At the time of writing this review I am currently awaiting the arrival of my second pair of Hoka One One Rincon’s from America as I could not source a pair from my home country of Australia. Even the pair I am currently wearing are the female version of the shoe(see picture below). Such was my need to own and run in a pair of these shoes.
As a form of full disclosure allow me to share my journey of discovery to the Rincon. Advance warning it is a fickle story but it accurately answers the question as to why I pick the Rincon as being a shoe that I choose to tie onto my foot for every one of my running sessions. From the interval session to the infamous weekend ‘long slow run’ it is always the Rincon that I reach for over my Clifton 6 or the Salming Greyhound or any other of the briefly loved running shoes that are strewn in the bottom of my closet. The Rincon to me are the equivalent of what Woody means to Andy in the movie Toy Story. Others will come along and distract my attention for a brief second in the hope that there is something faster, more comfortable with greater powers of energy regeneration and performance but all so far have failed to break the bond between me and the Rincon.
I purchased my first pair of Rincon’s on the 21st December 2019 as I was struggling with my Hoka One One Clifton 6’s. The Clifton 6 was my sixth pair of Clifton’s and I must admit it was love at first wear but each successive version of the Clifton left me disappointed. Akin to that feeling of being letdown after each successive Ironman after the first earth shattering time I crossed the line. I did five more ironman races after the first and none of them came close to recreating that amazing feeling of crossing the line for the first time.
The same inability to recapture the joy and sheer bliss of the original Clifton was something that stuck with me through the next five years of Clifton model. Each Clifton seemed to give me more of what I didn’t ask for or felt that I needed. Finally the sixth was the final straw. I needed something with less in the hope that it gave me more.
So as I walked into the local Sport Shoe Store (I like to support locals as my first port of call as it improves our community, online is my last resort) and told Stephen that I needed a change. The Clifton wasn’t doing it for me anymore! He put me in a few pairs of Adidas and Nikes and Saucony but none of them screamed out to me. I slowly started drifting back to the Hoka display and he said have you tried these as he picked up a Rincon and put it in my hand. It was like I was shaking hands with an old friend. It was light, soft to the touch and pleasantly ugly on the eye. I have never liked the look of the Hoka shoes. They are painfully ugly and I have always described them as being akin to the platform shoes worn by the spice girls. But I loved to hate their look as I knew their ugliness hid an amazing gift of speed, lightness and comfort. Something no other shoe was able to do.
Stephen didn’t have my size as he said they were selling out fast and only had a pair of the female versions that he would love for me to have a run in to see if I liked them. I pondered for a moment and decided I could live with the bright teal as I did most of my running where no one else ran, so I wouldn’t suffer the finger pointing shoe shaming that running in popular places would accord me. So off I went in my trial run around the back car park. They were light, springy, comfortable and satisfyingly un-engineered where it counted. They were like the original Clifton’s from my distant memories. For me, in the Rincon, I had found my perfect running shoe.
700 km later and time has not been kind to my long suffering and loyal Rincon’s. As can be seen from the attached photos the midsole has suffered the constant abuse of approximately 20,000 strides. It appears from the photos that I am a mid foot striker and the strike zone is directly where the vulcanized rubber/foam is not. But even if the rubber was further back it is the compression of the once springy foam that is the biggest sign of a shoe that is giving its last gasp for his/her inconsiderate owner. So to lengthen my relationship with my shoes I recently switched to running on forest trails to give a little extra cushioning and avoid my misplaced love causing unwanted injuries.
Update 21st May, 2020
So now, exactly 5 months to the day after I did my first run in my teal rincon’s, I strapped on my black and white, more ‘manly’ Rincon’s direct from the USA and went for a tentative and nervous run to give me some subjective data to finish this review. Even though there were exactly the same model of shoe I was extremely nervous to run in them as I continued to dwell on the diminishing return I had from my 6 year Clifton experience.
In retrospect an interval session with 6x3 minute efforts wasn’t the best first run to bed in my new shoes. But, ‘interval I did and partially pleased I was’, to quote Yoda. It was unfair of me to expect a completely smooth transition from old Rincon to new. I would equate the change as the difference from sitting in a feather stuffed handmade leather lounge to a new memory foam leather lounge. The initial comfort of sitting in the old is replaced with annoyance as you sink without support into a position that gives increasing discomfort. The new gives an initial judder as you expect a more delicate easing into position. But the longer you sit the more comfort you experience. This was the case with my new Rincon’s. The initial few kilometres were shuddering and vibrated through my bones. But as my body got used to the new firmer form of comfort, the interval times started to decrease going from 4:30 pace to 4:20 then sitting around the 4:15 and 4:10 pace. Certainly not scintillatingly fast but good for me and made me pleasantly surprised when I looked at the data after the run.
Are they amazing and do they match my high expectations that I had prior to lacing on my new Rincon’s for the first time. No! Were my expectations too high and slightly skewed just like the memories of the old man reminiscing about the good old days from the sun deck of his retirement village. Of course! Would I buy these shoes again. Absolutely!
With a few longer runs over the weekend I will have more time to bed them in and continue my journey onto the next stage of my review which is comparing my old teal Rincon’s with the new black and white rincon after a few hundred kilometers fully bedded in against the Rincon 2’s which are due to hit the shelves of my local Shoe Store in mid June.
WoMEN'S Rincon
Weight: 179g (US 7)
Drop: 5 mm
Colour: Multiple colour ways available
Stack: 26 mm center of heel + 21 mm ball of foot
MEN'S Rincon
Weight: 218g (US 9)
Drop: 5 mm
Colour: Multiple colour ways available
Stack: 29 mm center of heel + 24 mm ball of foot
• Single layer mesh upper offers breathability without added weight
• Accentuated heel pull tab for easy entry
• Slim tongue package reduces additional weight
• Full compression EVA midsole provides signature HOKA ONE ONE® cushioning
• Revised early stage Meta-Rocker allows for even quicker acceleration
• Full-ground contact design
• Strategic hi-abrasion rubber zones to reduce weight