Saucony put its latest performance running shoe, the Endorphin Pro+, to the test last week at a unique 10K race in Germany.
The event in Essen—held at the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex UNESCO World Heritage Site—saw seven athletes turn in personal bests. Among them was Otto Kingstedt of Sweden, who broke his own 10K world record for deaf or hard-of-hearing athletes by 10 seconds. Overall, Grayson Murphy and Jared Ward finished first among the women and men, respectively.
“I’m still fired up after seeing the athletes push themselves to the limits under the lights last night,” Anne Cavassa, Saucony brand president, said in a statement. “Watching so many athletes walk away with a new 10km record on a challenging course validates the countless hours we’ve spent working to make a shoe that’s lighter and faster than anything we’ve engineered before.”
Last week’s race served as the official launch of what the Wolverine Worldwide brand describes as its “fastest carbon-plated shoe.” The Endorphin Pro+, the latest iteration of the brand’s Endorphin Collection, features a carbon-fiber plate and Saucony’s PWRRUN PB “superfoam.” The $250 shoe hit Saucony’s website Tuesday. It is also available at select running specialty stores globally.
The new sneaker’s combination of carbon-fiber plate and lightweight foam mirrors the basic model Nike pioneered five years ago with its then-controversial Vaporfly shoes and that has since become commonplace in footwear at the competitive running level.
Earlier this month, Adidas hosted a racing event of its own to showcase the company’s latest in performance running. Wearing Adidas’ Adizero Adios Pro 2 and Adizero Takumi Sen 8, athletes competed in a range of events. Two, Agnes Jebet Tirop of Kenya and Senbere Teferi of Ethiopia, broke world records in the women’s-only 10K and women’s-only 5K, respectively.
In July, Saucony released the second iterations of its “most eco-friendly shoe ever.” Like the original Jazz Court RFG it released in March, the black and green colorways were made with zero plastic. Instead, a cotton and jute weave serves as the shoe’s base fabric, renewable lyocell fibers as the laces and stitching threads and wool felt as the odor-resistant and thermo-reactive footbed.