{"id":1193,"date":"2025-03-21T19:29:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T19:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/?p=1193"},"modified":"2025-03-27T20:37:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T20:37:48","slug":"shoe-review-tracksmith-eliot-racer-280","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/post\/shoe-review-tracksmith-eliot-racer-280\/","title":{"rendered":"Shoe Review: Tracksmith Eliot Racer ($280)"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brian Metzler<\/p>

When Tracksmith burst onto the scene in 2014, it was a newfangled running apparel brand with an intent to push a disruptive, high-quality aesthetic vibe as much as it was about selling T-shirts, shorts, and singlets. It not only succeeded in developing upscale, performance-oriented running clothes with a distinctive look, but it also sparked a running culture revolution rooted in authenticity that would blaze a path for numerous other start-up apparel brands to follow.<\/p>

Almost a decade later, when Tracksmith announced that it was launching its Eliot Runner training shoe in 2023, it again came as a bit of a disruptive shock. Why would a fashion-forward apparel brand suddenly get into footwear? Simply put, it was always a running company, not merely an apparel brand, Matt Taylor, the brand\u2019s co-founder, CEO and primary visionary told me. It made perfect sense from that point of view. That shoe, like its apparel, is the consummate blend of style, quality, running culture, and performance. No surprise that other small apparel brands have followed suit or tried to keep up by leaning on footwear partners for collabs.<\/p>


The just-launched Eliot Racer ($280) is the next step in the evolution for Tracksmith. It\u2019s a premium carbon-plated super shoe that\u2019s been designed and built for runners committed to earnest training. That\u2019s not an elitist shout out only to fast runners, it\u2019s a call to action for any runner who is relentless about pursuing excellence and personally meaningful goals. It\u2019s innovative, stylish and durable, but it\u2019s also comfortable, low to the ground and very energetic.<\/p>

What\u2019s New:<\/strong> This is a brand new shoe that combines a unique visual aesthetic with a novel, performance-enhancing construction. Most notably, it has a drop-in ATPU midsole that eliminates the need for a removable thin sockliner that is typically glued to the interior of the shoe. The soft free-floating midsole sits on top of the curvy carbon plate and the layer of hyper-responsive Pebax foam in the lower chassis, ultimately allowing for more seamless compression of the top layer  that maximizes cushioning and energy return of the bottom layer. It has a lightweight engineered woven mesh upper that helps provide a secure fit and optimizes breathability, and a microsuede heel collar and tongue lining that serves up opulent comfort and stay-in-place security.<\/p>

Fit\/Feel\/Ride: <\/strong>The Tracksmith Eliot Racer fits true to size with a medium-volume interior and enough room in the forefoot for toes to wiggle and splay. The step-in feel is more sparse than it is plush, but the free-form heel and gusseted tongue come together for a reliably secure fit. <\/p>

The ride is semi-soft and smooth, producing a rolling sensation from heel-strike to forefoot with a distinctive snappy sensation just before toe-off. It\u2019s not soft and bouncy out on the run, but instead more semi-firm and very lively. It feels light and airy and the exceptional feel-for-the-ground (especially in the forefoot) serves up a high level of stride-controlling proprioception. The faster I ran, the snappier and more energetic it felt.<\/p>

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Why It\u2019s Great: <\/strong>The unique two-part midsole construction is very responsive. It\u2019s slightly lower to the ground than most maximally cushioned shoes \u2013 and I personally appreciate that because it allows me to be more reactive and in control of my stride \u2013 but it doesn\u2019t have the obvious bounciness of other models in the upper echelon of super shoes. Is it comparable to Nike, Adidas, and ASICS models that have landed on the podium of major marathons? It\u2019s impossible to know, but I\u2019m highly confident that it can be a good speed trainer or race-day shoe for a runner aiming for a 2:30 marathon or someone training for a 3:30 marathon.<\/p>

For what it\u2019s worth, the independent Goleta, California-based Heeluxe shoe lab put the shoe through mechanical testing and found the Pebax midsole to have greater than 70% energy return, while the ATPU platform tested out to greater than 80%. Plus, Tracksmith athletes have run under 2:20 in prototypes of the shoe, and perhaps more relevant to the bigger shoe-buying audience, the 46-year-old Taylor, ran a 2:43:18 at last spring\u2019s Boston Marathon wearing a pair.<\/p>

My take is that it\u2019s a great multi-hyphenate shoe that can certainly be a race-day tool for just about any distance, but it\u2019s actually a more versatile speed trainer. It\u2019s ideal for tempo runs, long intervals, mile repeats, strides, and spontaneous pace-varying fartlek workouts, but I also liked it for progressively paced moderately long and long runs where I started out slow and came back faster. <\/p>

Specs<\/strong><\/p>

Price: <\/strong>$280<\/p>

Weight: <\/strong>6.1 oz. (women\u2019s size 8), 7.7 oz. (men\u2019s size 9)<\/p>

Heel-Toe Offset:<\/strong> 7.5mm; 38mm (heel), 30.5mm (forefoot)<\/p>

Why You\u2019ll Love It:<\/strong> I love it because it\u2019s one of those rare shoes that makes you feel like you\u2019re going to run faster than you expect every time you head out for a run. I found myself drawn to the distinguished look and feel of the shoe (and the lightweight makeup and quality craftsmanship) as I was lacing it up. Can the look of a shoe improve your performance in it? Yes, definitely. It\u2019s not so much that if you look good, you\u2019ll run well. It\u2019s more that if you own the authentic vibe that it oozes, you\u2019ll be reminded of that every time you head out for a hard\/speedy workout in this shoe. Dressing for what you aspire to is the first step in becoming that which you envision. <\/p>

Pro: <\/strong>There\u2019s quite a bit of outsole rubber on the bottom of this shoe, more than most super shoes that are designed with segments of rubber. It doesn\u2019t seem to make this shoe any heavier (the rubber is relatively thin), but I think it adds some stability and it might enhance the long-term durability.<\/p>


Con: <\/strong>The new shoe, like a lot of Tracksmith\u2019s running apparel, ranks at the higher end of the price range for race-day super shoe models, but that\u2019s directly related to the high-quality and high-value products it strives to produce. If you don\u2019t want to spend $280 on a shoe, you can find some good alternatives for $50 cheaper. But if you want a premium, lively shoe with a look and vibe to match, the Eliot Racer is a very worthy investment.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brian Metzler When Tracksmith burst onto the scene in 2014, it was a newfangled running apparel brand with an intent to push a disruptive, high-quality aesthetic vibe as much as it was about selling T-shirts, shorts, and singlets. It not only succeeded in developing upscale, performance-oriented running clothes with a distinctive look, but it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_breakdance_hide_in_design_set":false,"_breakdance_tags":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gear-reviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1193"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1197,"href":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions\/1197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixminutemile.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}