The Hoka Tecton X is an exciting new shoe that contains two carbon-fiber plates. We wanted to see the construction of the plates because World Athletics regulations require that any parts of a “rigid structure” must be in one plane—they can’t be stacked. In addition to cutting the shoe open, our wear-test team is putting in mileage to see how it performs on the trail. Two of our testers took the Tecton X straight out of the box and ran 50Ks. We’ve found that the shoe excels in most conditions, especially on well-groomed trails, but testers wished the traction had a bit more bite on wet rocks.
“This was a lighter weight shoe, yet it felt pretty durable and stable,” one tester told us. “Although it’s a trail shoe, it feels good on many surfaces (road, grass, trail).”
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Jeff is Runner-in-Chief for Runner’s World and the director of product testing. He has tested and reviewed running shoes, GPS watches, headphones, apparel, and more for nearly two decades. He regularly tests more than 100 pairs of shoes each year, and once had a 257-day streak running in different models. Jeff can usually be found on the roads, racing anything from the mile to a marathon, but he also enjoys racing up mountains and on snowshoes. When he’s not running, you’ll probably find him hanging from a ladder making repairs and renovations to his house (he’s also director of product testing for Popular Mechanics).
