Getting it done on a cold Tuesday night (near Stoke Gabriel)

It was freezing, and I wasn’t exactly prepared for a 5km time trail - but then again, I was wearing a pair of super shoes

About a week ago, a clip on Instagram from the Rich Roll podcast caught my attention. It was an interview with ultra runner David Roche, who earlier this year broke the Leadville 100 course record - which had been set 19 years ago by the legendary Matt Carpenter. Roche was eulogising about how great it was to run in super shoes (the term given to, as he puts it in the interview, “those shoes with an advanced foam, that have a plate within them”.)

He said they were “the ultimate delight”, and that running in them was “like playing a video game rather than running”.

“They make running so much more fun,” he said.

I’ve been a little anti-super-shoes over the years, feeling that they’re a bit unnatural, that they convey an unfair advantage to those who can afford them, or to those whose running form suits them (tests show that they don’t have the same impact for everyone). They also have a shorter lifespan than regular shoes, which seems wasteful (although Roche, in the interview, says you can run much further in them than advertised).

But despite my misgivings, when someone says putting on these shoes will make running feel easier, allowing you to go faster, with less effort, and that you’ll be less tired the next day, I have to say, that did sound like fun. And anything that makes running even more fun must be worth checking out, right?

Last January, with the Manchester Marathon on the horizon and dreams of setting a new PB, I caved in and bought myself a pair of super shoes (after much canvassing on social media, I plumped for the Saucony Endorphins, above). But then I got injured, pulled out of the marathon, and embarked on a very long run where super shoes were no longer part of the equation.

So they’ve been sitting in a box under the stairs ever since. This week, though, ahead of my running club’s Tuesday night session, after hearing Roche’s words I decided to pull out the box and give the super shoes a go. Finally. I’d never run in any type of super shoe before, so I was pretty excited to see what would happen.