Feb 16, 2018

Your New Running Experience: UA HOVR Sonic Review | BibRavePro

Disclaimer: I received a Under Armor HOVR Sonic running shoes to review as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro, and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!

Under Armor is a brand I enjoy. I've always had good experiences with their gear, feeling high quality. However until now my experiences have been limited to clothing apparel. For this reason, I was really excited to get a chance to try out a pair of their running shoes.

Tell me about the shoes

The shoes are from their newest (as in just released) HOVR line. I in particular got to put the HOVR Sonic through their paces, which they reported to me on (more on that later). The features of the shoes truly are the latest in shoes. They have a "compression energy web" that molds with the UA HOVR foam to bounce back and return energy to you. Not only are the materials and design high tech, so are the heels. Or more specifically, in the heels. The UA HOVR shoes are connected shoes, collecting data on your run and then syncing that data back to your phone.

Tell me how they feel

These shoes feel great. I'll start with one of my interestingly favorite parts of the shoes: the top. The microthread upper is light, it breathes, and has this compression like feel to it. It feels very natural wrapping around the top but has a good grip to it that I really like. The breathe really well, so I'm looking forward to how this feels in the summer, as I've been using these through a chilly spell here in Virginia. The cushion of the shoe is comfortable as well. It feels good on the foot, great while running, no rubbing, hot spots, or soreness after. I took the shoes through a bunch of short runs and they felt great every time. Unfortunately, I didn't get to take them on longer runs, since that's just not where my level of fitness is right now. As we get into the spring, I'll be sure to give them more distance to see how they hold up.

Tell me about the technology


Being the big geek that I am, I love that these have tech and connect to my phone. Syncing them up was super easy with the Under Armor Map My Run app. From there, they immediately updated my shoes. I must say, that was a first, even for me. After that, you're ready to go. They even offer up a jump test. This helps set a base line for you, so that you can perform it with your runs to see your level of fatigue. This is also a really cool feature of the shoes and the app combined. With the shoes, you get a full year of Map My Run MVP, which is their premium features of the app. This offers a lot of cool features, but some of my favorites are power analysis, cadence analysis, and training plans.

You can run with the shoes one of two ways. You can use Map My Run to track your run, which will use the GPS of your phone while also tracking the data from your shoes. Additionally, you can run without your phone and sync the data afterwards, which is a cool option especially if you use a GPS watch. I love looking at all the extra data in the app. I may not always know what to do with it, but I love the most amount of data I can get. Looking at the cadence is really interesting. Since I use the run walk run method, my cadence has a lot of variability in it, but in reality, it's great because it's easy to visualize my run cadence and walk cadence. It also makes it easy to identify any areas I was going a little slower, maybe daydreaming during my walk portions, which I am apt to do.

Tell me the big picture

In the end, these are a great pair of running shoes. I love the connected tech and all the extra data. I do enjoy that I can still track with my watch, but then sync and get the extra data afterwards. They're very comfortable and I love the breathability. I look forward to testing these out in warmer temperatures and over longer distances, to see how they work out for me. My only hold back on them is I was given the white model, which I've been trying way to hard to keep looking good. I'm not a white shoe type of person. Once I get past that, we'll be good, haha.