Demystifying running shoes stacks of top brands

Sample this list: Magicspeed, Vomero, Deviate, Hyperion, Meta Speed, Adios, VaporFly, Endorphin, Adrenaline, Glycerine….

If you are a runner, you would have figured that these are names of running shoes. What if I tell you that most runners still struggle to decipher which series is for which type of running.

All the major running shoes brands have numerous series of running shoes and truth be told, they do a shoddy job of telling the runner, which shoes is for what purpose. As runners, we continue to scratch our heads, and spend endless hours researching to figure out the right shoe model for our needs. God bless the likes of Run Repeat, Running Shoeguru, and so on!

There are several ways of classifying running shoes! The most common way is do it by use case (the purpose of the run); so, we get three broad categories:

a) Daily Trainers,

b) Speed Workout Shoes,

c) Race Shoes

In case you want to know more details about this classification, please head to my previous article here : https://bit.ly/3VbZQaC

Here is my attempt to classfiy various models of running shoes of top six brands – Nike, Adidas, Puma, Saucony, Brooks, and Asics, into the above mentioned categories! I have focused only on the most commonly available, known, and used models to make the list manageable and simple. 

Let’s jump in, one brand at a time.

A) Nike

Nike’s focus has largely been on the premium race shoes, and rightfully so as they are the OG carbon shoes creator. Vapor Fly and Alpha Fly have been uber successful appealing to not just the pros but also the amateur ecosystem. I find Nike’s stack very weak on the speek workout shoes and daily trainers.

Pegasus series lovers might find it hard to see it classfied as a daily trainer but I (and, thankfully most runnnig gurus) genuinely think they aren’t built for speed workouts.

B) Adidas

Adidas does a good job of simplifying things for the runners as they focus on just one series for racing – Adios Pro. Boston series sits nicely as the speed workout shoes with a plastic/nylon plate. And, they have got the Adizero SL in daily trainer segment too. They have many other shoes and quite notably the ultraboost series is missing in my list. I feel they are more sneakers than running shoes. Sorry, ultraboost fans!

C) Puma

Puma found success (resurrection!) with the Nitro series and they haven’t looked back thereafter. The Nitro Elite and Fast-FWD are clearly stacked as racers – though most runners believe that they do not pack as much punch as the other racers out there. The Velocity series as daily trainer and Deviate series as speed workout shoes sits nicely in the Puma stack. My only grudge with Puma is around their naming convention – there is too much of nitro word all across confusing most runners.

D) Asics

Asics has superbly covered the daily trainer use case with several of its iconics series like Gel Kayano, Gel Nimbus, Gel Cumulus and GT 1000/2000 (missing because I did not want to keep more than three in the grid). And, likewise the Metaspeed and Magoic Speed series also sit nicely as race shoes. The struggle with Asics is in the middle – the speed workouts shoes. Not many runners prefer Novablast as speed trainers and I reluctantly put Noosa Tri (which are built for triathlons) only because they are also engineered for speed.

E) Saucony

Saucony has the most clearly defined stack amongst all the brands. Take a bow, Saucony! Their Endorphin series cut across all three use cases – Shift for daily training, Speed for speed workout and Pro for racing. They also have some awesome series like Guide and Triumph in the daily trainer zone. They also have Kinvara and Tempus which can easily slot into the daily trainer realm.

F) Brooks

Brooks has kept it stack simple along the speedier side. The Hyperion series is aptly named with Max, Tempo and GST in the speed workout realm, while Elite in the racing realm. I wish they had a Hyperion in the daily trainer zone as well to keep it clear. Thankfully, they have some iconic series like Ghost, Adrenaline, Glycerine to do the talking in the daily training space.

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Some disclaimers, so here I go. I have done this classification based on my own research, inputs from other runners, and expereince of using a few shoes myself. This is not a paid post (I do wish I get paid for this, though). Like all other notes of mine, I do this purely out of my passion for the wonderful sport of running. I have surely missed out of a few important series but as I mentioned at the onset, the idea was to give a simple and an uncluttered view. There is some personal bias here for sure.

I sincerely hope that runners find this helpful in figuring out which series is for what type of running. And, I do hope that this post help runners make the right choices. As always, I am open to all types of inputs – feedback, brickbats, kudos and more. Please do share on aashutosh[dot]chaudhari[at]gmail[dot]com; you will surely hear back from me.

Finally, if you found this article useful then please be a good runner and share it within your network so that others can also benefit from this.