Puma Velocity Nitro 2 – Durable and value-for-money daily trainers

Puma made a massive entry back into the mid distance running scene with its widely popular Nitro series. The series got cult status boost when Molly Seidel climbed to the Olympics bronze medal glory in Tokyo wearing the Nitros. I was looking for a good trainer since some time and chanced upon a pair of Puma Velocity Nitro 2. I have always been Adidas (Adios, Boston) and Saucony (Speed, Endrophins) fanboy and did not really think outside these two brands. And then, Puma Nitro happened.

First Impression:

Outside the box, Velocity Nitro 2 (VN2) looks like a simple, no frills shoes. But, looks can be seriously deceptive.

Three things jump out as soon as you hold them:

1. They look big but are deceptively light weight
2. The midsole has oddles of cushion and looks soft and jumpy
3. The bottom sole looks insanely grippy with unique design

How do they fare on the runs?

The short answer is that these shoes are pretty versatile; I would rather say they punch significantly above their weight.

Velocity Nitro 2 is marketed as a trainers and I would say they are one of best trainers around for training for distances upto full marathon. They work excellently well in the LSD runs – thanks to its jumpy sole.

I also tested it on fast runs – interwals as well as tempos. I found them to be quite versatile but above a certain pace point these shoes lack the energy returns of its plated brethrens. I found them quite okay till 5:00 min/km pace zone and thereafter the legs crave for better energy returns which obviously these shoes are not designed to deliver.

While I really love the outer of these shoes, one draw back of thick(ish) outer is that these shoes can induce relatively higher amount of sweating and therefore may lead to discomfort and ocassionally a blister or two. I haven’t got any blisters yet but I have heard a few folks complain about the same and I kind of agree with this feedback. I would advise folks to run with dry fit socks to avoid blisters though.

Who are these shoes for?

Anyone operating at a high weekly mileage and looking for a value for money trainers, Velocity Nitro 2 must be the first choice. Some folks also use the metric of price of the shoes per km and these shoes will deliver awesome metric here too – I personally do not look at the shoes this way though.

Report Card

Parameter	Rating (1 – lowest to 5 – highest)
Cushioning	4
Durability	5
Performance	3
Stability	3
Fit	4
Affordability	4
Versatility	5
Propulsion/Energy Returns	2

Verdict

Puma Velocity Nitro 2 is a work horse of a shoe to power your daily runs but can also manage occasional tempo or interval type speed workouts. These shoes are incredibly durable and would easily last you over 800kms. Their sweet price point (topped with discounts on the ecommerce portals) also make them one of the best value-for-money daily trainers out there.

We already have a successor for these shoes – Puma Velocity Nitro 3, which are also equally good.

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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. There is some personal bias here for sure. If you have read this far, thank you so much. And, 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.