Trail shoes

Several people have asked for equipment recommendations and I am going to include shoes in these recommendations. Shoes are tricky to recommend as everybody’s feet and running styles are different.

I bought the shoe below on the recommendation of Lizzy Hawker. It was my first specialized low-drop trail running shoe after years of wearing “running shoes”. Over the last two years I change my running style slightly to strick on the mid-foot just by thinking about pushing my chest out by 1cm. Since then I have been pretty much injury free since the plantar fasciitis said a last goodbye.

I have crossed glaciers and moraines, completed a 100km on road, worn in bars and run though monsoon mud with no blisters. I bought a UK size 11 which is about half a size bigger than I normally wear. I wear them a little loose and let my foot do the work.

The only down side of these shoes is the slightly weak upper – the glacial moraine’s sharp rocks wore a couple of holes on the sides. Perhaps later versions have improved on this. The next shoes I buy will be Innov-8 as I have no reason to experiment with something else.

Innov-8-Roclite_295
Innov-8 Roclite 295
Well worn and still worn.
Just needs a bit of stitching.

3 Comments on “Trail shoes”

  • wasfia

    says:

    I think you are 100% mental.

  • Rob

    says:

    I am not ready yet to run this trail (maybey in the future :), but am going to walk it in my trail runners (just love to walk in them, so comfortable compared to boots). I just have some concerns about crossing Larkya La in trail runners, since there seems to be a decent amount of snow. Any thoughts or advice about this would be very welcome. (I have saucony peregrine 2 trail runners, which are not waterproof). Should I buy some gore text hiking boots for crossing larkya la? Or can I use the trail runners without loosing toes to frostbite? (shop owners try to scare me with frostbite).

    Respect for everybody running this trail! You must all be 100% mental 🙂

    Any advice pls.

    • thehalfhog

      says:

      Start early, pray for a sunny day, wear some gaiters, have 2 good plastic bags to wear inside your shoes if necessary etc. Personally I am sure it is possible. If there is snow, it will quickly be trodden into a trail by others, otherwise, I hope the show will be cold enough not to melt in significant quantities to wet the socks, plus with dry air it should evaporate quickly. The main worry will always be slippy ice on the descent. Ouch.

      A long-winded way of saying it should be fine.

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