About Me: Hobby jogger that puts up ~40-50 miles (64-80 km) a week. Not a bigger runner – 5’9″, 158lbs (175 cm, 72kg) and have been a minimalist/barefoot runner for the past decade, until early 2024.
The Fit: I have quite narrow and high-arched feet; I typically run in Women’s shoes because of this. However, these fit pretty decent in the US 8.5 Men’s that I purchased. My right foot has less volume in the mid-foot area than my left and I did struggle to get proper lockdown at times; this was simply solved by tightening the laces on my right foot beyond what I usually would.
How I Used These Shoes: I purchased these to use as a daily trainer that would allow me to transition back into ‘traditional’ running shoes. Prior to running in these (in 2024) I attempted to transition back into ‘traditional’ shoes with Altra shoes, which gave me a pretty extreme peroneal tendonitis flare up.
The Ride: These shoes produce a very prescriptive ride. By that I mean that there is little to no ground feel and it’s more like you are running on top of a slab of firm midsole that tends to not soften up at all; even after many 2+ hour long runs. I found the foam to be so firm that the shoe doesn’t really ever feel like a cohesive extension of your foot and biomechanics; it never just ‘melts away’ and lets you forget that you’re wearing a shoe so that you can just run. That having been said, the light weight and aggressive rocker profile of the Rincon make turnover feel effortless during the stride; it was the best part of the ride.
The Issue: The biggest issues with the Rincon 3 that I had were durability and outsole grip. As I noted earlier, the midsole is quite firm and does not soften up with further use. At 100 miles the shoe feels like an absolute brick to use for running (or walking). Additionally, the durability of the outsole and wet-weather grip are atrocious. I live somewhere that is rainy/cloudy for 8+ months of the ear and the shoe was borderline unusable in wet conditions; it felt as if I was running on an ice rink in mild rain. Even on completely sunny days, if a small trace of water was left from someone’s sprinkler system the shoe would slip during toe-off on asphalt or sidewalk. The lugs on the outsole wore completely down in some areas at 100.1 miles (according to Strava).
Overall, this is an okay shoe – but the ride is boring and uninspired; I struggled to get the shoe to 100 miles because of this. The durability of the midsole and outsole were a major downfall of the shoe.
