 Marathon or half marathon? Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sick. We're into the studio talking about the A6 MetaRacers first impressions. Not my full review. That'll happen after 50 miles. Oh, it was cold out today. I'll come back to that in a minute. But first, before we dive in, a tweet came through last night that connects to the whole discussion about carbon fiber plate racing shoes in 2020 and now in 2021. All right. You know that advantage Nike had for these Olympics talking about Tokyo. Perhaps the postponement will allow its rivals to catch up. Thoughts? I'll come back to that question in a minute. I love that tweet. Thanks for sending that over. Today's run 13.1 miles, half marathon, 21k at 6 minutes a mile or 345 per kilometer. So these are racing shoes. So I wanted to take them up to faster speeds today, managed to do that despite it being absolutely frigid out there. So it's a neutral road racing shoe. Very much a road racing shoe. I'll come back to the outsole in a minute. They're going to be released in Japan. As many of you know, A6 is a company out of Japan and they're going to be released in April, I think mid to late April in Japan. And then not until late June in the elsewhere. So in the United States or wherever you're at, watching around the world just so you know as far as the release date. And I should mention that these shoes have kind of flown under the radar with respect to carbon fiber plate shoes out there. Like there hasn't been a ton of buzz about the meta racers from A6. But you may have remembered Sarah Hall. She runs for A6. She's married to Ryan Hall. He used to run for A6 back in the day and she ran a 222. All right. That's moving in Berlin last fall in 2019. So they've been flying under the radar a little bit, but finally we're getting our hands on the A6 meta racer. Now, very interesting. It is a marathon racing shoe. Here we go. 24 millimeter stack height in the heel, 15 in the four foot. So definitely in the low category for the stack height for that nine millimeter drop for the weight. We're looking at seven ounces or 186 grams. Sorry 198 grams for men size nine and for women size eight. We're looking at 5.9 ounces or 168 grams. And there it is on your screen in my size. All right. So a lightweight shoe, but definitely not the lightest carbon fiber plate shoe on the marketplace at this time. And moving on to the upper in the meta racer. It's an engineered mesh. Okay. A little bit of that. You know, that's how I'm going to pronounce it. It's your card design as far as the mesh, how they're sewing it together. It's one piece of mesh just so you know. And yes, in the toe cap, you can charge up the meta racer with your iPhone charger. If you would like just like that. And you can boost up the energy boost that you get. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But literally they put in a hole right at the toe cap there to help with breathability in this shoe. It's insane everybody that there's a hole. It's so funny. It's literally the perfect, the exact right size for your iPhone cable. But no, on a serious note, my toes were absolutely freezing today. So that tells me that in hot weather racing, which hopefully this summer at some point, we're all going to be racing in hot weather. I cannot wait that this shoe would be great for racing in hotter temperatures because the breathability really was on point today. And for the rest of the upper, not much else to talk about. Okay. You know, your heel counter pretty standard heel counter. It's got some flexibility to it. A little bit of cushion through that heel counter, but not too, too much. And the tongue is a very, very thin tongue. And as far as lacing, you know, nothing, no, no major positive, no major drawback on my first run as far as the tongue goes for that midsole. We've got the flight foam midsole. All right. The white there on the shoe. That's a flight foam midsole. And then also it's got the guide sole technology that you will also, if you love the glide ride, that also has that guide sole technology to help with your ankle flexion, sorry, help to reduce your ankle flexion, which is supposed to help save your calves especially. So if you like that guide sole technology that you find in the glide ride and the EVO ride, it's also being put into this meta racer from ASICS. And of course that carbon fiber plate is somewhere inside that midsole foam. Who knows? I haven't seen any pictures of what the actual carbon fiber plate, like the shape of it inside. Who knows? I don't know. Maybe somebody will cut this shoe open. I'm not sure. I am not planning to cut this shoe open anytime soon. And onto that outsole. Okay. The bottom of the shoe, it is smooth as butter. One of the smoothest outsole that I've run in almost ever. I'm talking very, very smooth. In fact, crossing the bridges today was a little precarious out there. I had to be very careful because they were slick. They were iced over. It was a little crazy. So on wet roads, sharp corners, I'm guessing you're going to have to think a little bit on sharp corners in the shoe. Yeah, anyway, but it is an outsole that has a lot of rubber. Now, I guess I'll just jump into it right now. I think as far as the weight goes for the meta racer, I think they could reduce the amount of rubber on this outsole and even reduce the thickness. Okay. It's not, it's okay. I'm going to eyeball it here. I'm guessing it's one and a half millimeter thickness on the outsole rubber. Maybe they could drop that down to a half a millimeter. I know that's not much. It just appears right now to be too much rubber on the outsole and to help reduce the weight of the shoe, especially since it's a racer. And or just like take out some of the rubber through the midfoot and just have it under the four foot. I don't know. I'm thinking it's just a little much. Now the heel is exposed there. Okay. It has a little bit of exposure there, which I like. And there's a little bit of slight decoupled groove going just a little one, but I think they could enhance that as well to help bring the weight down for the fit on the meta racer went true to size, no issues. And the toe box was perfect. Like, you know, I didn't feel too scrunched even though I like a nice snug fit for racing shoes, but it felt good out there. In fact, I guess I'll say if you have a wide four foot, I think you're going to be happy with this shoe. If you have a really narrow four foot, you might want to test out the shoe before buying in a running shoe store. Okay, but overall pleased with the fit of the shoe and comfort on the meta racer. Nothing screaming out now. It's a racer though. I'm not really concerned about too much comfort when it comes to racing shoes. So, you know, like I already mentioned with the tongue of the shoe and even through the midsole, like it wasn't extra cushioned. You know, again, going back to that 24 and 15 stack height, not a lot of cushion underfoot. So, oh, I will say if you enjoy ground contact feel in racing shoes, boom. I think this is the shoe for you as far as racing on the roads in 2020. Okay, let's jump into the positive and drawbacks because I got to be careful what I say here. My positive is that it felt easy to get up on my four foot through the gate cycle and the foot strike. Like if I wanted to just mentally say, okay, we're going to get up on my toes now and kind of go a little faster here, it was easy to do that. Now, my drawback is that for the stack height and the weight, I think this shoe should be lighter and probably significantly lighter. Considering that you're only working with for a marathon racing shoe, maybe, I'll come back to that in a minute. I think that that stack height, you know, most marathon racing shoes these days are at least 30 millimeters in the heel. Okay, and we're looking at 24. But the weight of this shoe should be lower considering there's less midsole foam to work with there, that flight foam to work with. So that is my major drawback. And yeah, so I just want to put that out there right now. Now, my durability prediction, I'm going to say 200 miles as far as still getting some good oomph. Now, who knows, this is a brand new shoe that's totally a prediction. And again, we don't know what the carbon fiber plate really looks like in there. So, you know, as far as the resiliency of that material, we just have to, we just kind of have to test it out for all of you. So stay tuned as I continue to test the MetaRacer. Now, the big question. Oh, Nelly, here we go. And it connects to the title of this blog. How will I use the MetaRacer moving forward marathon or half marathon? Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sensing half marathon in a big, big way. Breaks my heart. Breaks my heart, A6. I love you, A6, but I'm just sensing that. Now, listen, I also was thinking out there on the run today, like this almost feels like a 10K shoe. Yeah, 10K on the roads. Now, for a 10K personally, I'd like to go in my weight low five ounces. And this is at 6.3. So I'd like at least an ounce to be dropped for a 10K shoe. So I'm just like a little perplexed. I just don't know if I would be taking this amount of stack height to the marathon distance. I hate to break, I hate to break hearts out there, but that's that. And now again, first run, we'll keep testing for all of you. Now, who is this shoe best for? Again, someone who loves ground contact feel and someone who prefers lower stack heights. Like you don't want to feel wobbly out there on in your racing, whether it's marathon or half marathon, rolling, you know, rolling an ankle in the alpha flies from Nike isn't completely out of the question. Like I thought that stack height is pretty high. So lower stack height folks and people that like more ground contact feel. That is who this shoe is best for. Now, now rumor has it, we're looking at a $200 price tag. $200. Okay, it's way better than $200 and what $75 for the alpha fly. But Adidas, right? Adidas is coming out with their carbon fiber plate shoe. Rumor has it for Adidas is going to be $180, maybe $175, I believe I saw. So $200 we shall see. Again, I just need to do more testing, but for if it ends up being a half marathon shoe, more so, I don't know if I like the $200. Price tag. Now back to that tweet from last night and the question of the day. Here we go. You know that advantage Nike had for these Olympics. Perhaps the postponement will allow its rivals to catch up thoughts. So here are my thoughts. Is that and yes, that is the question of the day again for everyone else. My thoughts are that 100%. I think this is a game changer for everyone. All the running shoe companies to come up with more innovation in the next 365 days. Again for A6 maybe bump up the stack height a little bit, drop the weight down and for everyone out there to innovate in the next year. In fact, I'm just going to say I think the alpha flies are going to be kind of old news in a year from now. That's just how running shoe companies work. Like they're always innovating. In fact, I guarantee Nike is developing. Like they're already developing the next alpha fly. They've been doing that for a lot like that's how the supply chain works. It takes a it takes from what I've read 12 to 18 months of planning and then gathering the right materials and then actual production in the factories and then ship like it's a huge production process. So I think this is a game changer. The fact that the timeline has changed. What are your thoughts? How does this impact carbon fiber plate marathon? Maybe marathon racing shoes for Tokyo 2021. This is going to be a fun discussion down below. Thanks for being here. Thanks for watching. There you go. I love you all another day in the books. Stay strong out there. Stay stay warm. Stay safe. We're going to get through this together. All right, we're going to toss it back to the A6 running shoe playlist, which the meta racer will end up in tonight. So there you go. The A6 running shoe playlist right there. In case you want to dive more into the glide ride, the Evo ride, all of the A6, the Nova blast right there. All right, everyone. Seek beauty, work hard and love each other. See you tomorrow.