K-Swiss Konesic (2010)

April 6, 2010

This is a retro training shoe. By retro I mean the Konesic is made like the pure stability trainers from ten or fifteen years ago. Although more companies veer away from a certain style of supportive running shoe K-Swiss—a company new to running—is debuting such a model in its first first big collection.

Ten or fifteen years ago Asics, Reebok, Brooks and some other brands made shoes with substantial medial posts made of hard synthetics, and with broad midsole platforms. The trend has been for these types of support mechanisms to give way to less supportive models, or models with different kind of supportive features.

Counter-intuitively, K-Swiss introduces its Konesic.

Of course, this is not a light shoe, but it isn’t made for light runners. This is a shoe made for the heavier, over-pronating, runner. It does offer a lot of support due to two medial posts in the midsole, and the wide platform this midsole is based on. But despite all these stability features the shoe doesn’t run heavy, and for this K-Swiss deserves credit.

Two well-placed flex grooves under the forefoot mean the shoes bend nicely without losing the stabilizing effect. The “Superform” midsole grants cushioning that feels comfortable but not heavy.

As in all K-Swiss models the five Urethane “fingers” are placed on the upper to grab your midfoot when you lace up. I found the toebox in the Konesic not as wide as, for example, that in the Keahou II. This is not bad, just something you need to consider when trying on this shoe.

K-Swiss might have found a niche market for the heavier runners who loved the Asics MC plus, and the older Reebok supportive shoes.

[Editor’s note: Our capable editor-at-large for footwear Jeroen van Geelen owns Total Running, one of the more important running and triathlon retail establishments in The Netherlands.]