Inov8 RaceUltra 270
My New Balance MT1010V2, retiring after 857 miles of faithful service, replaced by the Inov8 RaceUltra, what are my first impressions of Inov8’s lighter RaceUltra offering?
Some context for this article:
This is my fifth year of running, I tend to run trails and prefer Ultra distances
I am 5ft 11in and weigh between 13 and 14 stone, I am a mid-pack runner. I prefer reasonably minimal shoes and front to mid-foot strike. I have a wide foot.
What did I want a shoe for? The Inov8 is the latest in a long line of shoes I have purchased to meet the following criteria:
Low drop, reasonably low stack height, comfortable for Ultra distances on harder packed trails and the occasional bit of tarmac. Wide toe box.
A roll call of the Inov8’s predecessors:
New Balance MT110’s - too firm (but probably the best of the bunch)
Lone Peak 1.5 - too heavy, don’t shed water but very, very comfortable
Salomon Sense Ultra 3 - perfect other than way too narrow
Vivo Barefoot Trail - pretty good but hard work after 30 miles or so
MT1010V2’s - feel super comfy and should be great for the brief but
somehow ‘work’ the feet leaving them tired after around 25 miles
The demise of the midsole in the MT1010V2 meant it was time for a new pair of shoes, reading the plethora of rave reviews I opted for the RaceUltra, preferring a lighter shoe, I went for the 270 over the 290 and even then was a little hesitant at the 270 grams (UK Mens 8) weight.
A large part of the decision was based on the absolutely awesome Inov8 X-Talon 200’s I bought recently and love and will be taking to Peru to run The Jungle Ultra in.
Between the rave reviews and my recent experience of the X-Talon 200’s I had very high hopes for the RaceUltra.
So I strapped them on and headed out for a trot, my usual weekend longer run of 18 miles and some change of Clumber Park. The route provides a real mix of terrain albeit the majority is hard pack trail or tarmac in the form of cycle paths, fire trails and estate roads, interspersed between the hard pack is a handful of fields. I therefore set off brightly, my first stop to adjust the laces happened after a few hundred metres, my next a few hundred metres later and again a few hundred metres later. It may be my heel, I have had issues in the past however I simply can’t get the lacing to lock the heel in place.
Putting aside the issues with locking my heel down, they are a good if somewhat, at least in my opinion, confused shoe. They mostly do what it says in the blurb a low, mid-weight shoe, with good tread that coped well across all of the mixed terrain encountered.
Why the confusion? I found them too firm for the mixed hard pack surfaces. In my opinion you would need to be an efficient forefoot striking minimal enthusiast to run long distances on mixed terrain in them, assuming I were an efficient minimal enthusiast I wouldn’t want a shoe that weights 270g in a UK Size 8, 300g in my UK Size 9, nor would I want what is essentially quite a stiff midsole.
Back to the heel issue, no matter how well I adjust the laces and even with different lace locking techniques and patterns the only way to keep them in place to complete the run was to over tighten the shoes.
This really frustrates me, in the X-Talon 200 Inov8 have a a great upper and a ‘foot lock’ almost on a par with Salomon Sense Ultra yet somehow they felt compelled to re-invent the wheel and create a new one which doesn’t work!
Inov8 are an awesome company and have created many of my favourite shoes, I love their innovation however this approach does seem to lead to something of a hit and miss outcome, these for me are miss.
Time to clean them up and move them on.
What will I try next? Ultra Superior 2.0’s already purchased, review to follow.