Running Commentary

On 3 March 2017, I was at the ASICS Singapore flagship store at Suntec City for a presentation by national 1500m runner Raviin Kumar (@runlikerav) on the latest Flytefoam series shoes to drop this season. They were namely: ASICS DynaFlyte (released last year already, but seeing an upper colour update this season), the ASICS Noosa FF, and the ASICS DS Trainer 22. I got to test out each of the shoes on their in-store treadmill. I passed on the Dynaflyte, as I already had it in my arsenal, and honestly find the upper a little too warm for Singapore weather. It was down to the DS Trainer, or the Noosa FF. The DS Trainer 22 dropped a ton of weight due in no small part to the replacement of Solyte with FlyteFoam in the midsole. It went from 9.1oz for a US9 to 7.8oz from DST 21 to DST 22. That’s a whole category jump right there. It basically jumped into the same class at the New Balance 1500v3, only it is now lighter . I generally prefer neutral shoes as they tend to be more flexibl...

ASICS has recently launched 3 new models sporting its FlyteFoam midsole technology, namely the ASICS DS Trainer 22 (replacing DS Trainer 21), ASICS Noosa FF (replacing the Noosa Tri), and the Dynaflyte which was already released last year but sees a colour update this year.  In case you have not been up to speed on ASICS's progress with FlyteFoam, this material first debuted in the exclusive and very pricey MetaRun, which I reviewed earlier in Dec 2015. The technology made a big splash in the daily trainer category with the Dynaflyte last year, and continues to build on that with its incorporation into the DS Trainer and Noosa Tri lines.  On a personal note, ASICS have fitted me with the Noosa FF and initial run feedback is very good. This maybe my favourite ASICS trainer to date. It's  not  the lightest of the new FlyteFoam shoes; that honour goes to the new DS Trainer 22, as it used the lighter FlyteFoam midsole to drop a full ounce from version 21 and mak...

There are a few shoes on my wish list to try in 2017, including the Saucony Freedom ISO, Hoka One One Hupana, Nike Zoom Elite 9, and the Salming EnRoute, but none of them are as light as the new Skechers Razor. Having previously reviewed the Skechers GoRun 5 for RoadTrailRun.com here , I was looking forward to seeing how the Razor would stack up. I’ve put in many more runs in the Skechers GoRun 5 since my initial review, and the one small beef I have with the shoe is that the balls of my feet tend to get a little bit sore past the 90-minute mark with this shoe. It could well be that the foam just softens up a bit too much in the warm Singapore weather, and I was hoping the Razor would be firm enough without being too jarring for me to use as a suitable long run trainer. My long runs tend not to be overly fast, but my long run shoes need to be able to adapt to variations in pace because some of these runs can be rolling and the downhill sections could be done at close to 6:00/m...