Asics Hyper Speed 2 'Black Island Blue'
Colorway: Black/Island Blue · Style code: 1011B495-002 · Release date: January 4, 2023 · Price: $156 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Asics Hyper Speed 2 'Hazard Green Midnight' (1011B495-300) · Asics Hyper Speed 2 'Deep Ocean Amber' (1011B495-400) · Asics Hyper Speed 2 'Safety Yellow White' (1011B495-750) · Asics Hyper Speed 2 2E Wide 'Safety Yellow White' (1011B494-750)
The Hyper Speed occupies a category that mostly emptied out. When racing shoes moved to tall foam stacks and carbon plates, the low-profile lightweight flat stopped being a mainstream product, and ASICS kept building one anyway at about ninety dollars.
Reviewers of the original placed it in what one called the rare zone between a racing flat and a low-profile trainer: light, simple and cheap enough that using it hard did not feel wasteful. The second version kept that brief, a traditional lower-stack flat aimed at workouts and shorter races rather than at marathon day. FlyteFoam handled cushioning, with minimal overlays on the mesh upper and no plate of any kind.
Its appeal is partly economic. A half-marathon flat under a hundred dollars is an unusual thing to find in a range where the brand's own top racers ask three times that, and the price meant runners could keep a pair in rotation purely for interval sessions.
This version arrived on 4 January 2023, black across the upper with island blue on the midsole and stripes. It was the second of the two colorways that opened the year, following a hazard green pair by two days.