Running Gear, Thoughts from the Road, Wine and Beer (some other things too...)

Running Gear, Thoughts from the Road, Wine and Beer (some other things too...)

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Out of the Box: Saucony Kinvara TR

New to the stable is the Saucony Kinvara TR.  So far, this relative to the much beloved Saucony Kinvara has the same shape and the same 4mm offset of the road Kinvara, but based on my visual inspection and wear around the house (hey, what can I say?  I need to get new gear on my feet ASAP) that's pretty much where the similarities end.



The TR is almost like the quasi-granola cousin from Boulder that the rest of the Saucony family sees once a year...but I digress...

The TR's upper is made of Saucony's Flexfilm which hugs the foot nicely, and fits the bill of my biggest criteria - that being that the shoe feels like an extension of the body rather than something you wear.  My foot shape (long and narrow) also allows me to get away with the narrower toebox, but it's worth mentioning also that I had to size up to a 10.5 from my normal Saucony 10 (Mirage and Virrata most notably) for the most comfortable fit.

The outsole of the shoe features a moderately aggressive lug pattern, and the under-foot outsole rubber feels very grippy to the touch.  The front 2/3 of the shoe also showcases a carbon fiber foot plate (present in the green colored triangles in the photo below) that is visible and exposed when looking at the sole of the TR.

The one thing, in my opinion, worth mentioning above all else lies in the ankle collar of the shoe.  Present are two memory foam pods that hug the Achilles area of the foot.  Frankly, they look kind of like areas you could squeeze like the pronounced orange basketball on the tongue of a pair of circa 1992 Reebok Pumps, and then cover your eyes Dee Brown style and jump across ravines.



Okay, so, not quite -

However, it is the first pair of shoes I've owned with foam pods in the ankle collar of a shoe, and with snow and ice on the way later in the week, I may have the chance to get them out for a few miles.  I don't suspect they'll ever be worn for runs longer than 20 or 25K on a trail - which is precisely why I went with them over the Brooks PureGrit 2 or the Cascadia.  I do have a running buddy from So Cal that is also a big fan of the Saucony Peregrine, but he uses them for distances of 50K or more.  I don't see that kind of distance in my immediate future.

With snow on the way, I do see getting out in the Kinvara TR's and looking forward reviewing them right here.

Cheers!

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