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.
