First Impressions
Fresh out of the box, these are a good looking shoe. The unique pod system is striking and you can’t wait to get them on your feet. The shoe stack is 36.5 so in essence, its a recovery shoe and a good long run shoe and it has a 6mm heel to toe drop.
Run number 1 – 16km easy
First time on the feet, and it is comfortable. I love the sock style tongue design, it is more forgiving than the NB Elite 3 shoe and so doesn’t feel tight but fits the foot well. The weight is 283 grams compared to the women’s 238 grams. On the get go, first impressions was the firmness of the ride. Not as soft as other brands but I liked that and gives another option. My personal opinion after the first day was I would perhaps not use this as a recovery shoe, however the stability was noticeable, largely due to the speed board and the pods didn’t attract unwanted stones in the tread like there have in other brands. I was’t disappointed with the, but I knew I needed to test these out at higher speeds.
Run number 2 – 6km Threshold
And so, day number 2 arrives and off we went. 2km easy warm up building into a tempo, progressing into a threshold paced run. The Cloudeclipse came into life! That firm ride from the day before had gone, the Cloudtec Phase cushioning was really giving me a smooth ride. ON describes the cushioning as ‘noise cancelling for your feet’, and I have to say I get that. This is partly due to the fact that the Cloudeclipse has a double layer of Cloudtec Phase cushioning as opposed to a single layer which is used in the Cloudsurfer model. The pod design handles the vertical and horizontal compression to give you a domino like affect as your foot rolls through onto your toes giving you that comfortable foot plant from mid foot to toe. The toe box is roomy and the feet were happy. My pace seemed to be getting increasingly quicker throughout the run, and a couple of times, really had to make a conscious effort to slow down, such was the fact I was enjoying these at higher speeds. The 4.10 pace soon turn into 3.55 and eventually down to 3.42s but I was loving every minute of it. After the 6km, I went into a slower jog before hitting some strides, and the performance changed back to a flatter and firmer ride. However, this soon changed, once I was in stride mode and again was not disappointed but confirmed my opinion that this would be well suited to a tempo-threshold type run or even a long marathon effort type run.
Day 3 – 11km easy
Back to an easy day, similar to day 1, therefore becasue I knew what these were capable of, I sojust enjoyed the run without thinking too much about the performance of the shoe.
Notes
- Day 2 – I used inserts to protect my arch.
- I prefer softer shoes for recovery and so I will use these for tempo / threshold work as part of the rotation.
- These are aggressive. Some people may not be suited to these depending on your gait. The 6mm drop is quite compared the big 10mm hitters but this is why the Cloudeclipse get you up on your toes so these are ideal for midfoot-forefoot strikers.