This article was originally published on RUN. London. One of the largest cities in Europe. Nine million inhabitants. Six-hundred square miles extending wider than New York City or Los Angeles. Encircling the vast urban sprawl is a ring highway called the M25, a wall of high-speed traffic defining the end of London. It’s 117 miles long, with a diameter of 30 miles. For a trail runner, living in a city like this might seem like a nightmare, an endless concrete maze with columns of trucks, cars, cabs, and double-decker buses. Even if you like running long distances, 15 miles just to get out of t ..read more

This article was originally published on RUN. Running in the Adidas Terrex’s Agravic Speed Ultra on a variety of trail surfaces in Chamonix, France, last August, we were among the first U.S. runners to wear-test these performance-packed trail shoes. We were treated to the first-foot experience as to why they had been favorites of the brand’s elite athletes at the Western States 100 last June, including overall race winner Tom Evans, and numerous athletes who competed in the OCC 50K and CCC 100K during the UTMB World Series Finals—most notably women’s CCC runner-up Emily Hawgood and ..read more

This article was originally published on RUN.  Designing shoes to improve running speed isn’t a novel concept. Long before the advent of plated super shoes, ultralight, minimalist footwear helped runners achieve faster race times. These lightweight shoes represented a form of performance-enhancing super shoe, as research extensively shows that a shoe’s weight significantly influences running performance. The lighter the shoe, the faster you can run. One study revealed that for every 100-gram (3.5 oz) addition in shoe weight, a 1.11 percent decrease in running economy could be expected. I ..read more

For decades, runners have sought a shoe with the perfect combination of cushion and rebound—that is, plenty of both in a lightweight package. Leave it to The North Face, long a leader in creating the most innovative trail running gear and apparel, to come up with the winning formula for a midsole technology that meets the ever-changing demands of both trail and runner. The secret sauce? The all-new DREAM maximum performance midsole technology, tested and designed in partnership with some of the world’s best-known runners. It’s made using a special process where the proprietary midsole foams a ..read more

How your foot interacts with the trail shapes your running performance. A natural foot-to-ground interaction enhances balance and stability, while a diminished connection can result in the opposite. That’s why INOV8 prioritizes a natural feel—so the foot controls the shoe, not the other way around. With four new models in its trail running collection, INOV8 is changing the way trail runners connect with the terrain while also packing its shoes with unmatched grip, comfort, and durability. To learn more about the collection’s design and benefits, we talked to two experts: Luke McConnie, senior ..read more

For decades, runners have sought a shoe with the perfect combination of cushion and rebound—that is, plenty of both in a lightweight package. Leave it to The North Face, long a leader in creating the most innovative trail running gear and apparel, to come up with the winning formula for a midsole technology that meets the ever-changing demands of both trail and runner. The secret sauce? The all-new DREAM maximum performance midsole technology, tested and designed in partnership with some of the world’s best-known runners. It’s made using a special process where the proprietary midsole foams a ..read more

No matter what kind of athlete you are—from casual dabbler to elite competitor—you’ve likely experienced the soreness that follows a strenuous workout. In medicalese, it’s called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), and it usually peaks 48 hours after exercise. It’s a normal consequence of pushing yourself to get stronger or tackling a big goal like riding a century, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant. It can be especially frustrating when you’re just starting out and push too hard before you build up your fitness. Despite the near-universal experience of DOMS—runners, cyclists, hike ..read more

How your foot interacts with the trail shapes your running performance. A natural foot-to-ground interaction enhances balance and stability, while a diminished connection can result in the opposite. That’s why INOV8 prioritizes a natural feel—so the foot controls the shoe, not the other way around. With four new models in its trail running collection, INOV8 is changing the way trail runners connect with the terrain while also packing its shoes with unmatched grip, comfort, and durability. To learn more about the collection’s design and benefits, we talked to two experts: Luke McConnie, senior ..read more

Emily Hawgood is always running—and not just on some of the most challenging ultramarathon trails in the world (she recently won the Salmon Falls 50K in Pilot Hill, California)—but she’s also always dashing through an airport to catch her next flight or even zipping about her kitchen, whipping up meals between showers, weightlifting, and recovery sessions. As one of the world’s top female ultrarunners, who now lives most of the year in Roseville, California, Hawgood grew up on her family’s farm in rural Beatrice, Zimbabwe, among fields of potatoes, corn (“My family called it mealies,” she say ..read more

At 5:17 A.M. eastern on Wednesday, a bearded, bespeckled man lit a cigarette and a gaggle of people ran past a yellow gate and into the dense woods of Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee. That man is Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell. The gaggle is a collection of some of the most meticulous, perseverant, and hardened ultrarunners in the world. The 2024 Barkley Marathons have begun. There is perhaps no footrace surrounded with more lore, mystery, and intrigue—yet so little information. Barkley is notoriously nearly impossible to finish. For the first 36 years only 15 people had completed it, until ..read more