OUR REVIEW PROCESS

We live and breathe running, and our founders have been reviewing running shoes and gear for over 10 years.

The outdoors is our lab; and we stress test running shoes in the environments they were designed to be run in.

And while we understand the value of diverse perspectives, we encourage our readers to look for reviews that go beyond the squeaky clean lab that you may see on some other review websites. Real-world experience, the kind where shoes meet the road, trail, or track, provides invaluable insights into their performance, comfort, and durability. It’s about how the shoe supports your journey, from training days to the thrill of race day, not what they look like when you cut them in half, for example.

In a landscape rich with information, we believe in the stories told by the mud on our shoes and the miles on our soles; and hopefully this is apparent in our video reviews (where we bring you along with us on our runs), and the photography in our written reviews, where we share how running shoes look after being thrashed on our local roads and mountain trails. Let’s embrace reviews that share this ethos, recognizing that the true test of a running shoe happens with every step we take outside.

When you’ve run in and reviewed hundreds of road and trail running shoes as we have, you gain a unique insight on what works, and what doesn’t and who a running shoe is going to suit best. We bring those expert insights and perspectives to our running shoe reviews, which are designed to be concise, insightful and fun to read on our website, or watch on our YouTube Channel.

Our finish line goal is to match you with shoes that fit your running style, goals, training program…and feet! We take great enjoyment out of testing the latest running shoes, providing deeper insights (that many reviewers tend to oversee or gloss over) and accurate recommendations to ensure you end up with the right shoes for running on the roads, trails or wherever the path may take you.

Often, we are sent shoes for review, by brands. This helps us especially when we’re testing shoes pre-launch, so we can share our thoughts with you as soon as they’re available to buy! Sometimes, we buy the shoes ourselves. Either way, you can count on our reviews being independent, and not always overly positive.

We summarize the key features, what makes the shoes stand out, and what they’re designed for. Then we highlight features that work, and others that fall short, and ultimately recommend who the running shoes are best for. If there are good alternatives to consider, we point you in the direction of those, too. We also compare popular models of running shoes within and between brands to help you choose between seemingly similar shoes.

The best performing running shoes will make it on to our ‘best of’ lists, which you can find here.

We enjoy being in a position to give running brands constructive feedback (and being transparent about it by publishing it in our reviews). We pride ourselves on sharing honest opinions on shoes. They’re not all great. In fact, we’ve seen large running shoe brands change (or change BACK) design details in subsequent shoe versions, to reflect our constructive feedback on the design, such as lacing, upper materials, outsole design, etc… and we find it rewarding to know we’re having an influence on future running shoe innovations.

Our reviews are based on run testing in the environment and in the style of run they were intended to be used in. For example, trail running shoes are tested on some of the most challenging technical terrain here in Northern California, where our testing lab and HQ are located.

Lastly, it almost goes without saying that we test the shoes ourselves and do not accept money from brands for a positive review. Links to online retailers are often, but not always, affiliate links. If you do buy through these links, we may make a commission, which ultimately helps fund our testing lab so that we can keep providing unparalleled independent reviews.