As made famous by Ryan Hall, the Asics Hyper Speed 5 lives up to its name. While in the market for a very lightweight trainer with some substance to it, I was most impressed by the $65 price tag on these bad boys.

I strapped them on for an 8 mile threshold run. 4 mile warm up followed by 3 miles at 1/2 marathon pace and 1 mile, well, fast as hell.

As a firm believer that “breaking-in” running shoes is a waste of time, these shoes were the exception. The toe box is very narrow and small, which works well for me, but my right big toe was bumping the front of the shoe to the point where I nearly stopped to adjust the laces. By mile 4 they had loosened up and I felt as though I was running barefoot with a few cotton balls glued to the bottom of my feet.

My guess is they wont be much good for more than 150-200 miles, making the price tag relative, but at half the price of a clunky thick soled shoe, it’s worth putting these no-nonsense “minimal” shoes in your rotation assuming you don’t have wide feet.

Looking for something light way that wont blow out your knees? Try these fuckers. The price is right.

I give them a 4.5 out of 5.

Note: These could be worn for a full marathon or a distance race if you are feeling on top of your game and extremely lean, but I wouldn’t recommend them for long training runs. Optimal for a 1/2 marathon race, speed/threshold training, and occasional mid-distance easy training runs. Not recommended as your only running shoe. This is a really kick ass #3 shoe.