Do you use trail shoes are they the same as regular running shoes for easy runs

I wouldn't wear them on the road, no.

I find myself using my Hoka Challanger 5's for easy runs on the road.

The lugs aren't super aggressive and The Challenger is essentially The Clifton with more rubber on the bottom.

Ironically, I have never owned a pair of Clifton's so I can't say if The Challenger will last longer because of the robust outsole.

However, something like the INNOV8 Mudclaw would be way too aggressive to wear on the roads because of the deep lugs.

Trail shoes vary widely in terms of how aggressive their soles are at giving you traction on tough terrain. In many cases, runners need to cover several miles of road just to get to a trailhead which sort of forces you to use your trail shoes on the road. If you are wearing trail shoes with an aggressive tread pattern it will have some impact on your stride as when your foot/shoe hit the ground it catches suddenly rather than the more gradual impact road shoes have. I've never heard of any studies on potential injury risks associated with this but you can certainly feel a difference.

If you are a heel striker (which I am big time) there is a more practical reason why you might not want to wear trail shoes on the road. That same aggressive tread pattern which lets you scramble over rocks and move quickly to avoid roots on a trail may wear terribly fast on the road. I like Solomon trail shoes with their Continental rubber soles. On the trail I can probably get 300 or 400 miles out of a pair but if I ran on the road with these same shoes this type of rubber would probably only last 50 miles before they were worn so much on one side at the heel that they would throw my stride off or I'd have worn through the hard rubber into the EVA.

Some trail shoes seem to be designed for light trail duty with sole patterns that are very similar to the road versions - several New Balance and Nike models are like this. Other brands like La Sportiva or Inov-8 are oriented towards more technical terrain. If you end up replacing a $150 pair of shoes after 50 miles - you are spending $3/mile , which for me on an annual basis would cost about $6,000. I think the economic impact is more significant than any change in your stride - if you hit midfoot your economics would be very different

I wouldn't use trail running shoes on roads just because they don't last long on roads.

Naperville Runner wrote:

Some trail shoes seem to be designed for light trail duty with sole patterns that are very similar to the road versions - several New Balance and Nike models are like this. Other brands like La Sportiva or Inov-8 are oriented towards more technical terrain. If you end up replacing a $150 pair of shoes after 50 miles - you are spending $3/mile , which for me on an annual basis would cost about $6,000. I think the economic impact is more significant than any change in your stride - if you hit midfoot your economics would be very different

What 50 miles?

I am pretty sure even the worst trail running shoe lasts longer than 50 miles on roads.

Rapid wear is often the runner's fault, not the shoe design.

But it would be good to keep the weight to a minimum. Why add extra rubber to a shoe that you are going to run on roads with, assuming you are a midfoot-ish runner? Another consideration: Why have deep aggressive lugs if you are only going to be running in mudddy conditions? You'd just end up adding a mud pack to the bottom of your shoes. What is a good compromise? I run in Saucony Rides, and they don't have enough grip on gritty surfaces, but they do last forever.

If you are doing road and trail, some brands offer "road to trail" shoes such as the Brooks Divide or the Nike Peg Trail

Hoka Clifton for road and/or light trail;

I would think the major difference between trail and road shoes is the amount of drop and how high your foot is elevated off the ground altogether. Because road shoes are designed for running in a straight line without turning a lot, so they can afford to sacrifice some lateral stability, whereas if you are doing a lot of turns and running on the side of hills in elevated shoes you're more likely to roll your ankle. So trail shoes have your foot sitting lower and maybe they are wider too. Because basically anything that raises your foot off of the ground is going to reduce side-to-side stability.

I try to avoid it because I have a pair of Brooks that are a lot stiffer than road shoes and tend to make my foot and Achilles ache if I run too far in them, especially on the road.

I aggravated a couple of injures using trail running shoes on the road. I say don't do it.

Btw, Naperthrill ... fond memories of post-prom making out by the river walk!

I bought a pair of Nike terra kiger 3 shoes from my local Nike outlet store many years ago for $25. There were in the clearance section along a wall. I wore them for runs in national parks out west when on vacation with my family. I avoided running in them on asphalt as much as I could because they felt like spikeless cross country shoes when on asphalt. On warm asphalt they felt very sticky. They did not have enough cushion for me on asphalt but were fine on the trails. I enjoyed how they felts on the natural surface paths. I too thought the outer sole would not last long on concrete or asphalt. There is a lot of variation in the midsole and outer sole of trail shoes some others may be fine for some runners on concrete or asphalt roads.