Price: $135
Weight: 6.6 oz (M), 5.3 oz (W)
Type: Road
The right shoe for: As the graphics suggest, this shoe is built for going fast.
At the Running Event in Austin, Texas, in late November 2018, talk of the trade show was about Skechers and its new foam. Seriously. Everybody was asking what the brand was up to. This shoe is the first example of the new buzz-worthy midsole Skechers developed, dubbed Hyper Burst, which it’s rolling out to select shoes in its performance running line (the GOrun 7 Hyper will get it in Spring 2019).
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What’s Hyper Burst? It’s a different way of creating an EVA midsole, making the foam lighter and more resilient. EVA, as a refresher, is the typical white foam that’s been used for decades. It has tiny gas-filled cells throughout the midsole, which give it the ability to cushion your foot strike.
Hyper Burst, on the other hand, starts with a solid block plastic that’s exposed to a supercritical fluid—basically, CO2 gas is heated under pressure until it returns to a liquid state. There’s a lot of science behind how it happens, but the CO2 penetrates the block of EVA and yields far different shapes to the internal cells. This irregular composition of the midsole makes it lighter, but it’s still responsive and surprisingly well-cushioned.
Let’s pause a second to clear up the lineage a bit, because the large SPEED branding down the side can cause confusion: Skechers has had a GOmeb Speed in its line. If you’ll recall, it was the marathon racing shoe for Meb Keflezighi—and a lightweight slipper that us recreational runners might employ for going fast at shorter distances. The Razor, on the other hand, was Meb’s training shoe of choice, a model with a little more meat underfoot but which still felt light and quick. This shoe is more like the latter, if lighter, though it can certainly be used for racing.
In testing, we found the Razor 3 has a decidedly racy feel. It likes to be pushed hard, to go fast. The foam underfoot is relatively firm, but at the same time feels like it takes the hard edge off the pavement when you’re really cranking. It helps that the rest of the shoe has a lightweight construction—the upper is thin and breathable, while a web of rubber underfoot gives you just enough contact with the ground for decent traction in good conditions.
Advancing the Foam Wars
Since it has a racing pedigree, don’t expect something cushy soft. This isn’t that. It’s surprisingly firm feeling underfoot, but does a good job of protecting you from the road. That’s because the sole has a thinner than average midsole, but not as minimal as you’d expect for a shoe of this weight (6.6 ounces for a men’s size 9 is squarely in racing flat territory). In tests at the RW Shoe Lab, we found the Hyper Burst foam punched above its class, however, delivering average heel cushioning scores compared with the entire spectrum of running shoes. The forefoot is softer than average. In fact, both the heel and forefoot registered softer than previous versions of the shoe in our tests, despite being thinner.
A Splashy Upper
This shoe isn’t for the timid. It’s been called ugly by some, bold by others. But all loved the thin build with minimal reinforcements. The two-layer mesh appears to be solid, but a closer inspection will reveal that the interior layer is well ventilated, to keep you cool when you’re running hard. And the midfoot overlays provide a good lock on your foot when rounding corners at full tilt, plus help keep the fit of the upper snug against your foot.
How It Runs
Longtime readers will know that I’m a big fan of the New Balance RC 1400 and more recently the Reebok Floatride Run Fast. Both shoes are exceptionally lightweight but deliver good cushioning underfoot. The Razor is a lot like those shoes, identical in weight, though it’s heel-to-toe offset is slightly lower. That means the heel won’t feel quite as soft as those other two, but it still has the versatility for uptempo workouts—both on the track or pavement—and can be used for races from 5K on up to the marathon. For me, it’s excelled at both hard hill runs, where it was lively on the climb but not punishing when we cruised back down, as well as on a 10-miler at marathon pace.
All the Stats You Need!
Men’s
- Weight: Very Light | 6.6 oz
- Heel-To-Toe-Drop: Very Low | 6.5 mm
- Heel Height: Very Low | 27.4 mm
- Heel Cushioning: Moderate
- Forefoot Height: Low | 21.0 mm
- Forefoot Cushioning: Very Soft
- Flexibility: Moderate
- Stability Features: Few
- Energy Return: Moderate
Women’s
- Weight: Very Light | 5.3 oz
- Heel-To-Toe-Drop: Low | 6.3 mm
- Heel Height: Very Low | 25.5 mm
- Heel Cushioning: Firm
- Forefoot Height: Low | 19.1 mm
- Forefoot Cushioning: Soft
- Flexibility: Stiff
- Stability Features: Few
- Energy Return: Moderate
We put each shoe through real-world usage and a battery of mechanical tests in our lab to provide you with objective—and exclusive—data. In addition to measuring a shoe’s weight, we measure sole thickness (everything that sits between your foot and the road), how well the foam cushions your stride, and the flexibility of the forefoot. All this is taken into account in our reviews of each shoe.
Jeff is Runner-in-Chief for Runner's World, guiding the brand's shoes and gear coverage. A true shoe dog, he's spent more than a decade testing and reviewing shoes. In 2017, he ran in 285 different pairs of shoes, including a streak of 257 days wearing a different model.
