Best Running Shoes of 2021 | My Top 6 Picks

After a year of testing many, many shoes, I've narrowed them down to my top 6 best running shoes of 2021. The only criteria needed to make this list was that the shoe had to be released in 2021. I'm really looking forward to trying even more shoes in 2022 and some brands I haven't tested in years or ever (New Balance, Adidas, Puma). My top 6 shoes of 2021! (In no particular order) 1. Asics Noosa Tri 13. A very versatile daily trainer that always rocks fun colourways. Easy runs to intervals, you can't go wrong with this one. If I had to pick 1 non-plated shoe to race with, it might be the Noosa Tri. 2. Nike Vaporfly Next% 2. Even though other companies are getting closer to being able to compete with Nike for race day shoes, the Vaporfly is still easily my choice for race day of all distances. 3. On Running Cloudultra. My favorite trail shoe of all time! The Cloudultra doesn't have a very aggressive outsole which makes this trail shoe a great option on pavement too. Most of my trail runs still have a good amount of pavement, so this shoe is my choice 9/10 times when I hit the trails. 4. On Cloudflow V3. I loved the first 2 versions of this shoe and On has only improved upon it further in this version. It falls into the same category with the Noosa Tri 13 as being a great all around daily trainer. The only negative is that the shoes have a tendency to pick up rocks in the Cloud pods. 5. Asics Metaspeed Edge AND Metaspeed Sky (two shoes). These are Asics new "super-shoes" released in 2021. I feel like they may have confused consumers in coming out with 1 shoe (Edge) for cadence style runners and 1 shoe (Sky) for stride runners. I like them both and feel like the Metaspeed Edge has been the only shoe I've tried so far that may give the Nike Vaporfly a run for its money. Unfortunately, these run very small and were much too short for me to end up using on race day. Make sure you go up a half to full size on these! 6. Nike Invincible. This shoe easily tops my list. Because I review so many shoes, I usually retire and donate my shoes once they've hit 250-300km but I've enjoyed the Nike Invincible so much that I've ran +600km in them and will probably get to 1000km. My all time favorite shoe for easy runs and especially easy long runs. The huge slab of Nike's ZoomX midsole keeps my legs feeling super fresh. The fit of this shoe is very comfy too, making easy miles a joy to run.