They finally got it right. Hoka was one of the first to enter the carbon plate wars with their Carbon Rocket back in 2019. And while that 26mm stack height, 1mm drop shoe was raw and powerful, it didn’t really stack up against the 4%. . Fast forward five years, 3 carbon X’s, 2 Rocket X’s, and a Cielo X1 later (and I guess to a lesser extent the Skyward X), and I still didn’t think Hoka had a tier 1 marathon racer. Until now. . The Cielo X1 2.0 is lighter, cushioned, springy, and fast. It eats up marathon effort miles. . Further testing: I’ve done mostly marathon effort miles so far in the shoe. I’ve got some threshold repeats coming up to test how this might do as a half marathon or 10k race option . Disclosures: these shoes were sent to me, so I did not have to pay for them. No one is paying me to make this video or to include their brand in this video. No one will get a chance to preview this before it publishes.