I ran in a local hundred-miler this past weekend as a pacer (~40 miles). For those unfamiliar, the pacer is sort of an emotional support animal for the runner; you also make sure they don't die or go off-course or fall asleep on their feet and run off a cliff. My runner was mostly content to suffer in silence, so I started trying to keep track of what everyone was wearing on their feet.

Hoka had a commanding lead, but Brooks was well up with the leaders. Salomons weren't as common as in prior years/events, which was a little surprising: mountain running is supposed to be their wheelhouse (I saw lots of people wearing their running vests, though). On Running and Nnormal seem to be taking some market share, along with a few brands nobody has heard of outside the sport, like Mount to Coast. There was a smattering of Merrells. A large part of the shoe sample was unidentified, either because it was dark or I couldn't make a visual ID. But I can't remember seeing a single pair of Nikes.

I don't read too much into that. Ultrarunning is a fractional (but growing) percentage of the trail running market, which in turn is a fraction of the overall running shoe market, which is a fraction of... you get it. And road races like marathons or 10Ks would give a different result: you defintiely still see plenty of Nike Vaporfly and Alphafly shoes at those events. Even so, it suggests Nike is struggling for credibility in a sport where they should have pole position, whereas (to torture the metaphor) Brooks is running a smart, tactical race and starting to pick off competitors in the back half.