BROOKS® Adrenaline™ GTS 9
When you get to a certain age injuries tend to stick around. Take my dodgy achilles. It doesn’t like too much running on the rough stuff these days and after 7-8 miles on a hill or trail I can pretty much guarantee that there will follow a couple of days of niggling pain…
Which tends to = no running. So, I do a fair bit of my training these days on the flat, more to the point on the road – it’s all about damage limitation.
I’m therefore always pretty careful to select the right shoe for training in, support and overall comfort being the number one concern, styling being secondary. Imagine my horror when after three months of trying out the 9th incarnation of the Brooks Adrenaline GTS shoe, I find all three factors in this equation in abundance!
Straight our of the box
Aesthetically the GTS (Go To Shoe, geddit?) looks pretty much like any of the major shoe brands in this arena. I mean that isn’t to put down the Brooks styling crew, no, no, it is merely saying that great advancements in shoe technology over this last decade are not generally to be found in the way shoes look, it’s much more about what’s under the bonnet.
As soon as I strapped these babies on I knew I was in Brooks country. Not a tickle, not a rub, as you’d expect for around 75 quid (if you look hard enough), right? Yes, granted, however I have to say at this juncture that my previous support shoes (May – Dec 2008) were a pair of Nike Air Triax Structures. Good shoes, don’t get me wrong, but just took a little getting used to, once there however, a super shoe.
Don’t worry!
If you are a highish mileage runner, needing support and you are only a few days away from a race, and your luggage has been lost in said airport, you can safely rock up to your local retailer and buy a pair of the GTS without having to cross your fingers, believe me. They will fit, they will be comfortable, they won’t need ‘running in’. Need I go on?
Well yes, cos you’re expecting the science now right?
Gone on mo go
These days I have found that if I go into the detail regarding shoe manufacturing I lose myself, never mind the reader. Added to this every major brand has a great website these days, so I don’t need to go there right? Right, but. I want to highlight one aspect of Brooks that, for me, sets them apart from the others.
Okay, apart from the independent nature of the Brooks ‘family’, for many years they have seemed to really care about what industrial manufacturing can do to our world. They are in a bit of a dichotomy, as making products with pvc, eva, rubbers etc. means that generally chemicals are a necessity. But no, Brooks started this ‘green’ push way back, and over the years they have won many awards, and the plaudits of many green activists.
Brooks decided that they needed to try and offset this still further – enter BioMoGo.
What is BioMoGo?
Brooks’ BioMoGo is the world’s first fully biodegradable midsole foam for footwear. Once a pair of Brooks shoes with BioMoGo has reached an enclosed landfill, it will begin to biodegrade. In roughly 20 years the midsoles will be completely converted by common soil microbes into useful humus and nutrients. That’s about 50 times faster than a standard midsole degradation. (Traditional Ethylene Vinyl Acetate™ [EVA] midsoles can last up to 1,000 years in a landfill.)
…and the big thing for me? It’s “open source” technology! So, no litigation, no law suits, no big legal bill because company X has infringed or stolen an idea, no, Brooks are happy to share this technology. Imagine that, a company in the 21st century that wants to share its secrets!
Check out the excellent Green Room for more info
Back to the programme
So, are these any good Matt? 3 months, 300 miles in and I have hardly scratched the surface. I was going to take a photo of these trainers just to show how little the late winter / early spring weather had impacted on the shoes, but thought that you wouldn’t believe that I had worn the damn things. Apart from the road grime the sole wear is minimal, they feel as crisp as the day they came out of the box, they smell good and most importantly they are super, super comfy.
I won’t try and baffle you on this one. I won’t try and excel with my use of dynamic writing skills(!), I won’t even allude to the fact that these shoes are possibly the best running shoe that I have run in. (Surely an opportunity for all of you Brooks rivals to get your best support shoes into MST!!) But they are.
The Brooks Adrenaline GTS 9 is a superb running shoe. Light enough on the run, so that you don’t feel like you are running in support ‘barges’, pretty light on the wallet too, for a high-end support shoe, accurate when being planted on the road and most importantly, glove-like.
I won’t implore you to go and buy these shoes, but I will say that if you are looking for a support shoe you cannot afford to not at least try these shoes. That will result in only one thing from there on, plus your ‘green conscience’ will be even clearer.
Happy running!
SRP: £85
