Are Super shoes draining your wallet?

Average household income of LR reader is at least $250k. Stop stopping at Starbucks.

I'd consider finding a trainer that lasts 500+ miles. I think they still make the pegasus, boston, etc. Save the super shoes for workouts and race day.

Too slow to bother with super shoes, so no, they aren't draining my wallet.

Try coming over to mountain bike cross country. Carbon epic Evo race bike is $6400 then $60 tires, tons of wear parts every season including $500 to rebuild the suspension. Running is a poor person sport in comparison.

Nah, just need to get a side hustle to pay for all those shoes and GU.

I buy last years shoes for around $75 now.

I can see that some people want to have these Super shoes. I probably would try them in races too if I still would go for PRs. But for 80% of your running you probably can stick with cheaper ones.

Save the super shoes for race day. I still have Nike Vaporfly 4%. I use whatever I can find for $50-60 trainers. Right now that would be Saucony Kinvara, Saucony Triumph and Reebok Floatride Energy 3. Before I was using Adidas Boston and SolarGlide.

Yes indeed, compared to triathlon or bicycling, running is a very cheap sport even with $250 shoes.

Of course not. They're no longer expensive, currently there are several new pairs of Next%2 on eBay for $150 in my size. And I wear older pairs for workouts and probably used them for at least 300 miles until the bottom starts getting torn up.

eBay?? You are finding them from a legit reseller on eBay, or from a 3rd party? If the latter case, are they counterfeit?

I have a brand new pair of Nike Next%2 for races only.

For daily runs I wear and old pair of whatever I have leftover. I will say I have found the Pebax (Zoom X) foam on the Nike shoes lasts much longer than the 150 miles you hear about, retaining it's bounce long enough for other shoe parts to fail first. Generally, they've died from having either the rubber tread wear out, usually on the one foot I toe strike on. I'm also someone who does not stop at 500 miles (or any other predetermined mileage) with a shoe. I run them into the ground on training runs as long as they look and feel good. I went over 1,000 miles on a Nike 4% and over 2,000 on a pair of Nike Peg Turbo 2's. For training, whatever feels good and doesn't break the bank.

But for races, I keep one pair of "super shoes" on tap, only for race day.

Yeah is there any reason to train in them if you're trying not to break the bank? I have a pair of Next %s for race day, but go with Bostons as my workout shoe. I'm finishing up some Boston 8s, so hopefully the newer editions are OK.

I think most supershoes last longer than old shoes did, just limited by the outsole design. (Hoka is/was using old EVA foam, unlike other brands).

I don't like plates for training, but I've taken some New Balance (Rebels), Skechers, and Asics semi-super shoes to 600+ miles no problem, only feeling slower after ~500 miles.

What is an “ASICS semi-super shoe”??? lol

Metaracer. They marketed it as a supershoe, but it was kind of in-between (has a plate and new foam, but wasn't high stack at all).

Companies have discovered that they can charge just below super shoe prices without a carbon plate. They do this by claiming they still have the super duper foam and stack height without the plate. Yet they also wear out fast. Bastards!

Yeah, IIRC, it was their first serious iteration. Do you have any experience with either of the Metaspeed’s (Sky or Edge)?

I used to be very minimalist when I was younger. Trained and raced exclusively in Brooks Racer STs. And then I got old. Had a hard time actually getting through the end of my long runs. Then I bought a pair of butt-ugly Hokas that actually turned out to be a game change. I could run an 18-20 miler and not feel absolutely dead the next few days. My joints were very appreciative.

Then I had a few kids and the shoes I was once wearing are just not forgiving enough anymore. Hoka has changed the Cliftons and after trying more than a few alternatives that didn't work enter super shoes.

I am now training and sparsely racing in Vaporfly 4% and Next%. Are they expensive? Yes. Does my body recover faster and allow me to continue to run? 100%. So I'll continue to pony up the money for them. The good thing is that I only weight about 120 lbs so I'm not breaking them down quite as quickly as some.