September 1, 2026

3:24pm Mountain Time

Teva will launch the Trailpeak trail running shoe on Sept. 1, 2026. The model was co-designed with ultrarunners Mike Wardian and Erin Ton for technical trails and FKT attempts.

The Trailpeak weighs 185g for a W7 and 235g for an M9, and uses a HYPER-COMF+ SCF midsole that Teva describes as the brand's lightest and most responsive cushioning; it features Spider Rubber® Endure 3mm lugs, a speedlace fit system and an internal cage for lateral lockdown. Erin Ton has recorded dozens of FKTs in the shoe.

Trail runners used to have a shoe. Now we have a system. Tara Dower’s use of the Altra Vanish Carbon 3 for speed work is a good example of how specialized that system has become.

Paid partnership with Altra and the Vanish Carbon 3

I used to buy a new pair of trail shoes, run them until they were dead, then demote them to road duty and buy another pair. That was the quiver. It worked and that’s good because I didn’t have an imagination for another way   

But the sport has changed. Training is more specific. Racing is faster. Recovery is taken more seriously. Footwear has specialized just like everything else.

Shoes are only one piece of why times keep improving, but they are an important piece because they let us match the tool to the job.

Over time, my own quiver has gone from one shoe doing almost everything to several shoes doing very specific jobs. I am never going to be elite, but I can still improve my times. When the competition is mostly against myself, that matters just as much.

DAILY TRAINER
SPEEDWORK
ROAD RACER
EVERYDAY TRAIL RUNNER
TRAIL RACER
RECOVERY

Daily Trainer

Comfortable, durable, predictable. This is the shoe supporting Diadora’s new mantra of ‘Normalize High Mileage.’

It absorbs ordinary road miles without asking me to think about it. I would prefer to run every single run on a trail, but even living in Salt Lake City close to trails, it can be difficult to find the time. Some days I am running through parks and neighborhoods because that is what the schedule allows.  I don’t love it but at least I get to run  

For me, the daily trainer should be affordable and durable. It is a beater in the best possible way. I want to lace it up, go run, and not think much about what is on my feet.

Practically speaking, this shoe also keeps ordinary mileage off the more expensive, specialized shoes in the quiver. If I am going to spend more than $200 on a pair of running shoes, I would rather use those miles when the shoe is actually serving a purpose.

The daily trainer exists to absorb the ordinary work so the specialized stuff does not have to.

Speedwork

Intervals, tempo runs, threshold work. This is where I want something lighter, more responsive and more aggressive than my daily trainer.

This is also the natural home for the Vanish Carbon 3 in Tara Dower’s system.

When Tara joined me on the Borderlands Trail and Ultra Running Podcast, we talked about speed and her increasing interest in road running. She also talked about using the Vanish Carbon 3 for speed work and how, after years in zero-drop shoes, she has found herself increasingly drawn to the shoe’s 4mm drop when she wants to run fast.

That matters because there is now plenty of room, and plenty of reason, to develop speed in ultratrail running.

For years, a lot of us in the back of the pack accepted the idea that we were just slow. Ultra was about surviving distance, not necessarily becoming faster.

We do not actually have to surrender to that.

I will never catch Tara Dower. But 43-year-old Josh can crush 34-year-old Josh.

A speedwork shoe is one of the tools that helps make that possible.

Road Racer

The road racer is the cleanest expression of speed in the quiver. It is built for pace, economy and race day, when the goal is to see how fast you can actually go.

For most trail runners, I do not think this needs to be a separate purchase. The speedwork shoe can double as the road racer.

That is how I would think about the Vanish Carbon 3. Tara can use it for speed work, and someone else can use the same shoe on a road start line.

The road is also showing up more and more in the lives of great ultratrail runners. Tara talked about wanting to test herself in a fast road marathon. Other elite trail runners increasingly use road races as another way to measure speed and fitness.

If road racing becomes a meaningful part of your calendar, then maybe a dedicated road racer makes sense. Otherwise, let the speedwork shoe pull double duty.

Everyday Trail Runner

This is the trail equivalent of the daily trainer. Enough grip, protection and stability for most terrain, with enough durability to take the bulk of trail mileage.

Trail shoes have improved so much that the difference between an everyday trail shoe and a true trail racer is increasingly obvious. If you have never worn a race-focused trail shoe, you may not realize how much specialization has happened here.

For me, durability is the defining characteristic of the everyday trail shoe. I want hundreds and hundreds of miles out of it. If a shoe is going to handle the majority of my trail running, it should be able to take a beating.

I also tend to avoid very high stacks for my everyday trail mileage. I like ground feel. I like some connection to the terrain. And I prefer saving the big-stack sensation for days when I actually want that extra relief.

The everyday trail shoe is not supposed to feel exotic. It is supposed to disappear under you and keep working.

Trail Racer

The trail racer is lighter, faster and more precise. It is built around race-day performance rather than endless versatility.

This category has become increasingly specialized. Some trail racers use plates. Some use very light, responsive foams. Some simply strip away weight and protection to create a faster, more aggressive ride.

The important distinction is not the exact technology. It is the intent.

A trail racer is a tool I save for workouts and races where speed actually matters. It is often more expensive, less versatile and less durable than the everyday trail shoe. That tradeoff can make sense when the goal is performance.

But I would not tell every runner to go buy one.

If your everyday trail shoe still does everything you need, keep running in it. Specialized race shoes become more interesting when you have a specific reason to ask more from the footwear.

Recovery Shoe

Do you need a recovery shoe? Of course not.

It is a splurge.

But ultrarunning itself is a splurge, and if you have the cash available, there is something genuinely useful about having a shoe that asks almost nothing from your feet.

After a long race, when my feet are swollen and everything feels sensitive, I appreciate something soft, roomy and completely undemanding. The same is true in the days after a huge effort when I still want to walk around, move a little and feel comfortable.

A recovery shoe is probably the least necessary category in the quiver. It is also one of the easiest to appreciate when you are wrecked.

A Quiver Is a System, Not a Shopping List

The point of this is not that serious runners need six pairs of shoes.

One shoe can occupy multiple categories. The Vanish Carbon 3 can be Tara’s speedwork shoe and someone else’s road racer. A trail racer might also handle key workouts. A comfortable daily trainer might be all the recovery shoe someone needs.

The point is that runners increasingly think about footwear the same way they think about training. Different inputs serve different purposes.

That is a very different mindset from the one I started with, when the old trail shoe simply became the new road shoe.

The old quiver was simple: new trail shoe, dead trail shoe, road shoe.

And honestly, that system worked.

But if the point is to find out how good you can get, specialization starts to make sense. A durable trainer for ordinary mileage. A trail racer for race day. A speed shoe like the Vanish Carbon 3 when the purpose of the workout is to run fast.

The categories matter less than the intent.

I am never going to run like Tara Dower. That is not really the point. I am still trying to run faster than the version of me who came before.

The modern shoe quiver is simply another set of tools for doing that.

Tara Dower discusses her transition from thru-hiking and FKTs to professional ultrarunning, balancing racing ambitions with exploratory adventures and insights on training, equipment, and coaching.

Tara Dower has become one of the most interesting figures in ultra running because there is still no obvious template for what kind of runner she is becoming.

She has the results of an increasingly polished professional athlete, including major performances at Western States and Black Canyon, but her instincts still seem rooted somewhere else.

Tara came into the sport through thru-hiking, FKTs, long days in the mountains, and an almost compulsive attraction to difficult problems. She likes racing, but she also likes figuring things out. She wants to get faster, but not necessarily at the expense of doing strange, ambitious things with running.

That tension sits underneath this conversation.

We talk about the stubbornness Tara Dower has carried since childhood, why she believes there is still time to take out of Western States, her interest in a future PCT attempt, and why she can criticize UTMB while still admitting that she wants to eventually stand on its starting line and race the best women in the world.

We also get into road speed, the new Altra Vanish Carbon 3, Tara’s long history with Altra, and what she learned from former coach Karl “Speedgoat” Meltzer. Somewhere in there, a useful picture of Tara emerges: part modern professional ultrarunner, part old-school dirtbag, and increasingly capable of being both.

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“Calling Josh Wade my dark horse pick for the 2026 UTMB is probably cheating. He finished third at UTMB last year. If a podium doesn’t get you removed from dark-horse status, I’m not sure what does.”

Josh Wade Is My UTMB Dark Horse, If You Can Call Him That

As my first 100-miler approaches, I am well inside the window of thinking hard about my race-day kit. The most important decision, of course, is what will be on my feet. This past week on my long run, I tried a new contender: The North Face Summit Series VECTIV Pro 3.

I realize there have been mixed reviews on the latest version after the smashing success of the VECTIV Pro 2. But hey, I’m always a sucker for great design, and the VECTIV Pro 3 has serious style.

I won’t go into full shoe-review mode, but in short, I absolutely loved the offering from The North Face. For a brand I had always associated with sleeping bags and fleece jackets, the shoe delivered in a serious way. In fact, I was so impressed that I briefly had this thought on my run: I bet a North Face athlete is going to take the big loop this year in Chamonix.

And then I thought about Josh Wade.

Calling Wade my dark horse pick is probably cheating. He finished third at UTMB last year. If a podium doesn’t get you removed from dark-horse status, I’m not sure what does.

Still, Wade tends to come up a little later in the conversation than I think he should. Kilian Jornet is back and looking for a 5th title. Jim Walmsley and Vincent Bouillard have already won the race. Ben Dhiman finished second last year, and Jon Albon and Hannes Namberger both have plenty of people picking them. With names like that around, a returning third-place finisher can somehow start to feel overlooked.

Maybe part of it is presentation. Most people first met Wade as a North Face athlete who still worked part-time as a gardener in Kendal. He was pushing lawnmowers uphill, training, eating, sleeping, and spending time with his family. He’s since stopped gardening and now focuses fully on running, but that’s still how many of us first came to know him.

His 2024 UTMB is when I started paying closer attention.

His stomach went bad early, and at one point he was lying beside the trail while passing runners stopped to ask whether he was okay. He got back up and finished 11th.

Before that race, Wade has said one of his strengths was the back end of a long ultra. He ended up proving it in the least convenient way possible.

A year later, his stomach cooperated. Wade reached Courmayeur around the edge of the top 10 and then started moving through the field. Once he got into third near Champex-Lac, he did not settle in and protect the podium. He started asking people how far ahead second place was.

He finished in 20:05:06, only 13 minutes behind Dhiman.

That is not much over 100 miles.

Wade’s 2026 results give me more reason to buy in. He finished third at Transgrancanaria behind Albon and Namberger, then won the Eryri 80K in May. He also DNF’d the Lavaredo 80K in June. I could not find a public explanation for that result, so I will not make one up.

The DNF is worth noting, but it doesn’t move me off the pick. Wade has already shown that he understands UTMB specifically. He grew up walking and running in the Lake District, but he has talked about adding flatter running because Chamonix is not Snowdonia. The technical ground around home has made him strong, but UTMB also rewards the ability to open up between the climbs. He has worked on that part.

Bad weather would not bother me either. Last year, the snow and cold around Col de la Seigne reminded him of the Spine Race. When he saw the forecast before the start, he thought it looked pretty good for him.

Tom Evans is now out, so only Dhiman and Wade return from last year’s men’s podium. Wade isn’t hoping to sneak into the top 10. He has already stood on the podium, and when he got there, he was still looking ahead.

So yes, “dark horse” is probably the wrong label. Wade is one of the best 100-mile runners in the world, and he has finished 11th and third in his last two trips around Mont Blanc.

But in a field this loud, he still feels oddly easy to miss.

I need more than one long run before I choose the VECTIV Pro 3 for Sonoma. But as of today, Josh Wade is the name I am circling for UTMB.

August 18, 2026

6:18pm Mountain Time

Merrell will host activations at UTMB Mont‑Blanc in Chamonix from August 24–30, 2026 (Merrell UTMB 2026), including community runs, on‑trail product demos, a Strava challenge and an evening relay. Scheduled events include the International Merrell Athlete Team Community Run on Tuesday, August 25, 4:00–5:30 PM at the Merrell Booth Ultra Trail Village with athletes Tiphaine Bazile, Harry Jones, Emilie Mann, Maria Jose Saavedra, Ari‑Pekka Joensuu, Julien Michelon, Jules Delabelle, Sam Rout, Yuya Okada, Ruut Joensuu, Tessa Chesser and María del Rocio Flores Cardenas; the Merrell x Cyril Community Run on Wednesday, August 26, 4:00–5:30 PM at the Merrell Booth with Cyril Forestier of Courir Mieux; the Merrell x Trails in France Community Run on Thursday, August 27, 11:00–12:30 PM; and Run All In, All Down on Thursday, August 27, 6:00–9:00 PM at Tremplin Du Grepon Chamonix, a relay on a 1 km elimination‑style loop. Ongoing displays at the Merrell Booth include the MTL SpeedARC Peak with on‑trail testing, a weeklong Strava challenge (August 24–30) that selects two winners per day to receive MTL SpeedARC Peak shoes, and Camp KU, a Merrell 1TRL x MTL partnership with Knees Up.

Featured athletes to watch include Frédéric Tranchand (OCC), holder of the 2025 World Short Trail Championship and the 2026 European Trail Championship; Emilie Mann (UTMB), who placed third at the 100K UTMB Australia; and Tessa Chesser (OCC), a Merrell athlete since January 2025. Athletes are available for select interviews subject to race schedules; advance scheduling is encouraged. Media contacts: isabelle.beurnez@lvld.fr (Merrell Europe) and merrell@outsidepr.com (OutsidePR).

In this Speedland RX:SKY review, Inky Steve confesses his addiction to shoes and names the new collab between Speedland and Saysky his potential shoe of the year.

Disclaimer: While Inky paid full price for the shoes, this article contains affiliate links.

I’m Inky Steve and I am an addict. There, I said it.

My addiction started as far back as I can remember and it’s steadily gotten worse. This addiction isn’t your usual kind of thing. I have a penchant for shoes, and in the last six years it’s been running shoes, especially trail running shoes.

So, as someone addicted to trail running shoes, you can imagine what happened when I caught a glimpse of a new silhouette from one of my favourite trail running brands. It didn’t stop there. This new silhouette was a collaboration with another really interesting running apparel brand, and it GLOWS in the f**kin dark.

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The words “take my money” rang throughout my brain, and as soon as that preorder popped into my emails, the trigger was pulled.

I know you’re all desperate to know what this shoe is, if you don’t already. It’s the Speedland x Saysky RX.

The Speedland RX:SKY

This collaboration is a really interesting one, in some of the best ways. Firstly, it uses one of Speedland’s latest silhouettes, the RX model, which, if I’m correct, is Speedland’s more racing-oriented shoe. It’s lighter weight and has slightly smaller lugs which glows-in-the-dark

It obviously features the BOA dial, a staple of Speedland shoes, and this works extremely well with the strap feature. It’s the first time I’ve used the strap and BOA together on a running shoe, and it’s actually really effective. You can really dial in the fit, although I do personally prefer just having the BOA system. Sizing, as always, was spot on and true to size.

Like other shoes in the Speedland range, the RX has their signature carbon plate-compatible insole. This means you can add a carbon plate or remove it depending on what works best for the course, or even the section, you’re running. The negative for me was that the included carbon plate was just too stiff. I could really feel it when I was running, and for me the shoe works better without it.

The midsole on the RX felt awesome straight out of the box. Combined with the lightweight feel, you can effortlessly pick up the pace, but it also worked well at some of my ultra paces. It had exactly the right amount of bounce and stability while remaining comfortable.

But some of the best features of this shoe come in the styling department. I’m much more interested in the looks than the performance of a shoe, and this really is an eye-turner.

Firstly, if you haven’t seen it, it’s YELLOW. But it’s more than that. Some of the yellow panels glow in the freaking dark.

Who does that??

I’ll tell you who: Saysky.

Although I do wonder whose idea it really was to make this shoe glow in the dark. Was it one of Kevin’s Fuck Around Fridays? If you know, you know.

This Actually Feels Like a Collaboration

I feel like Saysky had a massive input into the RX rather than just slapping their branding on someone else’s shoe. Saysky’s fingerprints are all over it, from the colour palette to the floral patterns.

The shoe comes with an awesome apparel capsule too, and the clothing feeds into the shoe and vice versa. There’s a brilliant, almost Hawaiian-style print on some of the shoe’s panels and inside the insoles, which perfectly matches the running shirt. The branding from both contributors works perfectly together too.

I think Saysky has a great design department, and I’ve yet to see them collaborate on a bad product. If you haven’t seen their Puma collaboration from last year, check it out. It was awesome.

My favourite part of the RX, though, is that it’s two smaller brands in the running world working perfectly together, and it really feels like a true collaboration. I could be biased because I really like both brands and what they stand for within the sport, but I hope it brings new eyes to both of them.

It’s also the perfect opportunity to finally get a pair of Speedlands on these shores in the UK. They’re shipped from Europe, so there are no hidden costs and no doing what I usually have to do: sending them to my mate’s house in the States and then getting him to post them to me.

If you want a mega trail racing shoe, you won’t go too far wrong getting these on your feet, and you’ll definitely stand out from the crowd.

The Speedland x Saysky RX will probably be in my top shoes of the year.

Karl Meltzer’s Speedgoat nickname was adopted by HOKA for a trail shoe, Red Bull backed his Appalachian Trail attempt, and his Speedgoat 50K joined the UTMB World Series.

Trail running has exploded into a global business, and Karl Meltzer somehow ended up at the center of it. HOKA turned his Speedgoat nickname into one of trail running’s defining shoes, Red Bull backed his Appalachian Trail record attempt, and UTMB eventually bought the race he created.

Karl has spent the last three decades standing almost exactly where trail running’s underground culture has collided with its commercial future.

Long before trail running became a meaningful category for footwear companies, Karl was racing. Long before athletes built businesses around their audiences, he was figuring out how to make a living as an ultrarunner. Then the industry started catching up to him.

HOKA took his nickname and put it on a shoe.

The Speedgoat became one of the defining trail shoes of the modern era. Karl Meltzer’s identity suddenly existed on the feet of runners all over the world, many of whom probably had no idea there was a person behind the name.

Red Bull came along and helped fund his attempt to break the Appalachian Trail record.

Karl also built his own race in Utah. He called it the Speedgoat 50K. Eventually that race became valuable enough that UTMB acquired it and brought it into the UTMB World Series.

Think about that trajectory.

A nickname earned by an ultrarunner becomes a global footwear franchise. A mountain race built by that same runner becomes part of the largest trail running series in the world. An energy drink company helps fund an Appalachian Trail record attempt.

All of it happened to one guy.  But that one guy isn’t trying to build a grand myth about himself.

That tension runs through our conversation.  I keep trying to build that myth and keeps calling himself lucky.

Trail running is currently wrestling with growth almost everywhere you look. UTMB is expanding. Brands are spending more. Athletes are becoming professional creators and marketers. Races are becoming assets. The sport is figuring out what parts of its old identity should survive and what inevitably changes when more people and more money arrive.

Karl doesn’t offer an outsider’s critique of that transformation.  He lived it and in many ways, he won.  That’s what made this conversation worth having now, as the trail running world heads toward Chamonix once again.

Karl Meltzer isn’t simply a figure from ultrarunning’s past. His life connects an astonishing number of forces determining its future.

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August 15, 2026

8:00am Mountain Time

UTMB 2026 will bring together returning UTMB Legends and a new generation of contenders on the flagship 174 km course with 9,900 m of elevation gain. Five designated UTMB Legends entered are Kilian Jornet (ESP, UTMB Index 948), a four-time winner in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2022; Jim Walmsley (USA, UTMB Index 967), the 2023 UTMB winner who also won the 2025 OCC; Vincent Bouillard (FRA, UTMB Index 941), the 2024 UTMB champion and this year’s Western States winner with a new course record; Courtney Dauwalter (USA, UTMB Index 859), a three-time UTMB winner in 2019, 2021 and 2023; and Ruth Croft (NZL, UTMB Index 823), the defending 2025 champion and the only woman to have won all three UTMB World Series Finals.

The women’s race pits defending champion Ruth Croft (UTMB Index 823) against Courtney Dauwalter (UTMB Index 859), with key challengers including Riley Brady (USA, UTMB Index 826), Fuzhao Xiang (CHN, UTMB Index 823), Sunmaya Budha (NEP, UTMB Index 814), Abby Hall (USA, UTMB Index 808), Blandine L’Hirondel (FRA, UTMB Index 807), who won the 2025 Diagonale des Fous and the 2022 CCC and was on the 2023 UTMB podium, Lucy Bartholomew (AUS, UTMB Index 799) with three top-10 finishes in the last three editions and a second place in the 100M at this year’s La Sportiva Lavaredo Ultra Trail by UTMB, and Rachel Entrekin (USA, UTMB Index 781), who set the course record at Cocodona earlier this season; on the men’s side Jim Walmsley (USA, UTMB Index 967) and Kilian Jornet (ESP, UTMB Index 948) are among the top-ranked, joined by Ben Dhiman (USA, UTMB Index 946) who was second to Tom Evans in 2025 (Evans is not competing), Caleb Olson (USA, UTMB Index 946), Hannes Namberger (GER, UTMB Index 941), Vincent Bouillard (FRA, UTMB Index 941), Jonathan Albon (GBR, UTMB Index 939), and Jiasheng Shen (CHN, UTMB Index 903), who finished eighth in 2025 amid a broader Asian contingent that placed three Chinese runners in the 2025 top 10.

August 13, 2026

8:00am Mountain Time

COROS introduced the PACE 4 Cloud White on May 21, 2025, the second entry in its aluminum bezel series following PACE 4 Black Crystal; the new edition is offered at $279 USD and is available at COROS.com/PACE4 and select retailers worldwide, with Black Crystal remaining on sale at the same price.

The Coros Pace 4 Cloud White features a 6000-series anodized aluminum alloy bezel, two-tone translucent lugs produced by two-tone injection molding, and a silk-screened silicone band; COROS says the anodized finish resists sweat and salt. The watch weighs 33 grams with the nylon band, has a 2.5D AMOLED touchscreen, up to 41 hours of GPS battery life and 19 days of daily use, a built-in microphone for voice notes and Voice Pins, activity uploads of photos and videos, and integrates with the COROS app for training, recovery time, sleep stages, HRV, menstrual cycle tracking and other metrics; the PACE 4 platform was named The New York Times Wirecutter Best Overall Running Watch for 2026.

August 13, 2026

8:00am Mountain Time

Fractel has expanded its technical apparel lineup with the Rockies Collection, introducing new colorways across its sun-protective apparel and headwear. Inspired by the Colorado Rockies, the collection brings together Fractel’s UPF-rated apparel and headwear and, the company says, continues the brand’s move beyond performance running into the broader outdoor adventure space.

Central pieces are the UPF50+ Sun Hoodie, a lightweight technical layer with breathable construction, UPF50+ protection and details for running and hiking, and the UPF30+ Adventure Shirt, a technical collared shirt with lightweight fabric, UPF30+ protection and a versatile silhouette for trail, travel and everyday wear.