Trail Running Shoe Review

Competitor was nice enough to send me a few trail running shoes for review. First off we have the Tecnica Diablo Sprint



The Diablo Sprint is an extremely light weight, stable, and somewhat durable trail running shoe great for hill repeats on grass (wet or dry) or gravel, and loose descends taken like you're being timed. I don't know about you but when I'm doing interval workouts of hills or stairs I include the full cycle from start, back to start again in my timing for that interval. In the past I've done the majority of my trail running in Merrell Moab GORE-TEX® Hiking shoes that are bulky and have a flat tread. The Diablo's do offer a lot of traction but at the cost of stability when jumping on rocks, descends, and flat rock face surfaces (which we have a lot of here in CO). Ideally these shoes would be great for desert hiking, snow hiking (14ers possibly) and in temperate semi tropical climates on softer trails made of pine needles.




The second pair I received was the La Sportiva Crosslite from their Mountain Running Series.




Its a good thing that I live in Boulder with great local access to some rough terrain because with these shoes its the rougher the better. Flat paved surfaces are ill advised! My first impression of these shoes was, "when did La Sportiva start making soccer cleats?" I haven't had access to a turf pitch and a size 5 ball to try them out for other sports but for running uphill in loose, muddy, steep, snowy/icy topography this equipment will get you there faster then probably anything out there. Hands Down! and I'm not just saying that. On the other hand, conditions are constantly changing and in my opinion that's when its time to change out these shoes and bench em. I was a train wreck on down slopes that weren't snow covered, I had to slow down and have careful foot placement so as to not roll an ankle. Rock hoping is my style of trail running, in my mind, you waste too much time going down to the ground in between rocks instead of hitting the high points and minimizing your vertical deviation as you progress forward.

These shoes were increadibly lite as their name suggests. The integrated gator over the laces was great at keeping pebbles and ice/snow out of the shoe and the fit was snug.

Leaving you with a positive note the Crosslite would also make a for a great shoe to wear with snow shoes and in snow shoe races. You will be guaranteed with all the traction that the snow shoes wont move around under foot and your exposed toe will still get traction as you toe off.