Recently I’ve really been struggling with running it seems – not the actual act of but all my gear failing/no longer fitting properly. My pack ripped, most of my running bottoms don’t fit, my trail shoes just ripped my feet apart because they don’t fit right, and so on. So I’ve decided as I start my journey of finding new things I will share my reviews.

So to begin – really I should start with the Nathan VaporHowe2.0 4L but I’ll come back to that one.

For now, the Topo MT-3 trail/road combined surface shoe. (note I wear 1 full size larger in most Topo shoes than other brands)

Specs:

  • Best For: Trail Running
  • Stack Height:25mm (heel) // 22mm (forefoot)
  • Heel to Toe Drop:3MM
  • Weight:8 oz (W7)

These have no rock plate and not too aggressive of a tread.

They are SUPER comfy! Definitely going to give them that. Even running fresh out of the box on beat up blistered feet, I was comfy. They are a lot more cushion than I’m used to on trails but not so much so I couldn’t feel the ground.

They use traditional laces. This is good and bad, I found the lace material to slip a little so over the course of my run my shoes got slightly looser. My heels slip around in these despite having used a heel lock lacing pattern – which I think is because the lacing didn’t remain tight.

About halfway through my run I realized my feet were on fire. It looked like the shoes were retaining my sweat but I wasn’t 100% sure. Afterall, my feet had been pretty hot when I put the shoes on in the first place. I decided I would go stand in the river for a moment – this would both cool my feet off and really give me a better sense of their breatheability.

They took a bit to get wet! Ok Yay they seem to be fairly water resitant. But once they were wet – they never really drained, AT ALL. So I wasn’t crazy that I felt like they were retaining my sweat -they were. I do think this actually would be nice in winter conditions where you don’t want snow to get your feet wet or the wind to make them cold – the rest of the year these are going to be pretty toasty shoes.

I also remember when I first put them on that the upper material seemed really loud and crinkly to me. I just thought it was annoying.

Overall, I think these would be great shoes in the winter. They are definitely comfy, but too hot and not breathable enough for the rest of the year.

If you’d like to try them yourself: https://www.topoathletic.com/womens-mt-3?color=95