DIY Ice Studs for Running Shoes

Running in snow and ice is difficult and it can also be hard to know what shoes to wear.

In soft snow I find that my usual trail or fell shoe with a decent tread works well enough. On paths where the snow has been well trodden and compacted down and then frozen hard or where snow has started to melt and then refrozen again then I’ll opt for Microspikes which give excellent traction.

But what about mixed conditions; say where there hasn’t been any snow but very cold temperatures have resulted in icy patches? Here you can find yourself running fairly quickly on firm ground with a good grip only to be suddenly confronted with a patch of treacherous ice. In this case Microspikes would be overkill for the majority of the run and yet you wouldn’t want to be stopping to put them on just for a few metres of frozen ground. For these conditions you need a shoe that can deal both types of terrain.

DIY spikes!

Microspikes are great for very icy conditions

Some running shoes have tungsten spikes built into the tread – the Inov-8 Oroc is a good example. These type of shoes with the tungsten “dobs” have been widely used by orienteers as they give good grip on wet roots often found in forests.

caution, grip needed!

I’ve got a huge collection of shoes and couldn’t really justify buying another pair so I had a think about improvising and making my own studded shoe for the winter conditions!

You will need:

One pair of trail shoes that you don’t mind experimenting with! – I chose a pair of Mammut shoes that I rarely wear.

One pack of 3/8″ Slotted, Hex sheet metal screws. You could use different types, I chose the slotted head as I thought they would give more grip. Obviously they need to be short enough that they don’t protrude through the sole and stick into your foot! (I couldn’t find any from UK suppliers so had to get them from the US via Amazon, they only cost about £8 for a pack of 100 including shipping.

One screwdriver with 1/4″ hex drive adapter.

DIY kit

3/8 inch slotted hex screws

I simply screwed the screws into the shoe at various points around the out-sole on both the heel and forefoot. In all I attached 12 studs on each shoe which probably took less than half an hour. The screws don’t really damage the shoes so I knew there was nothing lost if the experiment didn’t work.

DIY ice studs!

Testing:

This winter has been prolonged so has given me a good opportunity to test them out. The first run was on the hard packed trails of the Longshaw Estate in the Peak District followed by some rock hopping on snow covered gritstone boulders. I was really pleased with the grip they afforded on the rocks, although I did slide a couple of times on the snow covered grass.

grip testing

I then wore them for a road run (shock horror – I thought you were a fell runner!?) when the snow was so heavy that a drive out to the Peak District was impossible. There was hardly any traffic on the roads due to the conditions which allowed me to run in the tyre tracks rather than in the deeper snow. The studs gave a really good grip where they contacted the tarmac (and a satisfying sound!) and it was amusing to see people watching me run fairly confidently as they slithered along the pavements. The real test came in the park where the tarmac path rises very steeply in places; there was just enough of the path showing to let the studs bite and grip to allow me to continue running rather than slipping. By the end of the run I felt fairly confident running at a decent pace on snowy tarmac.

good traction on snowy tarmac

I can’t say that I’ve hammered down any hills whilst wearing them, I’ve kept to a fairly well controlled pace. A few times, especially when jumping the rocks, I’ve wondered if I’d lost any studs but so far so good, three runs and almost three hours of running and they are all still there.

Overall I’m quite pleased with the results. The screws probably won’t last as well as shoes that have an inbuilt stud and I can envisage having to replace a few but for half an hours work and less than a tenner spent I think they’re pretty effective.

UPDATE
It’s a couple of years since I wrote this and as of December 2021 the shoes are still working well and I haven’t lost or had to replace any studs.

sketchy underfoot conditions!

If you found this review useful you can buy me a coffee to show your appreciation!

Kahtoola Microspikes for Running on Ice

Icy conditions have made fell running training a little difficult recently.

Although deep snow is difficult to run through it is actually great for training. You have to work harder as the snow provides resistance to your forwards movement, you have to lift your knees higher and so bring into play muscles that you don’t normally use and if you do fall over (which is inevitable) you usually end up with a soft landing.

The problems start when conditions underfoot are icy such as when the snow melts during the day then refreezes at night or where it gets compressed into a hard, frozen layer. I have been asked by several people recently how I continue training when it gets icy.

One way is to use Micro-spikes. I use Kahtoola. These are basically scaled down walking crampons that simply attach to your shoe and are held in place by stretchy rubber. They can be put on in around 10 seconds per foot and taken off in a fraction of that. Reasonably small and light I simply carry them in my bum bag or rucksack and put them on when needed.

I find them a really great piece of kit which allow me to keep training on terrain that might otherwise be too difficult to run on.

The video shows you how easy they are to use:

To book a Peak District guided run, coaching or navigation training session visit:

Snow Blows

Fell running in the Peak District isn’t always about blue skies & sunshine.

Today the wind howled, snow blew horizontally and the world was reduced to cold shades of grey.

cold shades of grey

This was no day to be out on the high fells, even at low level the wind’s icy fingers found their way through the smallest chink in my armour of windproof clothing, feeling for, finding then chilling any exposed skin.

Facing the wind, big damp gobs of snow numbed my face and drove into my eyes.

Last week I learned a hard lesson when in even worse conditions on a remote hillside I had wished for my ski goggles lying unused back home. Today I had anticipated the worst and packed them and it didn’t take long, running semi blind into the fusillade, before I stopped to put them on.

eye protection

Other than the blowing wind, running conditions weren’t too bad. It seemed that my route, exposed as it was, wasn’t producing those horrible, energy sapping drifts where you disappear up to your knees (and beyond), rather it was scouring the ground leaving a thin compacted layer. I had chosen a short tour of Burbage, using the snow covered Ringinglow road for the last 2 kilometres. Here the few vehicles that had passed had compacted the snow into a thin icy layer and I stopped to don microspikes over my Mudclaws.

microspikes

Once down towards Lady Canning’s plantation the trees afforded some protection although large flakes still sped horizontally past – whirling away in their own mad dash, racing each other into oblivion – as I ran down the road.

blowing snow

The video shows a short section of the run:

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