I’m a solid Age Group OCR racer. I picked these up at a Savage race after realizing I’d left my running shoes in my car an hr away. They were great right out of the box! The Sparks are super light weight, good room in the toe box, and have fantastic grip. They feel like part of your body, not clunky rubber strapped to your feet. Like a firm sock with protection and grip on the bottom. Very very cool shoes! I have two pairs of Solomon Speedcross 4, I love the grip, cushion, and spring but felt I was always on the verge of rolling my ankle because I can’t connect with the ground. The Sparks make to feel very grounded. The only things I found that take some getting used to are: 1. At first the tongue felt too tight and like it was digging into the front part of my ankle, to solve that issues I switched the laces to the other holes and loosened them. You can still keep the rest of your laces tight even with the loosening of the top hole. 2. Being a lower drop shoes, they don’t automatically encourage forward momentum, you have to work for it more. 3. Occasionally I’ll feel some rocks through the sole, hasn’t made my feet tender so far, but idk how it would be on very rocky terrain, I’m going to take the rock plate from Ultra’s and use that for super rocky training runs. I’ve only used them on softer trails so far. But I believe in these Sparks enough to take ‘em to Utah for the NS Beast. Will ABSOLUTELY BUY THESE AGAIN! These are fantastic shoes! PS. I usually wear 4.5 size kids shoes (Keen, Nike, etc) bought 5.5 Sparks that fit perfectly. Go up in size 👍
I have loved running in the new ultra 2’s. The added rock plate was a wonderful addition. Living in Utah, I run on technical trails. I have so far not hit a distance that doesn’t feel comfortable in these shoes.
Had a little more of a break in period compared to all the VJ's I have worn, but they are feeling great. The more technical the trail, the more these shoes perform! 💚
Loving these new VJ Shoes. I’ve hit a few Spartan races in them and they’re amazing. While others were slip sliding, I was glued to the course.