By Kieran Alger  There’s a newcomer in HOKA’s daily trainer line-up. The HOKA Skyward X is a new max-stack, carbon-plated beast of a super trainer with a midsole wedge that rivals the Adidas Prime X2 Strung. And a price that’s up there, too. Unlike the racier Adidas, the Skyward X is built for cruising comfort […]

By Kieran Alger  Saucony overhauled its Endorphin line-up at the start of 2024 with upgrades to two of its fastest shoes, the Endorphin Speed 4 and the Endorphin Pro 4. One is a nylon plated daily trainer built for fast efforts that can double as a race shoe.The other is a carbon race shoe built […]

By Kieran Alger  The Saucony Endorphin Speed 3 set the benchmark for plated, speedy daily trainers. And it’s a pretty hard act to follow. But the next-gen upgrade, Saucony Endorphin Speed 4, has landed to try and do just that. Saucony stuck to minor rather than major changes here, with tweaked uppers, a re-engineered nylon […]

By Kieran Alger  If you’re on the lookout for a big cushioned daily trainer that’ll eat everything from your easy recovery miles and your longer, slower training runs, up to mid-tempo efforts, then the ASICS Gel Nimbus 26 and the Brooks Ghost Max should be somewhere on your shortlist. They both combine big stacks of […]

By Kieran Alger  If the ASICS Gel Nimbus 26 is all about delivering big, plush cushioned comfort to your daily training miles – particularly at the easier end, then the Gel Kayano 30 is all about similar levels of road protection but with added stability features to provide extra support and prevent overpronation.Past iterations of […]

By Kieran Alger  If you’re looking for a big cushioned daily trainer for your everyday miles, the ASICS Gel Nimbus 26 and the New Balance 1080v13 are likely to be somewhere on your list. These two plush, soft, high-stacked road eaters offer comfort and protection by the bucketload. But which one is the best? I’ve […]

By Kieran Alger  When it comes to max-stack daily trainers, ASICS has a couple of popular big hitters in the fight. The Nimbus and Novablast lines are both designed to deliver cushioned comfort for cruising miles and lots of protection for your slower, recovery efforts. Go back a generation and the Nimbus was the softer, […]

By Kieran Alger  On’s running shoes often draw heat for not quite hitting the performance mark. But three of its most recent launches have changed the story. First the big-stack On Cloudmonster brought more protection. Then came the On Cloudsurfer introducing a new CloudTec Phase midsole set-up with amped up softness. Finally the On Cloudeclipse […]

By Paul Freary  As two of HOKA’s most popular shoes, the Clifton and Bondi have seen significant updates in 2025.The Clifton 10 has gained 3mm of extra cushioning in the heel, taking up to a 42mm stack but, more significantly it now has an 8mm heel drop.The Bondi 9 moves away from a CM-EVA midsole […]

By Kieran Alger  The Ride 17 drops into Saucony’s line-up alongside the Triumph 21 and now Saucony now has two daily trainers packing similar stacks of the same PWRRUN+ midsole foam, not dissimilar uppers and only marginally different drops. Which makes you wonder: with the Ride 17 coming in $20 cheaper is Triumph now old […]