getting custom insoles based on your foot/arch type as others have suggested.
Definitely go to a dedicated running store to get the correct fit. I’m personally an Asics guy. Since they have consistent model #s year to year, you can go elsewhere in the future and get a new pair in 5 min.