The running shoe I’ve been waiting for since it was announced back in December 2009, has finally hit shelves. I’m talking about the Nike Lunar Eclipse +. A shoe that exceeds one of my personal favorite runners, the Nike Lunar Glide +. What this shoe does is take everything great about the Lunar Glide, to the next level, by including the technologies of Lunarlon and Dynamic Support. The reason I like the shoe a lot.
Join me as I break down that extension of the shoe with exclusives images…
Breaking Down The Sole Upper
The Lunar Eclipse evolves the most important part of the shoe, by introducing Lunarlon, a very soft foam, to Dynamic Support as one component to the entire sole upper. By doing so, it allows a smoother run with gentler stops overall. For better support, the proposed heel clip is now larger than the previous iteration. Given you a snugger heel fit and prevention support for over-pronation. Flywire is also part of the model and as always, it provides a better fit and snugger support for your in-step/mid-foot. To finish off the sole’s upper and the shoe, Nike wanted to improve on the stability of the Lunar Glide (which was great in my opinion) by making the shoe lower to the ground. But, they didn’t want to sacrifice any cushioning. Especially when they made it thinner in the fore-foot. So what they did was, cut out some of the foam from the bottom and let the core foam, from the fore-foot, stick out from the carrier. That allowed the shoe to have a lower height. The best way for you to understand this, is to look at the picture of the sole. You’ll see a spatula type silhouette. The line surrounding that is what they took out.
The last piece in the puzzle is the nice sock liner (in-sole). Which is a great component that works and coincides with the sole. Part of it comes implemented with memory foam, with a tuffer underlining that adds a nice under-foot feel. To the heel part, they added TPU (Thermal Plastic Urethane Cup) and made it articulate well with every step.
Upper
The rest of the shoe is pretty straight forward. The upper is almost stitch less only letting up to the toe-box area. The mesh used is the current Torch technology adapted to many Nike models this year. A good material which helps this shoe, at a size 9, come in at a weigh-in of 11.5 oz. Looking at it, you would think other wise but when you pick it up, you’ll notice right away how light it is. The new dominant Nike technology Flywire is also present on this shoe. It is implemented with Nike + too.
Wrap Up
I don’t have the shoe yet, but I’m looking forward to replacing my Lunar Glide with the Lunar Eclipse. Once I get them, I’ll let you know my overall opinion and see if these live up to all that’s said. Let’s hope that these make it to Nike iD like the Lunar Glide 2 and Lunar Elite did. If they do, you can expect me to be there for sure.
Box Price – $130
Weight- size 9 at 11.5oz
A perfect running shoe for the neutral or moderate runners.
Available now at Nike Town NYC in a limited run. Official launch will be in October 2010 and it will be world wide.
Photography by Vagrant Sneaker©. All Rights Reserved
