The Viral Instagram Shoe: Mount to Coast

I ran a half marathon in them, breaking them in the day before.

I forgot to mention the shoes in the last post.

So welcome to my Mount to Coast shoe review.

For the 2024 Long Beach Marathon, I ran with the Instagram viral shoe Mount to Coast R1s. I broke them during a Cypress Social Hour Run Club Shakeout 5k the day before the half marathon. I felt good in them and decided to make the R1s my race shoe, which is hilarious because 3 days before I got their S1s and did a 6 mile run in them and thought those were going to be my racing shoes.

Here’s how they performed for me.

Mount to Coast R1s
A great long distance racing shoe that can match a strong pace. Very worth it.

• No blisters on my feet.

• High arch support continuously during the run.

• Didn’t get plantar fasciitis

• No toes cutting each other due to feet swelling because the toe box is… EXPANDABLE.

• A lot of shock and soreness I would get on knee joints transferred to the thigh / lower IT Band area, which is great because that’s easy to recover from.

• I don’t have any specific soreness this time around, only general post work out sore.

• Shoe is bouncy still.

• I expect to use it for 600+ more miles.

Proxy Comparisons

• If you had to use HOKA Clifton 8s, the R1s (and S1s) have equal platform without the drag and weighty “whaleness”.

• If you like the light-ness and nimbleness of On shoes, the R1s give you something very comparable to it.

• Only affordable shoe that has two sets of laces per shoe, the higher lace and lower toe-back lace.

Mount to Coast S1s
The daily trainer for long runs, slow runs, and recovery runs.

• Same as above, except it doesn’t have on the fly toebox adjustment

• The general platform and ankle padding is noticeably thicker or more pronounced

• Very bouncy

• Not so great for sprints.

• If I did 5 runs in a week, 4 of the 5 will be in S1s. Protect the feet.

Wait you got two shoes?

Yes. I’ll be using both interchangeably - between the two I expect 1200 miles in them which effectively translates to 3 to 4 non Mount to Coast shoes.