I thought to give you insights about how I test running shoes. It will make you easier to understand the reviews that I write. It matters to know, how the shoes are tested and at what paces. Everyone of us is unique and therefore some shoes, that work well for me, might not work well for you. So here are a few insights into my testing, the way I write reviews and my running. I hope that with this information you will get better understanding of my reviews.
Most of the running events or races I attend are half marathons and marathons. I haven’t run a shorter distance in a race environment for quite a few years now. If I remember correctly, my last 10k race was more than 2 years ago and even then I took it as a training run. My marathon PB stands at 3:16:09 from Prague marathon in 2023 and my half marathon PB at 1:31:25 from Ljubljana half marathon back in 2022. Last year I ran one marathon: Berlin and finished in 3:29:49. My fastest half marathon time last year was 1:36:41.
My current running paces are:
Recovery runs between 5.50 and 6.00 min/km
Easy runs between 5.30 and 5.50 min/km
Long runs between 5.20 and 5.45 min/km
2-4k intervals between 4.30 and 4.45 min/km
1k intervals between 4.10 and 4.20 min/km
500m intervals between 4.00 and 4.10 min/km
These days running shoes are more specific than a few years ago. We could probably have 5-7 pairs of them, each one for a different purpose. But when testing running shoes and before writing a review, I take them out on all types of runs, that I currently do. So each of the shoes is used in a recovery run, easy run with some strides at top end speed on the track, easy long run, long run workout and in an interval session. I find it important to test a shoe at different paces.
Before I write a review I run about 100 kilometers in the shoe. I could write reviews after using the shoe 2 or 3 times but that would not give the insights that I want. I want to understand the shoe, before I write about it and share my thoughts with you.
I know, that a lot of reviewers write about shoes specs. I don’t do that. Specs can easily be found on the internet and in my opinion it’s much more important, that you get the information how I feel about the shoe, what I like about it, what I dislike and what my general thought about a shoe are.
Some of the shoes I write about are send to me for the purpose of testing and reviewing. Some of them by companies, that produce the shoes, others by top4running since I’m their brand ambassador. But there are also some shoes, that I write about, that I purchase with my own money. This information is always shared in my reviews and I try to give you my honest thoughts about a shoe, regardless of how I got it.
One thing that I don’t like to do is to compare a running shoe to other running shoes on the market. I give my best to focus on the shoe I’m testing, not comparing it to other running shoes. But from time to time I also write comparison reviews about two shoes.
Now you know, how I test running shoes. All of my running shoe reviews can be found on this link:
