Running Shoe Yay or Nay: Li-Ning, Adidas, New Balance and Brooks

Introduction

Every so often a batch of upcoming releases lands that makes you weigh up whether any of them are worth chasing down for a proper test. This time around it is four shoes: the Li-Ning Red Hare 9 Ultra, a new take on the Adidas Hyperboost formula in the Euphoria, the New Balance Ellipse Breathe, and the Brooks Hyperion Max 4. Each gets a quick yay or nay below, with the reasoning behind it.

Li-Ning Red Hare 9 Ultra

The Red Hare 9 Ultra is a shoe that gets asked about constantly, and on paper it has real appeal. Stack heights sit at 43 mm in the heel and 35 mm in the forefoot, so there is plenty of cushion, and the adoption of the Super Boom capsule foam produced strong energy return in the Feidian 6 Elite. At a listed 240 g it is genuinely light, though larger sizes will add at least 30 to 40 g, pushing a UK 11 toward the sub-300 g mark.

The problems are practical. Outsole durability was a real concern when testing the Feidian 6 Elite, with rubber pieces needing to be stuck back on. Sizing is another hurdle: UK 11 and above are hard to find in stock across the typical mail-order listings, even where plenty of colorways exist. At around £160 before postage, it is not much cheaper than readily available alternatives such as the Mega Blast or Rad UFO, which readers in the UK, US and parts of Europe can actually buy. Until stock and pricing improve, this is an enforced nay.

Adidas Hyperboost Euphoria

Adidas is clearly investing heavily in the Hyperboost midsole formula, with a growing lineup of models using it. The foam is quite a bit softer and mega bouncy, and it feels nothing like the original Boost material. It behaves more like a PEBA-type material, with more fun and bounce to the ride. Some criticism suggests Hyperboost models are not really running shoes, but that seems misplaced: the Hyperboost Edge has been genuinely great in the hands of many who tried it, offering plenty of bounce.

The Euphoria leans more lifestyle-orientated, but the predominantly black version is a good-looking shoe. There appears to be a bit more Hyperboost material cupping around the heel than on the Edge, which takes a more refined approach with less foam at the rear and more underfoot. The Euphoria also adds the extra eyelets missing from the Edge, which makes a proper runner’s knot easier, though you can still loop laces back through the final longer eyelet on the Edge. The stack appears very similar to the Edge, and more Hyperboost versions look to be coming. Despite the lifestyle lean, Boost became a lifestyle classic that plenty of people still ran in, so this one earns a yay.

New Balance Ellipse Breathe

The Ellipse Breathe is a new version of the New Balance Ellipse with a different upper, presumably opened up for better breathability in the summer months. It uses Fresh Foam X, though it is worth remembering that Fresh Foam and Fresh Foam X function more as categories of shoes than any promise about foam softness; even New Balance has seemed unsure of any real difference between them. The Ellipse appears to occupy the space the 1080 used to fill, with slightly denser foam relegated down a line, a very typical domino effect in the running shoe market.

The spec reads sensibly for a daily trainer: 251 g in the sample size, meaning well below 300 g for larger sizes, an 8 mm drop with 38 mm of heel stack and 30 mm up front. That is a lot of cushion for daily use. But at £130, it is hard to see what it offers over the Evo Ride at the same price, and some retailers have already discounted it to around £110, which says a lot about how crowded the market currently is. It seems a solid daily option with a summer-friendly breathable upper, but not groundbreaking, so it is a nay at this point.

Brooks Hyperion Max 4

The Hyperion Max 3 delivered a very comfortable ride, but carried a lot of excessive weight, and the fourth version is set to appear very soon. The upper is updated, which is welcome: a slightly more traditional, separated tongue rather than the previous bootie-style construction where everything was connected, which should improve comfort over the top of the foot.

The odd part is the midsole. The stack and implementation appear pretty much unchanged from the Max 3, making this a strange iteration that changes the upper while leaving the ride alone, and it may even come out a bit heavier. That leaves it heavier than many tempo-based shoes from other manufacturers, some of which even include plates. With Puma releasing a plateless version of the Deviate Nitro called the Pure, there is a broader shift toward reserving plates for race shoes. Fans of the Max 3 do love it, noting it is quite stable despite the stack height, but unless the Max 4 comes in lighter, this is a nay for the time being.

Buying Advice

The pattern across these four is instructive. Availability and price matter as much as specs: a fast, well-cushioned shoe you cannot easily buy in your size, or a daily trainer already discounted well below launch price, tells you something about the value of each. If you want the bouncy new-foam experience, the Hyperboost lineup is the most interesting of the bunch. If you want a proven daily ride, established models that are easy to find may still beat these newcomers.

Conclusion

One yay, three nays, but none of them dismissive. The Hyperboost Euphoria is worth a look purely for the new foam, the Red Hare 9 Ultra deserves attention if sizing and pricing ever make sense, the Ellipse Breathe is fine but unremarkable, and the Hyperion Max 4 needs to prove it got lighter before it earns a proper test.