Built by people who still race
A performance lab in Boulder, Colorado, that publishes its numbers - including the ones that did not work.
Kinetik was founded in 2016 by biomechanist Renna Okafor and former 5,000m national finalist Theo Marchand, in a garage two blocks off Pearl Street with a secondhand force plate and a treadmill that drew more power than the building could spare. They were trying to settle an argument about energy return, and the first honest answer - 31% - was bad enough to start a company over.
Eleven midsole formulations later, the VX Carbon returns 42% at a 3.2 m/s test cadence, weighs 184g in a US 9, and carries an 8mm heel-to-toe drop that has not changed since version three because the athletes asked us not to touch it. Every claim on this site traces back to a rig, a lab notebook and a date.
We test where we live. Boulder sits at 1,655 metres, and the Mesa Trail chews through anything with a glued-on outsole inside a month. Whatever survives a Colorado winter goes to our Charleston group for sea-level validation, because altitude data alone would be a half-truth.
Nineteen sponsored athletes - marathoners, track specialists, trail ultrarunners and functional-fitness competitors - log more than 40,000 km a year in pre-production product. They are paid to break things and to say so publicly. Four prototypes died that way last season, and we would rather lose the tooling cost than the trust.
- Measured energy return
- 42%Measured energy return
- Athlete testing per year
- 40,000 kmAthlete testing per year
- Sponsored athletes
- 19Sponsored athletes
A short history
2016
The 31% problem
Renna Okafor and Theo Marchand measure their first prototype at 31% energy return and decide that is the whole business plan.
2019
The 4,000 km protocol
Wear testing becomes mandatory: no product ships without 4,000 km of mixed-surface mileage and 300 hours on the flex rig.
2022
Chicago, 2:21:04
Dessa Kirui races the VX Carbon prototype to a ninety-one-second personal best in its first competitive outing.
2026
Forty thousand kilometres
The roster grows to nineteen athletes covering more than 40,000 km a year in pre-production gear.
What we hold to
42% energy return
Measured on a mechanical rig at 3.2 m/s, not estimated from a foam spec sheet.
Athlete-tested, athlete-approved
Nineteen sponsored athletes log 40,000+ km a year on product before it launches.
90-day performance guarantee
Train in it for three months. If it breaks down early, we replace it and publish why.
What customers say
“I put 640 km on a single pair of Meridian trainers through a Boulder winter and the midsole still measured within 4% of its out-of-box rebound. That has never happened to me with another shoe.”
“The Grid Tight holds compression at 22 mmHg through a two-hour session and does not migrate on a heavy clean. I stopped taping my quads the week I switched.”
Training data, twice a month
Test results, race reports from the roster, and the occasional workout you can actually use. No countdown timers, no fake scarcity.