Adidas have created quite a stir with their latest shoe release. On launch date I walked past a substantial queue of eager runners outside the Oxford Street branch.
I may have been excited by the product but I was not tempted to camp out for running shoe even if they do promise a significant energy boost. I had to wait a couple of days for mine to be posted direct to home.
If you’ve heard any of the hype you’ll know that the Adidas Energy Boost introduces the running world to a whole new kind of foam. The usual EVA foam is replaced by a substance that looks remarkably like polystyrene but is to be called “Boost”.
It’s bouncy.
Apparently dropped marbles bounce more on Boost than on EVA and it’s so technologically advanced that Haile Gebrselassie asked at the launch “is it legal?”
When I attempted to sell my rash purchase to “her indoors”, I had the comment:
“They’d have to be good to give you a boost”
and to be fair, having tried them on treadmill and trail, they just aren’t that good. I felt neither a spring nor a bounce. I suppose I was hoping for a new-fangled anti-gravity device or at least a Kangoo-jump style of rebound.
They just felt like shoes to me. Comfortable running shoes but still just shoes without any appreciable bounce or boost.
I think I may have been had by the marketeers and not for the first time.
They are very comfortable in a Nike Free slipper kind of way. The sole is cushioned but with a firm after bite (perhaps the boost?) and the upper is soft and has the feel of a compression sock. I found them to be a tiny bit narrow and they came up relatively high around the heel.
I love the look of them. Running shoes have a tendency to be pretty garish at the moment and I think it’s interesting that Adidas were prepared to launch such an understated design with such fanfare.
So all in all I’m happy with the look and the comfort level but they didn’t deliver the performance boost I’d hoped for and when they compare so closely with the Nike Free on everything other than price, I wonder why I would I want to fork out another £30 over the Nike price tag.
I’m hardly Olympic standard though and maybe, if you’re a racing whippet in the market for marginal gains of even tiny proportions, you may be happy to fork out £110 for these trainers.
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The rest of the shoe doesn’t excite me as much the sole. The upper is made from a lightweight, almost transparent mesh and I’m afraid when I put my feet inside the sight of my hairy toes just ruins the visual appeal. I don’t think it is entirely my toes fault – not many feet are attractive through semi-transparent mesh.
