“It might feel like a post-social media phenomenon, but people have been launching themselves up hills, through rivers and over rocks long before anyone thought to plaster it on Instagram. Trail running is exercise at its most primal: no roads, no traffic, no buildings - just you, the wilderness, and your shoes. It’s the closest thing to how we moved as early humans, only now with heavily branded socks and breathable neon tops. And in the modern world, the only bit of kit that really, truly matters is your footwear.  

No one understands this better than New Balance. It’s easy to forget, given the brand’s current footing in the fashion smorgasbord, but they’ve been obsessing over running shoes long before GPS watches, nutritional gels and Strava were a thing. The Boston-based brand started in 1906 making arch supports for people who were on their feet all day. Not glamorous, but honest work - done with the intention of delivering, quite literally, a new balance. From there, they graduated to making performance footwear for local running clubs, including the Boston Brown Bag Harriers, who commissioned what was essentially New Balance's first proper running shoe, consisting of a leather upper, crepe sole, metal spikes, and an unwavering determination to finish laps. 

The brand’s big footwear breakthrough, though, came in 1961 with the Trackster - the first running shoe available in multiple width fittings, and a quietly revolutionary step that opened the sport up to all kinds of feet. By the late ‘70s, they’d stepped off the track and onto the trail with the 355, a burly, lug-soled beauty in New Balance blue and yellow, purpose-built for grip and grit. That spawned the iconic Rainier hiking boot in ’82, and from there the trail flame never really went out. The ‘90s gave us the 801- a rugged, chunky off-road unit that’s since become something of a Pinterest icon  - and the All Terrain series, which would come to define what trail ready footwear looked like for those that opted for a whole pack of Haribo Starmix instead of a banana as a pre-marathon snack. 

Like everything else, trail running eventually went a bit weird. The craze of the 2000s was barefoot, so New Balance - ever versatile - pivoted again with their Minimus range, stripping everything back to near-nudity. But sure enough, feet wanted foam again, and in 2015, New Balance’s Fresh Foam arrived: a plush, scientifically engineered midsole compound that gave runners cushion without compromise.  

The T980 debuted the compound, but it was the Hierro series, launched the following year, that truly turned heads. Tough but refined, technical but wearable, the Hierro became the brand’s flagship trail shoe and a sign they were no longer just flirting with off-road running - they were going steady.