Asics Tartheredge 'Blue Pure Silver'
Colorway: Blue/Pure Silver · Style code: 1011A544-401 · Release date: June 2019 · Price: $2682 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Asics Tartheredge 'Pure Gold' (1011A544-101) · Asics Tartheredge 'Directoire Blue Ice Mint' (1011A544-400) · Asics Tartheredge 'Tai-Chi Yellow Black' (1011A544-750)
Tarther is a name ASICS has put on racing flats in Japan for decades, written with characters that read as tiger run, and the shoes carrying it were built to a domestic idea of what a fast shoe should be: thin, low, firm, with an outsole gripping enough for a track. The Tartheredge continued that line while moving it onto FlyteFoam, keeping the flat's proportions rather than following the market toward taller stacks. Reviewers treated it as a late high point of conventional race flat design, which is a compliment with a date stamp on it. By the end of the decade the marathon end of the sport was reorganising itself around plated shoes with far more foam underfoot, and shoes built like this one were on their way to becoming specialist items for track sessions and short races rather than default racing footwear. Blue with pure silver keeps the presentation as plain as the construction.