I’m a bit of a materialist, and doing lots of running is a great excuse for some materialism, because I get to buy and destroy lots of pairs of shoes!

I’ve been running on the same pair of shoes for a while now, the Brooks Ghost 8, and I really like them. They provide lots of support and comfort, so they’re perfect for bashing out the miles. We’re a bit of a Brooks household actually – Anna has a couple of pairs of Adrenalines on rotation and gets on well with those.

However, after doing some reading online and chatting to people at my running club, I decided to get a second pair of shoes. I wanted some lighter ones for running shorter races and intervals in (the Ghosts are quite heavy due to all the support). I read around a bit, not being able to decide, and after a particularly muddy club run which made my Ghosts look less than respectable, I took the plunge and bought some a pair of Launch 2s, also by Brooks. I’ve never bought a pair of shoes without trying them before, but I was confident in the comfort of Brooks, and the reviews were very positive, so I went for it.

Complete with knobbly knees and dirty carpet Complete with knobbly knees and dirty carpet

I have only run a few miles in them, so it’s to early to make judgements yet. My first impressions are good, though. They’re still quite comfortable, at least over the shorter distance.

My only complaint so far is that the laces are quite short. I loop my laces through the top holes so I can adjust them without changing the tightness of the laces in other sections of the shoe. The laces on the Launch 2s aren’t really long enough to do this. I have plenty of laces from old shoes which I can swap in, though.

One thing I do think is they definitely feel fast. Perhaps that’s just the “new shoes” effect though. I guess only time will tell – I’ll do a more thorough review once I’ve run a fair few more miles in them.