What the Hoka are you wearing?

The Hoka is the current running shoe of choice for the OH.  Not to be confused with Haka, the scary All Black dance.  Although these shoes are scary, mainly for their god awful design and lack of fashion sense. Of course I use the term fashion extremely loosely when it comes to running clobber. Sometimes I forget what is normal clothing after standing at the finish of so many trail races.  Tight shorts, leaving little to the imagination, and worryingly even tighter tops.  I blame Kilian.  Ever since wearing those ridiculous white shorts and more ridiculous 3/4 length sleeve skin tight white top everyone seems to be following suit.  OH even has said 3/4 sleeve top, in gray thankfully.  Although not much improvement.

The Salomon worship can be witnessed at many a race.  The brand seems to be the Marc Jacobs of the running world.  Others try to win the crown of cool, but the likes of North Face, Merrel, Inov-8 and 2XU don't even come close to the idolatry of Salomon.

Which is why the purchase of the moon boots, I mean Hoka's was quite a surprise.  Apparently lots of ultra runners are wearing them - or so our local helpful running shop tells us.  The shop even admitted, that yes, they do look a 'bit gay', but they are flying off the shelf. Apparently it's like running on air, and they offer so much cushioning that you can even run with them when you're recovering from injury.  This is what pricked up the ears of OH who is recovering from a stress fracture. Even he felt silly wearing them at first, but off he went alone on the trails to 'dirty them up' before putting them on public view. The dirt does not hide the fact that they look like some 1990's throwback platform trainers, but you can't win them all I guess.

So he is currently cheating on his idol with the Hoka. There must have been some guilt there, as a new pair of the red Salomon shoes also made their way to the till;, for when "the shin is better".

But back to the Hoka's.  Essentially I understand the design - deep sole to cushion the legs during race descents.  Supposedly designed by runners, for runners, yadda yadda yadda.  But who came up with the colours? Or are they just having a laugh with you all.  Perhaps 2 mates were sitting around and thought lets create a shoe for some of the toughest ultra and trail runners out there, oh and just to keep things entertaining, lets make them as goofy looking as possible.  After all, we don't want these guys looking too macho. I bet every time they see someone running in them, they snigger under their breath.

Salomon must be scratching their heads wondering what the heck is going on.