The Hoka Speedgoat 5 Mid GTX boots are life savers - Running Shoe Review
After the horror of the Salomon Vision ankle breakers
As you can read in my review of the truly awful Salomon Vision shoes, my hopes of running the Kerry Way Ultra in 2024 were ruined last weekend. I had an x-ray on Monday to confirm that it wasn’t a break.
I then went to my physio/PT on Tuesday. He confirmed multile ligament tears. He was pretty blunt that I’d be nuts to try KWU. Despite all the icing, compression and elevation that I had done since Saturday, I still had very restricted motion and some pain.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Saturday, September 7, 2024
The DOA Salomon Vision is another ankle breaker - Running Shoe Review
Or as they should be called, the Ankle Roller 5000s
This won’t be a long review. How could it be when I’ve only done 1 km in the Salomon Vision. It’s more of a rant.
I buy maybe 6-7 pairs of running shoes a year. Usually equally split between road and trail. For many years the trail ones were Altra, Hoka, Inov-8 and Brooks. I wanted to try Salomon but every review made it sound like I’d have to remove two toes to fit into them.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, September 1, 2024
The NNormal Tomir 2.0 is a grower - Running Shoe Review
I think Kilian is on to something with NNormal
I can’t imagine there’s a trail runner alive who hasn’t heard of Kilian Jornet. He’s the goat when it comes to mountains. 6 years ago my kids brilliantly reached out to him and John Kelly to see if they could get an autograph or something to mark my 50th birthday. Kilian sent a very cool signed card and John, the legend, sent me a video, which I’ll never forget.
So the whole NNormal thing obviously caught my attention.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, September 1, 2024
Is the Saucony Endorphin Rift my new do-anything trail shoe?
Finally a Saucony trail shoe that doesn't kill my heel
I have a strange relationship with Saucony running shoes. The Endorphin Speed was the first time I’d bought any shoe from them and it instantly became my favourite road shoe of all time. V2 was equally good. My Endorphin Pro 1, whilst flawed, has more miles on it than any other pair of shoes I still have in rotation.
And then there are their trail shoes which have been an unmitigated disaster for me.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Monday, March 18, 2024
The Brooks Caldera 7 is a step backwards from the 6
The main benefit of the 6 seems to be gone - smooth wet rock grip
I did most of my trail running over the past year in 2 pairs of Brooks Caldera 6. They did sterling work in my three Ultra DNFs and many training miles. Strangely I don’t think I’ve seen a single other runner wearing them.
I gave them a very positive review last year which I updated when I realised they had one terrible design flaw - the two parts of the upper separated during a run because they were only connected via a thin layer of glue.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Monday, March 18, 2024
The Brooks Caldera 6 is an ultra-devouring monster (but)
My absolute favourite trail running shoe for Irish conditions
UPDATE: See below for a major proviso to this post.
My entire history with Brooks until a few months ago was one pair of Adrenaline 19s which did not suit me at all. I always associated the brand with big reliable heavy running shoes for conservative joggers. The Caldera 6 takes that reputation and shreds it, in the best possible sense.
The perfect shoe doesn’t exist I’ve been on the hunt for the ultimate ultra-distance trail running shoe since I started going longer in 2017.
Posted by Conor O'Neill on Monday, May 22, 2023