The post Hoka, La Sportiva, Mount to Coast Almost Half of Shoes Worn: 2026 Hardrock 100 Shoes Analysis appeared first on iRunFar.

[Editor’s Note: This article was written by guest author Aran De Mingo of TRAILRUNNINGReview. The data for this article was collected by iRunFar and analyzed by TRAILRUNNINGReview.]

Talking about shoe choices is one of the favorite pastimes of ultrarunners, and few races put a shoe under more scrutiny than the Hardrock 100. A 100-mile loop through the San Juan Mountains of Colorado with more than 33,000 feet of climbing at an average elevation above 11,000 feet, it mixes scree, snowfields, river crossings, and long stretches of off-camber alpine trail.

Various shoe brands and models have gained and lost popularity over the years, and for the second year in a row, we’ve done a quantitative analysis of the shoes on the start line. Similar to last year and to the same analysis conducted at the 2026 Western States 100, Hoka remained the brand of choice at the 2026 Hardrock 100.

For this dataset, we documented the runners’ footwear at the start of the 2026 Hardrock 100. It is worth noting that many runners change shoes during the race and wear more than one pair throughout their run. Therefore, this analysis reflects the shoes runners started in, not necessarily what they wore throughout.

We used video taken in the first mile of the 2026 race to determine shoe choice and analyzed 150 shoes made up of 59 unique models from 24 distinct brands. That compares with 108 shoes, 50 unique models, and 19 brands recorded for the 2025 Hardrock 100. This year’s shoe field was a noticeably more fragmented field, and the combined share of the top two brands — Hoka and La Sportiva — fell from 40.2% to 34.7%.

Most Common Shoe Brands at the 2026 Hardrock 100

Hoka again tops the list comfortably, though its grip on the race has loosened. While last year the brand accounted for 28.0% of the field, in 2025 it accounted for only 22.0% of the market share this year. It is still a nine-point cushion over any other brand, built on the strengths that suit this course: cushioned midsoles, Vibram Megagrip outsoles, and a maximal-stack family — Speedgoat 7, Mafate 5, Stinson, Challenger 8 — that covers almost every Hardrock use case.

The biggest story of the 2026 count sits right behind it. Mount to Coast, a brand that registered a single pair in 2025, jumped straight to 12.7% to tie for second place on the back of its H1 and T1 models. It is the same pattern the brand showed at the Western States 100 a few weeks earlier, when the relatively new company went from invisible to the front of the table.

La Sportiva shares the second position at 12.7%, up from 12.0%, carried almost entirely by the Prodigio Pro. Salomon (10.0%, up from 8.4%) and Altra (10.0%, up from 7.5%) both improved, with Altra posting the strongest gain among the established American brands.

Below that tier, the picture is more mixed. Topo Athletic slipped from 5.6% to 4.7% and Nike from 3.7% to 3.3%, while Brooks and Saucony both fell from 3.7% to 2.7%. New Balance entered the count from nothing to 2.7%, entirely on the back of the Fresh Foam X Hierro v9, and Norda improved from 1.9% to 2.7%. On and Speedland held steady at 2.0% each.

The sharpest fall of any name belongs to NNormal, tied for fourth in 2025 with 7.5% and down to a single pair and 0.7% this year — the largest single-brand swing in the count. The North Face fell from 2.8% to 0.7% and Scarpa from 1.9% to 0.7%. Inov8, Arc’teryx, and Teva, all present in 2025, do not appear at all in 2026. Going the other way, Mizuno, Kailas Fuga, and Dynafit each entered the count at 1.3%. Unclassified prototypes, notably, moved in the opposite direction to the Western States 100, falling from 3.7% to 1.3%.

Most Common Shoe Models at the 2026 Hardrock 100

The Hoka Speedgoat remains the single most common model for a second straight year, with a combined 11.3% across versions, down from 15.9% in 2025. No other model comes close to that continuity — it has been the default Hardrock shoe in both counts.

Behind it, the top of the model table has been rewritten. The Mount to Coast H1 arrives in second at 8.7%, with the Mount to Coast T1 in joint fourth at 4.0%, a first-year showing that no other new entrant has matched here. The La Sportiva Prodigio Pro consolidates third with 7.3%, up from 6.5%, which put it in second place in 2025.

The Hoka Mafate 5 (4.0%) and the Salomon S/Lab Genesis (4.0%) complete the top group, with the Salomon tripling its 2025 count. The Altra Lone Peak 9+ follows at 3.3%, and the New Balance Fresh Foam X Hierro v9 debuts at 2.7%.

Notably absent from this year’s top models is the NNormal Kjerag, third in 2025 with 4.7% and down to a single pair, alongside the Hoka Tecton X (3.7% to 0.7%) and the Brooks Cascadia (3.7% to 1.3%). The NNormal Tomir, La Sportiva Wildcat, and The North Face Summit Vectiv Pro, all top-10 fixtures last year, do not appear in the 2026 count at all.

Call for Comments

• If you’ve run Hardrock, what shoes did you choose and why?
• What would the perfect Hardrock shoe look like for you?

Hoka, La Sportiva, Mount to Coast Almost Half of Shoes Worn: 2026 Hardrock 100 Shoes Analysis by Guest Writer.