 Butter it, butter it, oh, so good, oh, so good, oh. There it is, there it is, oh, delicious. Butter my bread, butter my bread. Now I didn't do any filming at dinner, just enjoyed the deliciousness and it was tasty, along with my run today. Today's run was very, very tasty, exciting for Amsterdam coming up. And yes, this is my first impression of the Hoka Carbon X. Thank you for your patience, everyone. I fully realize I am way late to the game when it comes to getting you my thoughts on this shoe. I believe it was released in June of 2019. So what are we, three months late now? And I had a busy, as I know many of you did as well, a busy trail running season. And that's what summertime is all about. So frankly, I just was not spending a ton of time on the roads. In fact, today I'll tell you what I did for the run here in a second. So I wanted to mention that, and then also, oh, it was a busy day. So usually when I do my first impression of vlogs or full reviews, I like to get a lot of cinematic, beautiful B-roll that did not happen today. Because first of all, I was busy. And second of all, I am training at faster paces now, which means I cannot carry the GoPro with me. I can't stop and like set up a camera. I just gotta keep putting in the miles in order to get ready for this marathon in 40 days. Is that right? 40 days, 40 days. That's all right. I just counted four zero days to go until Amsterdam. So it's time to start running faster, which is why throughout the next eight to 10 minutes, you're not gonna see a bunch of cinematic shots. But for the full review, I will get you the cinematic shots of the Hoka Carbon Xs. Okay, today's run, let me just pull it up here real quick. 22 miles, 22 miles at 630 a mile or 35 kilometers at four minutes per kilometer. So I'm very pleased with that run today. I knew like, and I know some of you have been concerned about me transitioning from the mountains to the marathon. And I'm not done running in the mountains. In fact, I'll be back up there on Friday. But I fully believe in that aerobic base, building that aerobic foundation before adding speed. And sure enough, with 40 days to go until Amsterdam, I feel like, I think it was knows my massage therapist today. She asked me, do I feel confident in where I'm at with my training? And I said a hundred percent. I'm not ready for five, 20 a mile yet for 26 miles. But as far as like, I would much rather be a little behind on speed and way ahead in aerobic fitness, in stamina, in endurance, because like today around mile 20, 21, I was like, okay, I'm starting to feel it in my legs a little bit. And that is where I believe the longer runs the more endurance is gonna pay off at the marathon distance. And I wanna just bring you as much value as possible every single vlog. This shoe is still in the running for me for my racing shoe at the Amsterdam Marathon. Now, probably the other one leading the pack is the Nike Next% or frankly, the Nike Vaporfly 4% flying it. But I'm not counting this guy out. Now it was just my first run, so I need to spend more time in it. But I'm telling you, it was a fun ride today. Very fun ride. Okay, first impressions. Here we go. First half mile, felt a little stiff and frankly, a little bit of a firm landing in the forefoot. And after running in three or four carbon fiber plate running shoes, and just so everyone knows, there is a carbon fiber plate inside of here. After running in three or four pairs, this one felt probably the stiffest, the most, I don't wanna say rigid, that's a little too harsh of a word, but it just felt a little stiff. But after a half mile, mile into my run today, I totally forgot about it and I just started clipping off the miles. Like if you see my splits on Strava, it was very consistent, just hitting them like it was no tomorrow. So that was my first impression. It's a neutral road racing shoe for sure. How Hoka qualifies it is a competition shoe. But I just, a couple of people were confused as to why I took this shoe. So today's run was 75% dirt, 25% pavement slash concrete. The reason I do that, and you can tell by the bottom, I definitely took it out on dirt today. I'm striving to stay healthy. Gotta hit those soft surfaces for the long runs in my opinion to stay healthy. At least that's what I need to do. So today was 75% dirt, 25% pavement in case anyone was a little confused on Strava. As far as that stack height goes, we're looking at a 32 millimeter in the heel, 27 in the forefoot for a five millimeter drop, basically right where I like it. For the weight, in men's size nine, we're looking at 8.7 ounces or 246 grams for the weight. And in my size, you see it on the screen there, 7.9 ounces or 224 grams. So a quick comment on the weight, they didn't feel heavy, but I'm just gonna say that's a little heavy for a marathon racing shoe. There are definitely lighter options out there on the marketplace. Just wanna make that point clear right now, but they weren't feeling heavy today for me. And for the upper, we're looking at a single layered engineered mesh from Hoka here. I felt locked down. I'm sensing as with other Hokas as well, a little bit of scrunching of that single layer mesh through the toe box. At the end of the day, I didn't notice it or feel any abrasion. But anyway, just keep that in mind. And then my favorite part of the upper, no doubt is this gusseted, hopefully you can see that. Basically it's called a gusseted tongue where the tongue of the shoe is connected to the rest of the upper with this piece of polyester material that just helps lock the tongue on the top of your foot so it doesn't slide around at all. So that was a bonus. Now, okay, quick, quick little drawback. We drew blood today. We drew blood in the 22 miles. Both of my heels, my Achilles tendon, I should say have a little blister on the back. And you can see the blood there on the back of this on the right side. Nothing like, I'll just put band-aids on. I'm not worried about it. It happens every now and then to me in different shoes. So anyway, but I did get a little bit of blood drawn. And I did go, I'll just mention it now. I went true to size. And I think I'm glad I did, it feels great. So why that happened, I'm not exactly sure. It honestly could be because of my racing this past weekend in the Solomon shoes that maybe I just had a little blister back there that I didn't notice because of the race this past weekend. So anyway, just quick point there on the Achilles tendon and for the midsole on the Hoka Carbon X. So as I already mentioned, it has that carbon fiber plate through there tucked inside this bed of midsole. Look how much stachite is in there. I can see why Hoka selected Jim Walmsley to wear this shoe to set the 50 mile world record. I could see the shoe being very comfortable for a 50 mile or 30 miles on the roads. If for some reason you were training that way, I'm not exactly sure why you'd run that far on the roads, but or I guess what is the, oh my gosh, the race down in South Africa, comrades. This would be a great shoe for comrades. I do have a feeling. So okay, so for the midsole, I'll come back to that. And that Carbon X outsole is very smooth. Also it has a window into the carbon fiber plate. I kind of like that. It probably reduces a little bit of weight in the shoe, but also it's just nice mentally to be able to see that carbon fiber plate to know, okay, it's in there. And of course, what else? Oh yeah, it's a wide platform. So a very stable ride. I didn't feel, you know, cause if you're that high off the ground and today like, listen, I'm five, six basically, a little under five, six. I felt like I was five eight today in these shoes. So, but I didn't feel unstable at all in the Carbon Xs. Moving on to comfort, comfortable ride, but okay, the upper is comfortable, but as far as like I said, it felt a little stiff. And maybe after the second or third run, it'll loosen up a little bit through that midsole or maybe the carbon fiber plate will bend, you know, become a little more malleable. I don't know. It just did feel a little stiff. I'm just putting it out there. And, but here's the deal. For a racing shoe, I'm honestly not looking for comfort. I'm looking for performance and speed. That's why I wore the Solomon S-Lab Cent 7SGs out in Utah this past week. And like there are light, fast, nimble mountain shoe. So that's what I'm looking for in a racing shoe as well. I'm really not looking for comfort. Unless I'm like maybe getting ready for a hundred mile race or a hundred K, that's when maybe comfort would play in a little bit. But for my positive and drawback of the Carbon X, my positive is that at 630 a mile, my effort did not feel like 630 a mile. I was just cruising along. So I don't know if that carbon fiber plate was helping me a little bit or maybe the stack height, but it was, it was great. I just was going, just going. So that's my positive. It was, it was a little effortless out there at 630 a mile. So that's a good sign. Now my drawback, I don't think I would use the carbon fiber plate in regular training. Now I'll probably take it out a couple more times before Amsterdam, but I wouldn't run the carbon fiber plate more than twice a month. I don't know, it just, I think it does mess with my gait cycle a little bit. I'm noticing, I did notice it today, like it feels a little different than my normal stride. So I personally, I'm going to save the carbon fiber plate shoes for race day. And for that score of the Carbon X, I'll get that to you after 50 miles, along with telling you, is the shoe worth it at a hundred and eighty dollars? Okay, I'll get you that as well for the full review. And the keyword is going to be carbon. Question of the day is going to be, since I'm so late to the ball game with this shoe, who has this shoe, who has raced in the shoe, who is training in the shoe, let us know how it's treating you. Because guess what, Berlin, Amsterdam, New York City, what am I missing? There's the big one, New York City, Berlin, Chicago. It's just like marathon racing season is right on the doorstep. So it is time to make some seriously quick decisions if you haven't already for your marathon racing shoes. All right, thank you for being here, everyone. I know today's vlog was a little more simple on the filming side. We will kick those engines back into gear tomorrow. Ah, what a day, what a day. All right, everybody on the right is going to be my full review of the Hoka Carbon Rocket, another carbon fiber plate running shoe from Hoka. And on the left, we're going to go with my first impressions of the Nike Next Percent, another shoe that is in the running for my racer over in Amsterdam. All right, love you guys. See beauty, work hard, and love each other. See you tomorrow.