The Best Running Gear: Essentials for Every Distance and Terrain

In a growing world of carbon running shoes, the Velocity Nitro 3 is a cheap shoe that proves you don’t need to spend big to get something that’s more than up to the task to cover all of your runs.

The combination of Puma’s nitrogen-infused Nitro foam and EVA Pro foam means you can enjoy some lively bounce that’s balanced out with something slightly firmer to keep your feet well protected too.

It’s got an upper that’s on the right side of snug and uses Puma’s PWRTAPE to make sure it offers support in the key places. Add in one of the best running shoe outsoles and you have the ideal shoe to tackle your first 5k, soak up regular running time and will even feel good when you up the tempo.

The RC Short is a no-nonsense pair of shorts primed for training runs and stepping on the start line. Take your pick from a good range of low-key or brighter colour options and you can also opt to grab them in either 5-inch or 7-inch lengths. Both versions feature a larger pocket around the back that’s suitable for storing your phone, with two more pockets inside for everything else you’re going to need for a 5k stroll.

New Balance uses fast-drying technology to make sure they don’t stay drenched in sweat for long and also ditches the seams inside the brief area to minimise the chances of chafing.

The Acid Running long sleeve is absolutely made for running first, but as a nice bonus is one you can perfectly get away with throwing on when you’re not donning your running shoes. The combination of recycled polyester, cotton and elastane creates a very relaxed fit, so it doesn't cling and also keeps things breathable. It also doesn’t crease too badly when you’ve thrown it in the wash. Seam placement is carefully considered to make sure it doesn’t irritate on runs and is one you can wear on its own in more favourable conditions or when you need to layer up when the temperature drops.

The Forerunner 165 is enough watch to give you all you need to start tracking your runs, offering a level of training smarts to help you add structure to your training, which is especially handy if you’re eyeing up a race.

You can opt for a version with or without a built-in music player to leave you less reliant on your phone when you want to hear your sounds. There’s a vibrant AMOLED screen that makes it easy to glance at staple running stats like pace, distance covered and heart rate.

That splash of colour also makes it handy to have around when you’re not jumping on a treadmill, letting you peer down at your latest WhatsApp chats and wake up to a summary of what lies ahead, including whether you’re going to need a jacket and how well you slept.

As you start to up your running, a sock that’s better equipped to handle that increased mileage should be on your radar. Stance’s Run Light Crew Sock is one of the best in the business and employs Stance’s Infinknit fabric that’s designed to never tear or get holes. If they do, Stance will replace them for free.

It bolsters protection at the heel to prevent any sort of bad rubbing from your shoe, and uses a Performance Mesh to make sure it’s a sock that’s breathable and doesn’t get hot and sticky.

The Asics Novablast 5 offers a blend of protective cushioning and a responsive ride, making it a shoe that can cover a range of tempos. The woven upper keeps things breathable and snug, while Asics’ FF Blast Max cushioning provides an energetic foundation. A trampoline-inspired, AHAR rubber outsole offers good gripping foundations when sticking to pavements and some lighter trails, making the Novablast a smooth operator for both short and longer runs.

You can absolutely spend a lot on running sunglasses, but Goodr’s OG shades offer a more affordable route to protecting your eyes, all while keeping things playful in the looks department. The OG comes in a vast array of colour options and most come equipped with polarised lenses to provide strong defence against the sun and a 100% block against UVA and UVB rays. The frames are light and coated with a special grip to make sure they don’t budge, making them the ideal running shades to throw on for training and race day.

The Pace 3 is the running watch to wear if you’re starting to care about things beyond just knowing how far you’ve run and how fast you get to your finish point. Coros has packed its cheapest watch with cutting-edge features like dual-band GNSS to give you the most accurate tracking when you head outdoors and even has the ability to let you upload routes if you want to spice up your running routes. It can also cover tracking swims and strength training when you’re taking a day off the running and does also work with other major apps like Strava to let you soak up that kudos. It can last up to 24 days before it needs charging and wraps its impressive smarts in a seriously compact and lightweight body to make it comfortable to wear day and night.

The JLab Go Air Sport is a great-sounding pair of budget headphones that are well built for running. The earhook-style, truly wireless earbuds feature a sweat-resistant design and a charging case that has the charging cable built-in so you don’t have to scramble around for it when it does need charging. There’s touch controls included to adjust volume or skip a track and 6mm drivers along with the choice of three EQ modes to up things in the bass department or add a touch more finesse to your listening time. They’ll last for up to 8 hours off a single charge, which can be topped up to 24 hours when you keep the case fully charged up.

If you’re looking for an energy gel to grab to knock back pre-run or during, Torq’s gels are ones that are easy to stomach. They’re served up in a range of different familiar flavours to make them something to look forward to ripping open. Take your pick of cherry bakewell, lemon drizzle and apple crumble flavours with all of Torq’s hypertonic energy gels free of artificial sweeteners and colours. They’re not the cheapest gels out there, but if you like the idea of gels that taste good and can give you that energy lift, they do deliver.

If a secure fit and situational awareness are your main priorities when looking for running headphones, the Shokz OpenRun are the pair for you. Using bone conduction technology, they won't blow you away with base, but nevertheless deliver music and podcasts in a safer fashion that noise-cancelling buds. Wrapped up in a IP67 sweat and water resistant design, they also feature easy to access buttons to skip a track or take a call in quick fashion. You can enjoy that sound for up to eight hours, while a fast charge mode gives you a quick 1.5 hours from just a 10-minute charge.

The Saucony Endorphin Pro 4 is built for racing, but unlike a lot of its fellow carbon plate-packing rivals, it can also handle some regular training time. Along with a roomy upper, Saucony combines its PWWRUN PB and HG foams to ensure the Pro 4 delivers some enjoyable bounce along with a more responsive edge to make it well suited for picking up the pace in. The Speedroll design adds to that faster feel, all while making things feel stable and supportive so you don’t feel out of control when you’re darting through and past other runners.

The Flipbelt Zipper is a running belt that sits close and comfortable to the body to ensure it moves with you as you run. It features a zipped pocket with three ways to provide easy access to your smartphone, energy gels and any other essentials you take with you. There’s also a handy key hook built inside that storage space to ensure you’re not scrambling around for your keys at the end of a run. It can also can be chucked in the washing machine when things get hot and sweaty.

Veloforte’s chews offer a more natural alternative to other energy gels on the market. Each pack contains six chews that are made with real fruit and include flavours like apple and cinnamon and citrus and ginger, with all offering natural electrolytes to top up your body when it’s sapped of energy. The handmade chews could be a safer bet if you’re in two minds about how those gels are going to play on your stomach after you’ve squeezed a few of them down your throat.

Massage guns are a good way to take dealing with aching legs and limbs into your own hands. The Hyperice Volt Go 2 is a portable option that's also suitable for throwing into your hold luggage when you go overseas. Available in black or white, the Go 2 offers three speed settings and uses Hyperice’s QuietGlide technology to let you go about your massaging business in a quiet fashion for up to 3 hours off a single charge. It can also be paired up to an optional heated attachment to add some heat therapy into the recovery mix.

Soar’s socks are made for racing. Its Crew sock lightly compresses key areas of the foot and features added padding at certain points to bolster areas that need added support, without bunching up and causing irritation. They also use a temperature-regulating yarn and include more ventilated areas to keep things cool It’s always a nice bonus that Soar offers its socks in a range of different colours, whether you like to go loud or keep it low-key when it’s time to race.

The dreaded chafe can come for you at any time and at different parts of the body without warning. Body Glide's balm comes in stick form to make it easy to apply to different areas and is made from allergen-free ingredients to ensure it’s fit for your skin. It’s designed to provide a strong barrier against rubbing, whether that’s the chafing or the kind that can cause blisters. It’s both sweat and water resistant and will last the entire day.

Putting the fuelling responsibility in your own hands instead of relying on what’s out on the course is the wise move and Precision Fuel & Hydration PF 30 energy gels are some of the most stomach-friendly. They’re available in both caffeine and non-caffeine forms, with each gel offering 30 grams of carbohydrates to help replenish your body’s reserves. Precision Fuel & Hydration also offer their own fuelling calculator to help you work out how many gels you’ll likely need to get to the finish line.

Hydrating both before you step out on a marathon course and when you step off it to aid your recovery is also something to factor into your marathon training. The SiS Go Hydro electrolyte tablets are the dissolvable kind you simply drop into 500ml of water a few hours before you hit the start run button. There’s a few flavours available and enough in a single tube to get used to them during training and for race day.

Primed for long training runs and post-race, Therabody’s RecoveryAir Prime compression boots use FastFlush technology that, unlike hammering a massage gun at your aching limbs, delivers a pressure-style massage to your legs. There’s both warm-up and recovery modes to let you use them before and after runs, with the ability to control the level of pressure while you have your feet up on the sofa. It pairs with Therabody’s companion app to save custom recovery routines and will last for 180 minutes before it needs charging back up.

Janji’s AFO Hyperlight cap is a low-profile way to protect your head. It’s mainly made from recycled polyester and weighs just 29g, making it a lightweight headwear choice to protect you against the sun. You can scrunch it up to make it easy to store in a pocket, with a flippable brim to flip up when you want to bask in the sunshine again. There’s a bungee-style buckle around the back to enable you to quickly loosen or tighten the fit without taking off and, in very Janji fashion, you have no shortage of bright colours to choose from.

Decathlon’s Evadict 5L trail running bag provides ample storage for what you’re going to need on your off-road runs. You can fit a larger water bladder in the back of it with space to also pack in a lightweight jacket if conditions are forecast to be mixed. There’s room up front for two smaller bladders with enough space to drop in your phone and anything you’re going to need to top your energy reserves. There’s a combination of straps at the chest and the side of the bag to ensure it’s not bouncing around, and a water repellent exterior gives you some nice added protection against lighter downpours.

The Speedgoat 6 is called the goat for good reason. This is a trail shoe that’s built to let you tackle a mixture of trail surfaces with a level of cushioning and Hoka’s signature Meta-Rocker in place to provide a protected yet uptempo feel underfoot. It comes in regular and wide fit options, with both offering a roomy fit in the toe department to let those digits splay, and matches up a Vibram outsole with 5mm lugs to make sure they grip well across both hard and softer terrain.

Inov-8’s performance long sleeve tee can be layered up with other tops or worn on its own when conditions aren’t as bitingly cold. It uses fabric that has some stretch to make sure it’s not fighting against you when you get moving and has welcome moisture-wicking qualities to help keep you cool when things get a little sweatier out on the trails. When that sweat does come calling, Inov-8 uses an antimicrobial treatment to battle bad odours and reduce how often it needs washing. When the temperature drops, there’s thumb loops to slip into to keep in the warmth. It’s also made from 95% recycled polyester so you’ll also be doing your bit for the planet while you go traversing it.

Tribe’s mix of bars, flapjacks, muesli and shakes means you have energy top-up options here, especially if you don’t like the idea of swallowing the same thing during and after a long day on the trails.

Each item in Tribe’s marathon training pack grabs some of its protein content from plants and is suitable for vegans or you need something gluten-free to aid your recovery.

There’s plenty of good stuff in there, but more importantly they taste good, making them a nice reward when you’ve just endured another horrendous incline.

The Ultrafly packs in the same ZoomX foam that features in Nike’s racing shoes, though that foam performs like a different beast when swapping pavements for rockier terrain. This is more of a cruiser of a shoe, providing roomy surroundings and a feeling underfoot that’s smooth and stable. Add in a tough Vibram outsole and you also have the kind of grip that’s fit to go long and also handle the hills and even muddier conditions where Nike trail shoes haven’t necessarily always excelled in the past.

Whether you’re running solo or racing where the group is going to quickly spread out, you need your own means of knowing where to go. The Garmin Enduro 2 is equipped with the best of Garmin’s rich mapping and navigation features and can last up to 77 days, or give you 68 hours worth of battery life when using it in top tracking accuracy mode. While the standard versiom lacks a colour display found on some of Garmin’s newer watches, it does still offer touchscreen support to aid navigating maps, solar charging powers and an LED flashlight for running during the night. It’s kept in place with a very comfortable nylon strap and has a 10 ATM waterproof rating to make sure it can withstand a serious soaking.

Salomon’s ADV Skin 5 strikes a good balance between giving you somewhere to quickly access your hydration, while also keeping things nice and light. It’s an ideal one for ultra races that sit on the shorter end of the scale in terms of distance and when you’ve got aid stations to help you refuel. Salomon’s Sensifit design ensures it sits close to the body with room to store two 250ml soft flasks and a larger 1.5l hydration bladder. There’s pockets and compartments aplenty to stash away other items, keep your rubbish in one place and does also support storing walking poles if you’re planning to tackle serious elevation.

The Darn Tough sock can provide that extra layer of protection for your feet from taking a serious beating. They’re made from merino wool to offer great comfort and also keep things toasty down there. The natural odour resistant quality of merino offers an extra defence against them quickly picking up a bad smell. Special attention is also paid to the ankle and achilles areas to ensure they protect your feet and keep them feeling comfy at the same time.

With its own waterproof fabric and additional water repellant finish providing stubborn defence against the elements, North Face’s Futurelight jacket is fit for ultra adventures in lashing rain and wintry conditions. The packable jacket includes a hood that can be adjusted to keep the chill out, with a pocket inside that can store both your items and the jacket itself. North Face’s Futurelight fabric is also built to block out the wind to enhance its credentials as a jacket that can be slipped on the chill starts to sit in.

The Petzl Nao RL is a weather-resistant torch you want on your head if you’re planning to run day and night. It’s 1,500 lumen-strong to comfortably guide you through the darkness, with three lighting modes and the option to pick from wide or uniform beams depending on how you want to see what’s ahead of you. The reactive lighting system mode means it automatically adjusts depending on your environment, giving you one less thing to fiddle about with. There’s an additional red LED light at the back to boost visibility, while the rechargeable setup can last for a minimum of five hours.