Review on 🏃 Carbon Men's Sportiva Mutant Backcountry Running Shoes for Optimal Performance by Justin Woolley

I've been looking for good but not great OCR shoes since my Inov8 285 blew up this year. If Inov8 continued to make Roclite 285s I would buy a few more. I've tried a few Icebug Zeals. These are fantastic shoes and I would choose them but they are too narrow. Good for short distances but damn if I go over 5 miles. If they were suitable, I would never have found mutants. So glad the Icebugs didn't fit. I bought the Mutants for fun, I had a pair of La Sportiva Wildcats for a couple of years that I used exclusively for hiking. My experience with La Sportiva shoes was great, so I tried Mutants. Mutants are quite light for the shoe size. They don't look like minimalist shoes at all, but they don't weigh much more than minimalists. The lug pattern on the outsole is very aggressive and it feels like the shoe was only meant for off-piste use, but it's surprisingly very comfortable and responds just as responsive on dry, hard-packed trails as it does in mud and mud. The unique tongue and lacing system is unlike anything I've seen or tried before, but it works to really lock your foot into the shoe. Compared to other La Sportiva shoes I own, they are a little narrower but not so tight that they feel uncomfortable over long distances. I wore these shoes on several training runs in preparation for the 2015 Spartan Race Beast in Killington, Vermont. I haven't had any issues with chafing or blistering on any run, even when the shoes were brand new. I've trained in a variety of conditions from dry to deep, hard mud and have never slipped in these boots. At Killington, these shoes have proven to be one of the best OCR running shoes. I was able to get through technical off-road descents MUCH faster than ever before on my Inov8s. I think it had to do with both the upper styling (tongues and lacing) and the aggressive profile. Depending on the ground, the chains could hold onto some mud when traversing long patches of mud, but a quick flick of the ankle removed the mud. On wet leaves, shoes seemed glued to the ground. I haven't slipped in any of the steps I've taken in the mountains. I would recommend these shoes to anyone looking for a great running shoe for OCR or trail running/off-trail.