Originally published at: The Brooks Ghost 16 is the Run Shoe with Everything You Need, Nothing You Don’t - Slowtwitch News
Look. We all love carbon running shoes. There are now entire social media accounts dedicated to seeing these racers in common environments. They are everywhere. The revolution started by Nike’s VaporFly has now taken over running in its entirety. Heck, there are now multiple brands that have multiple iterations of carbon racers throughout their line-ups (Nike, HOKA, ASICS and Saucony, just to name a few of the top of my head).
Running in carbon shoes makes you feel like a superhero. Until, well, it doesn’t. While there is plenty of evidence that these shoes can reduce total system stress and you’ll run faster, there is also a growing pile of evidence that carbon shoes can cause bone stress injuries in some athletes. In fewer words, then: we probably shouldn’t be running in these shoes all the time.
We’re about to embark on reviewing some of the shoes that you probably don’t think about too much, but they’re the ones that you should be spending the majority of your run miles in. Yes, it’s time to start reviewing the entirely non-fancy, meat and potatoes, training shoe. And we start with the brand that has the largest market share in the total run market, with 21.4% of the market: Brooks Running, and the recently launched Ghost 16.
What Is It, and What’s the Technology?

First, a quick history on Brooks and its rise in running. For years, Brooks shoes were the favored choice of podiatrists and “support” shoe seekers. Shoes like the Adrenaline, Beast/Ariel, and Addiction made up the majority of their sales. But starting around 2011, the brand began to pivot towards making shoes for, well, the majority of the market, rolling out major updates of their neutral shoe line: the flagship Glycerin, Ghost, and their Pure line of “natural” running shoes. They began gobbling up market share, with a steady trajectory towards the front of the field. In 2018, they grabbed the largest share of the run shoe market and haven’t given it up since.
The Ghost is arguably the single-most important shoe in Brooks entire product line. It serves as the mid-point neutral cushioned training shoe at the $140 price point, with competitors including the ASICS Cumulus, the Nike Pegasus, the Saucony Ride, the Mizuno Wave Rider, and New Balance 880. Think of this category as the “budget” plush cushioned run shoe category, although price separation between these and the flagship cushioned shoes has shrunk; the halo Glycerin is only $20 more. It also has a little bit of internal competition, with the Hyperion 2 also at $140, but offering a very different feel underfoot.

The big story with Ghost is softness. To achieve that, Brooks uses what they call DNA Loft v3 for the midsole. DNA Loft v3 features a proprietary blend of EVA, rubber, and nitrogen infusing together. It’s Brooks softest of their four cushioning materials on offer, and it’s their second lightest behind DNA Flash (typically used in racing models). To that end, a men’s size 9 weighs in at 9.5 ounces — anything under 10 ounces for a typical training shoe is on the lighter side. The upper is spun from 67% recycled materials, with limited seaming to reduce friction. In total, over 4 plastic water bottles were diverted from landfills to create the shoe, which earned it certified CarbonNeutral status.
The shoe features a traditional midsole offset of 12 millimeters. If you want lower in Brooks, you have to go to either the Max version of this shoe, or over to the Hyperion or Hyperion Max. To borrow a phrase from an old friend: worry about miles, not millimeters.
So, How’s the Run?
The first thing you notice putting on a pair of Brooks is just how pronounced the arch in the sockliner is. This was a feature first introduced almost a decade ago, and it’s stuck with them. If you’re the type of person who loved how high of an arch Nike or Mizuno used to put into their shoes — this is where you should be looking now.

The upper is low-slung over the foot. Combined with the rest of the shoe’s construction, and this model is something that those with higher insteps will likely struggle with. I have a low to medium volume foot (thanks, Surefoot, for those measurements) and even I found that there was slightly less room over the top of the foot than normal. It makes the shoe feel a little racier, at least in fit, than is probably intended. Otherwise, the heel and mid foot are locked well, and there’s plenty of room in the forefoot to allow for toe splay and movement while running.
As for the run, well, Brooks has achieved something that I did not think was possible with a run shoe: I didn’t think about the shoe at all.
To be clear, that’s a good thing. It’s the first time in two decades of working in the industry where I simply did not think about what the shoe was doing; I just ran. It’s soft without being spongy. There’s no hotspots that develop. The snugness that was mildly uncomfortable over the top of the foot when trying on meant my foot stayed well placed in the shoe while on the move. It did exactly what was asked, whether on the treadmill or out in the balmy 5 degree temperatures we’ve had in the mornings recently here at Slowtwitch’s Tundra Division outpost.
It just works. And ultimately, that’s the best thing you can say about a training shoe; when it’s time to go for a run, the shoe will be a dependable workhorse to eat up mile after mile you put on it. It’s precisely what most of us need out of their daily run shoe.
What: Brooks Ghost 16
Price: $140.00
Available: Now
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