Tevasphere – More Than Just Another Running Shoe

As most of you will have guessed by now, I’m a little prone to overdoing it. True to form, when I was invited to a running event to roadtest a brand new trainer, I accepted without a second thought. No matter that I’d been released from physio a mere two days before the event. No matter that the running in question was a muddy, hilly course around Hampstead Heath when I hadn’t run a step in the three months since my ankle injury. No matter that all of the journos at the event were superfit runners, including personal trainers and multiple marathon runners. If someone sets me a challenge, I’ll take it.

The reason I was so keen to try this shoe and risk my newly-healed ankle was the shoe being showcased  – the Tevasphere Speed – was, unlike many running shoes on the market, the result of serious, scientific research rather than just advertising puff. It was four years in the making, involving the most R&D of any piece of equipment that Teva had ever made. It went through 22 prototypes and was tested on men and women, not just in a lab or on a treadmill, but running on real ground, including hills.

Teva claim that it’s the most stable shoe they’ve ever tested. Designed to be a hybrid between a stable shoe and a minimal shoe, it has a lowered, spherical heel, together with pods on either side.

What most interested me was the claim that it decreases braking force when running downhill and when tired. For someone like me, whose running involves a lot of hills and a huge loss of speed and efficiency on the downhills, this was right up my street.

The Teva claims were, I have to say, greeted with a fair amount of scepticism from the assembled journos, most of whom considered themselves (with some justification) experts on running technique, but all of the information was backed up with facts, figures, graphs and spreadsheets and to a relatively novice runner it was convincing enough for me to head out on to the Heath.

And the verdict? I have to say it felt pretty good. It was a bit of a shock to the system to be sliding around in the London mud but it felt comfortable and secure, and it wasn’t long before I felt really confident on the rough ground – enough to stop giving my ankle any thought. I can’t say for sure whether that’s because it was – as Teva claimed – stable enough to keep a pony in, but it was a good start.

I’d quite like to give the trail version (which is more of a high top) a go on the rough trails around here, but even the Speed version proved more than a match for one of the more rural London parks.

What else do you need to know? Oh yes, that it launches today, so you can be really cutting edge if you get yourself a pair. It’s available from Cotswold Outdoor – here’s the range – and prices range from £90 to £120.