The latter are what I am talking about here and this review will be a little mixed.
The shoes look great, I mean really great. The styling is excellent. They are red with the white heel cap. I wear a size 9 and have my own orthotics that I use in every running shoe I have.
I bought the shoes to wear at the Green Man ultra in March. That was 46 miles of trails and puddles and mud. It was a brutal course and the shoes were great. That I was able to wear them and not get a single blister or rub after only having run maybe 11 miles in them shows how incredible a shoe they are. There's no wearing in required, they were more or less box fresh and gave me zero issues. They were also solid on a very challenging mucky course. I did not slip or fall.
After the Green Man I was so confident in the shoes that I decided to wear these for the W2C challenge in April. This was to be a 4 day ultra marathon challenge with the last 3 days being predominantly trail. Having run 29.5 miles on day 1 in some Ultraboosts I used the Salomon's for days 2, 3 and 4 which over the three days would be 112 miles of running. The shoes were fantastic; they were comfortable, coped with the terrain and felt solid throughout. They were fine on the Tarmac stretches and wonderful on the trails.
These shoes are so light they barely register. So light you imagine they cannot be durable. That was a little problem.
By the end of day 2 of the W2C a hole had developed in the toe box where the mesh section joins to toe guard. I finished the W2C in the shoes but considered that after 208 miles in total this wasn't really acceptable.
A perfect shoe that had an imperfection. I don't know if others have experienced this issue with these shoes or whether the ones I had were maybe faulty. It was disappointing though as the shoe is pure class.
I contacted Sportsshoes.com who I had bought the shoes from. They provided impeccable service requesting that I return the shoes. They had them and contacted me by phone to advise that they were faulty but that they didn't have any more of that shoe in my size. I paid a little extra and am now awaiting a pair of the Salomon Sonics in blue. I know the colour isn't important but they look cool too!
Back to the Sense 3's, I loved the shoe and it was excellent in 4 ultra distance runs that I used them in. Genuinely no issues whatsoever. It is a shame they were not a little more durable as I'd still like to have them. I hope that the pair I had was faulty and that it's not an issue across that model.
I'm still a Salomon fanboy though, if they are good enough for Killian...
