RYAN: I’m not gonna lie — Sam nailed his intro. He expressed just the right amount of skepticism as to what Skechers has to offer for runners. At one point, I would have said that Skechers was a brand on the up and up. I reviewed the MaxRoad, the Ride, and a couple of versions of the Razor, and I always felt like they were steps in the right direction. Heck, Skechers beat most brands to the punch with forefoot plates and supercritical foams, how could it be stumbling?
Then, Skechers kind of disappeared for a year or two. It rocked up to The Running Event with a collection of pickleball shoes and apparel and thought it would make the same splash. To me, this felt like a dire sign. If Skechers couldn’t show up to a bunch of runners with a running shoe, how would it continue?
Well, the answer was to wait one more year to launch a revamped SKX Performance lineup. After basically radio silence through all of 2024, we got as much Skechers love as our feet could handle with the Aero Burst and Aero Spark landing at the same time, offering lower-cost takes on two of the hottest contested categories of running shoes: Daily trainers and max cushion beasts. Yes, technically, there’s also the Aero Tempo, but that’s a topic for another day.
