UKC

Hello runners. I got some good advice on this thread earlier in the year. https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/running/running_shoes_for_mud-718879

I ended up buying Adidas Kanadias for myself and Asics Gel Sonama GTX for my wife. We were both happy with fit and performance, but both pairs fell apart within a few months. The Adidas were just starting to tear after 300km, but the uppers on the Asics disintegrated after a month of very light use. We have got a refund for both pairs, but what to get now?

I really liked the grip on the Kanadias so I'd like something else with good chunky lugs.  Unfortunately the shop I bought them from is only offering a credit note, and they are pretty limited in what they have. They don't do the Kanadias any more, so I have a choice of these: More Mile Cheviot Pace, Salomon Trailster 2, or Adidas Terrex Agravic TR. none of them look comparable in terms of grip, but has anyone tried them?

In reply to Hooo:

I got some MoreMile Cheviots, very good value. Good on mud, not so great on wet rock but then what is? Uppers have split a bit after 9 months of pretty regular use but soles have lasted very well.

I think their website said go up half a size, I am normally a 10 but fould 10.5 a bit long.

HTH

In reply to Hooo:

Sorry to hear about your shoe problems. Why not use the credit note on some other kit and invest in a pair of shoes that you want?

I got tired of Inov8's falling apart after very little use and their communication with me was non-existent so they have lost my business.

I used the Salomon Speedcross for while. I got through 4 pairs (1 GTX) and they all split on the forefoot after 300-400km. The Spreedcross 5 crippled my Achilles so I sold them after 100km.

I have a pair of Hoka Speedgoat 3 which are holding up but my current 'go to' shoe has been the Saucony Xodus10. These shoes have just started to split after 1000km and still wear them as you cannot feel the damage.

I am migrating to Saucony for all my shoes (road long, road fast, off road and on/off road). The Xodus10 is the best on/off road shoe I have ever used. The grip in the mud feels as good as the Speedcross. So good I've bought a couple of extra pairs and hidden them away!

In reply to Hooo:

I see they are not on your list of choices, but inov8 mudclaw 300s are the best pair of running shoes I've ever owned (been running 20+ years). I've had my current pair going on 5 years, worn mostly in winter mud (SW coast path, 20-30 miles per week), but have done many miles on tarmac and mountain scramble days, and they still have good tread.

Comfy, indestructible, and all the grip you need.

In reply to Hooo:

I use vj shoes irock, great shoes for mud, light and very well built, sizes might be 1/2 and size small.

In reply to Hooo:

Best choices I've found are the Mudclaws or the VJ iRocks. The former have better grip, the latter last longer.

In reply to grectangle:

They do have Innov8 Mudclaw and Roclite 280, and I like the look of them. It's just that they are £90. Twice the price of my Kanadias and bit more than I wanted to spend. 

In reply to Harry Ellis:

The MoreMile Cheviots are £30, so based on your recommendation that sounds like my best option. I do like the look of the Innov8s, but are they really worth 3x the price?

In reply to TMM:

Not a bad idea, but I can't find anything else on their site that I need right now.

In reply to Hooo:

I'm currently living my On Running Cloudventure Peak. They are certainly not on the budget end of the spectrum, but so far I haven't managed to trash them and their grip on both mud and wet rock is really good. 

They are a little less conventional, but work well for both my husband and I

In reply to Hooo:

I'm gonna dump on everything suggested so far.

ON running shoes are stiff, heavy and rocks get stuck in the sole.

Inov8's fall apart and are pretty cheaply made - compare the construction methods with some other brands and they feel like shoes from the 90's. They have good tread patterns and, well, not much else.

Hoka's or other maximalist shoes are fine if you're not running on uneven ground, otherwise you're playing russian roulette with your ankles.

Salomon make the best constructed offroad shoes (single piece woven and laminated uppers), but that doesn't include the Speedcross. The speedcross has a massive 10mm heel counter that will give you a load of instability on technical terrain.

A better choice would be the Cross / Pro, the Sense SG, or the S/Lab Speed (in order of lighter and more race-focused) for a pure soft-ground shoe. Advise sizing up the cross/pro from your normal Salomon size.

Sportiva make some moderate trail / light mud shoes, but they are heavier across the board than salomon like-for-like.

In reply to neuromancer:

Thanks for the advice, but I think you're looking at it from the point of view of an experienced runner. I'm doing 5k to 15k a couple of times a week on trails. I just need something with traction in the mud that is reasonably priced and will last a bit more than 300km.

In reply to grectangle:

my last 4 pairs have disintegrated after less than 100km each - the last pair did 27km. They are far from indestructible. Their production QC is notorious for being awful over the past few years. 
 
Using Inov8 over 15 years but have walked away never to return.

Vj iRocks for the worst of it. Best on rock grip out there.

In reply to Hooo:

Fair enough, I wouldn't splash that much for shoes either, you can usually find them on sale! 

I've had the roclites as well, the tread is much harder and I found it very slippy on wet rocks, plus they let a lot of water in, so not the best if you want them for mud. I didn't get on with them at least.

In reply to Hooo:

I love my Cheviots but a good part of that love is based on price tag. I have no doubt better shoes exist I just don't want to pay for them.

But they are decent.

In reply to Hooo:

Mutants  400k and still going strong.

In reply to Hooo:

A lot of our club runners wear Karimor from Sports Direct for cross country. This goes against everything I’d ever advise for long distance road running but they’re cheap and basically do the job. If you’re only doing 5-10k on muddy trails they’d probably do.

Why are everyone’s trail shoes falling apart? Is everyone rinsing them properly after a run. Dry Sand and grit are the enemy of the fabric and will just wear straight through the uppers tearing holes in them. 
 

My Inov8 roclites are great although far too tough for trail and I was considering the Inov8 Parkclaw to complement them. 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

I’ve owned millions* pairs of off road shoes over the years and they have all, without fail, fallen apart. Scarpa, Addidas, La Sportiva, Inov8 and Salomon. Lightweight kit which is made to do hard work (not just running through a bit of mud) will wear out. On average I’d guess I’ve got 4-500km out of each pair. 

Should add here that the worst of the lot I’ve used is the seemingly ubiquitous speedcross. Horribly heavy and imprecise things that feel about as good to run in as a pair of crocs with the strap up. Don’t understand why people love them so much. And it’s not that I don’t like Salomon shoes; because I love all their other offerings.

To the OP: a £50 pair of shoes you like that lasts 300km of running through grot seems like the going rate to me. Amazed you got a credit note for that.
 

*20 odd?

In reply to neuromancer:

I disagree with your summary on Hokas. They are very popular among ultra-trail runners. I personally have run half a dozen alpine ultras in Hokas, at distances ranging from 50km up to over 300km. Ankle-turning is not a problem with them, even on the roughest ground.

Steve

In reply to Hooo:

I’ve got the Agravics after having the Kanadias and they’re as good as the same shoe really. The upper started to tear around the little toe quite early on as it did with my Kanadias and after 600 miles is now a split right across the toe box but the Goretex layer (useless but was cheaper at the time for some bizarre reason) is holding it together nicely and I’m not the fussy type so they’re soldiering on! 

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Agreed. The Torrent, for example, isn't that high off the ground compared to other Hoka models.

Anyway, OP, I'd go with the Cheviot (£30!) in your position given what you've said and, as another poster pointed out, I am amazed you got a credit note after 300km in a shoe of similar price!

I bought some trail shoes from Decathlon for about £30 once. They were great and lasted about 200 miles, for which I was pretty happy for the price.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Sports Direct? Seriously? I used to buy Karrimor shoes from them years ago, but then SD bought the Karrimor brand and started sticking the name on rubbish that fell apart within weeks. I actually got a refund for the last pair I bought from them. I have never been back.

My road shoes were £15 from Decathlon and those are great. Perfectly adequate for me and must have done at least 700km with plenty of life left in them.

I suspect my wife's shoe failure was dirt related, but even so, she'd done no more than 40km at a gentle pace.

I don't clean my shoes after every run, but both shoes split at the same place in the stitching on the side. Not a usual wear point.

In reply to greg_may_:

Really??!! That's terrible, I don't blame you. Have they changed production or something? That would be a shame as they had a damn good shoe IMO.

Never even heard of vj shoes, I'll check them out now.

In reply to Hooo:

Yes. I was extremely sceptical. But as pointed out. Even the expensive trail shoes aren’t lasting 300km. Why spend more than £20? Seemed to me a perfectly good argument if you’re only doing 5-10k at a time. Decathlon own brand. Suspect it’s exactly the same idea. 
 

I wear the karimor ‘approach’ style shoes day in day out and they just last. There’s nothing technical about them. There’s not really any good support. They’re just some leather and rubber. But for the price they do the job. I have expensive shoes for doing specialist activities. I don’t need specialist shoes to walk to the shops. 

In reply to Hooo:

I've been on Salomon Supercross for a while now and love em.  They're a bit wider than the Speedcrosses so a better fit for me.  Bit of a compromise on grip in comparison I understand,  but I'm not particularly fast anyway so doesn't make a mass amount of difference

In reply to ianstevens:

Which is a bit crap when you think about it. That's about 27p a mile. It's cheaper to drive a car!

In reply to Mr Messy:

I get 1500-2000 km out of my mutants but the grip isn't that great on mud or scree after the first few hundred km.  the uppers last well. the laces always shred and eventually snap.

In reply to Hooo:

Not if you only drive 1500 miles a year it’s not. 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

This does seem to be a bit odd that so many shoes are falling apart but there's maybe a large degree of selection bias going on.

I run in Cascadias a lot ans went through a phase a few years back wear they would tear near the little toe but Brooks acknowledged a general flaw and sent me a new pair.

I treat my shoes like crap and never clean them. I run nearly always trails in the Alps so they get a lot thrown at them but I just leave them in the cellar to dry out. I do rotate them a lot though.

Looking at my current active shoes in Strava, these all have a lot more life in them.

Cascadias 14 - 483km

Saucony Peregrine ISO- 593km

Saucony peregrine 8 - 855km (tear in the upper but still good)

Cascadias 13 - 462km

The others are all sub 300km so I consider them still being broken in. 

In reply to yorkshireman:

My Sauconny Perigrins also failed on the tops but when I looked at the rest of the tops it was fairly obvious that there was abrasion from grit. And I’m fairly sure it’s from when I’ve run in dry shoes that still have grit in the top. The shoes are pretty hard when I put them on. Almost like they’re caked in a fine film of concrete. I’ve found rising in cold water means they’re supple when I next wear them. 
 

The one thing I couldn’t get on with them was the aggressive tread was out of the side of the shoe and this left painful bloody tramlines scraped in my calves. 
 

Actually my Rocklites have only done 73miles and 26 miles of those were a marathon. They’re like new still. 

In reply to Hooo:  Uppers have always been the weak point on shoes used off road.  Back in the day I was running about 80% off road and it was always the uppers that fell to pieces.  

In reply to Hooo:

My car isn’t held together by fabric which weighs <100g and is ground against mud and rocks constantly though. Like others here, it’s always the uppers that go for me!

In reply to Hooo:

Got to stick up for Inov8 Mudclaws. I’m not an Inov8 fanboy - most of their shoes don’t fit me - but I’ve had 850km out of Mudclaws including a lot of rough Peak fell running terrain (I.e. not paths). Not only have the uppers held up but what’s most surprising is the midsole still has some responsiveness. That contrasts with my Roclite 275s which feel flat after 400km. 

I don’t have any experience of Salomon as the toe box on all their shoes I’ve tried is too narrow.

In reply to yorkshireman:

I've had several pairs of Cascadia and always thought the issue was my toe as they stick up. Never thought the issue was a fault of the design.

In reply to Hooo:

With regards to inov8 longevity, the mesh type material used by roclites always seems to wear at the outside near the little toe joint. Never had a problem with uppers made out of the nylon type material I.e. mudclaws, x talon etc

In reply to Justaname:

That's a tall order, because anything with enough tread for a good muddy trail run will be out of its element on the lane. Salomon and Inov-8, both based in the United Kingdom, make excellent mud boots (which I favor). If I had to choose, I'd choose the mud shoe for its protection and reassurance over the lane. You won't get hurt on the lane, but they will wear out faster...

In reply to Tom Briggs:

Also sticking up for inov8, I got x-talon 230’s, which I think is at the lightweight(so less durable??) end of the spectrum? I’ve done over 300 miles across the eastern Peak District (rock, rain, bog, snow, streams, water, up, down even a bit of road) and aside from the knobbles wearing down a bit the rest of the shoe shoes no wear at all beyond a bit of dirt. And they seem grippy as a grippy thing to me. I would caveat the above with the fact that those 300 miles represent the sun total of all my running (I’m a newbie) so I have nothing to compare them too.

I only picked them because:

a) my girlfriend wears inov8 and has run for years so assumed they’d be ok.

b) they were the cheapest special offer I could find, I paid just less than £50 I think...