SAM: At a certain point in writing shoe reviews, I feel we, as reviewers, tend to run out of ways to describe soft midsoles. To be totally honest, we run out of ways to describe most things. Each review is partially a lettered minefield wherein the mines are overused phrases that we’ve employed more recently (comparatively) than other similarly overused phrases.
This isn’t to say we run out of things to say about shoes. I weirdly never get tired of opining over something like a new Vibram outsole configuration (as you’ll see below). It’s just that some parts of a shoe — notably soft and squishy midsoles — have only so many words you can use in English to describe them.
There’s “soft,” of course, and it’s approachable but awkward friend, “squishy,” as mentioned above. Then there’s “cushion,” which we’ve taken to shortening to “cush.” You’ll see that one a lot in this review. Then we have to start getting creative. We’ll talk about the midsole being a “slab,” or a “hunk,” or a “chunk,” or a “stack,” and add modifiers before like “thick,” or “fat,” or “deep.” And it’s about then I run out of descriptors. Also, they start to get pretty suggestive after a while.
This all matters because when we talk about the Topo Athletic Vista, we’ll spend most of our time trying to emphasize the centrality of the thick, soft hunk (check, check, check) of Topo’s proprietary Zipfoam that makes up most of this shoe. I’ll probably have to repeat some words. It’s a lot of foam. It’s also very nice to run in.
