Hoka One One Evo Mafate

This is an interesting one.
I tend to have a bias towards more minimal footware and part of this is probably because I'm relatively light, so a shoe that may feel minimal to a heavier runner could still feel like it has plenty of cushion to me. Regardless, I had signed up to my biggest race challenge yet; Les Traces des Duc de Savoie (TDS) and I decided to listen to the common advice from my more experienced ultra running friends and go maximal.  The Hoka Evo Mafate was the shoe that I settled on.

Stoat Rating: 7/10
Weight: 300g in UK 8.5
Sizing: True to size

Overview
This is the first maximal shoe that I have really enjoyed.  The midsole is snappy and responsive without any of that mushyness that a lot of Hokas other maximal shoes that I have tried have. However, I had issues with blisters when running anything further than ~marathon distance. These seemed to be due to the 'bucket seat' shape of the midsole where the 'sides' of the midsole bucket rubbed on the side of my feet where they curve up to create a 'wall'. This was particularly noticeable on the inside of my big toe due to the taper of the toebox which doesn't match the geometry of my my feet (or any normal feet as far as I can see).  Ultimately this means that the shoe isn't great for ultra distances for me at least, which is a shame as I loved the general feel of the midsole.   

Upper

The shoe is a narrow fit at the front with a pronounced taper on both the inside and outside of the toebox; this widens to a moderate fit at the heel. There is a little more room than the Hoka Speedgoat2, but the shoe is not very tolerant to different foot shapes due to the upper being very inelastic and the midsole having the 'bucket seat'. This means that if you fit the mould then they are probably great, but if you don't, then they won't conform much to your foot shape.

Midsole

A huge slab of foam which surprised me by providing an elastic / springy toe off without the mushyness that I have hated in past Hokas (notably the speedgoat2 which I ran in quite a bit). As someone who generally prefers more minimal shoes I have a hard time in admitting that I loved the midsole, and in spite of having fit problems that make this shoe painful for ultra distances, I have used it quite a bit on shorter trail races where they do well on a mix of terrain from hardpacked / rocky to quite soft.

My only significant complaint on the midsole is that I think that the bucket seat shape was the cause of blisters on the sides of my toes and heel. I think that this was also accentuated by the complex shaping of the midsole where the outer edge seems to be hinged such that it could lever up and pinch the foot. This seemed to be an intentional design feature which I guess is intended to provide a more secure foot grip, but I'm not sure how much of a benefit this is in practice and it certainly seemed to worsen the blisters for me. I also found that the arch was a little high and caused me some irritation - this was solved by putting in some Nike insoles which taper at the edges and counteracted the high arch. The photo below you can see my big toe distorting the upper inward outside of the outsole.

Outsole
The lugs were quite pronounced when new and provided good traction on the muddy terrain of TDS, but also ran well on the road. The only downside was that they have lost height over time as there are relatively few lugs overall and limited contact surface area.  As a consequence, I assumed that the outsole would not last long, but in practice I have put 300km on them and so far they are holding up OK with about 25% of the height lost.

Aesthetics
I like them.  I tend to prefer a simple colour scheme and I think that they deliver.  There is a second colour with an orangy red at the front of the shoe if you want something a bit brighter.

What I'd change
The shape of the toebox doesn't work for me, and to be honest the taper on the inside is simply not the shape of a normal human foot. If this were straighter then I think the shoes would fit much better and, for me, would be superb for long ultras in difficult terrain. I would probably also personally loose 5mm of stack height as I think that I would benefit from the tradeoff of cushion for stability, however, for heavier runners I suspect the tradeoff is about right.
All of this makes me want to try the Challenger ATR5 which looks to fix all these problems, but the outsole looks a bit more limited to tamer terrain.

Final thoughts
Nearly amazing - I love the feel of the midsole which combines a springy feel with ample protection for the long haul. The outsole is great on a range of surfaces albeit it that it won't be the most long lasting. The shoe is ultimately let down by it's fit, and given the in-elasticity of the upper and the bucket seat midsole, it is not tolerant of different foot shapes.

The 'Ladybird Guide' to running

I have bought many mighty scientific tomes on running technique, but they all fail in summarising succinctly what you need to do in order to train / improve.  They also rarely cover the reality of other life constraints such as having a job, children and so forth.

So here is my brief guide to running, targeted at anything from half marathons to 50 milers.

Training

Using your heartrate

Training above and below your aerobic threshold trains different mechanisms in your body. For most of us, if you are running half marathon or longer then you need to train both, and in order to do this effectively you need to find your maximum heartrate so that you know how hard you are pushing. Calculating your maximum from age is likely to be very inaccurate - you need to go out and run a session to try to find it.  There are plenty of suggestions about how to do this on the web - most involve running a few hill reps and then going all out on the final one.

Your weekly plan

You should aim to always do one long run and one speed session to train your faster per week. These are your most valuable sessions and if life gets in the way then try to rearrange them.

The long run should ramp up from whatever distance you are regularly running to about 40k max. It should be run slow - (keep it in zone 2 which should be roughly 60%-60% HRmax). If you push too hard on this run (which is common) then you are not training your endurance and are risking injury through putting greater (unessary) stress on your body.

The best speed session should focus on trying to get to 4 x 8 minute reps at 90% HR, but anything structured that gets you running fast is good. This session is focussed in increasing your aerobic threshold limit and improving your technique when running at pace. A treadmill is great for this sort of thing as you can set a pace and try to hold it (while keeping an eye on your heartrate). I also quite like going to a club track night as it provides a bit of competition and structure, but they tend towards shorter intervals and a higher number of reps than I believe is ideal for endurance distances.

Fill in the rest of the week with whatever fits in with life – 10-15kms here and there. If you are training for a long ultra then you might benefit from longer distances and if you are elite then you might benefit from a second speed session. Decide what you are focussing on though and either keep it fast or slow - don't get stuck in the middle. If you can't complete any of these 'filler' runs then don't worry so much about it. If you can easily rearrange it great, if not move on.

Most plans would have you running 5 or even 6 times per week for long ultras. If you are elite then this might be sensible, but based on personal experience I think that most amateurs might find the sweet spot to be closer to 4 times a week which allows for a greater amount of recovery.

Always have a rest day after the long run or the speed session.

Your rest day is important - this is where the body's overcompensation in response to the training is making your fitter. Eat and sleep well.

Tempo runs - these are typically~45mins at or around your aerobic threshold. Many training plans include these and my club promotes them as a good training tool, however, I haven't come across any scientific literature showing any benefit and my conclusion is to stay away from this kind of training, you get more benefit to your aerobic training from a proper speed session and more benefit to your endurance training at a lower level.

Longer term planning

You want to try to build your mileage over time to the point where you are running your target number of km's /week for a few weeks before you taper. Overlaid on this you want to be cyclical in your training load - divide your training up into 4 week blocks with 3 weeks ramping up your mileage and then a week stepping things back by about 30% for recovery. This is really hard to accomplish without the use of a plan that you try to stick to - once you have some visibility of your races for the year I reccomend mapping out your intended mileage week by week, even if you don't have a day by day plan. Once written down it's much easier to follow.

Gym

If you don't do any cross training (and even if you do) then some gym work is probably beneficial. I'm pretty ill informed about this, but I aim to do a couple of gym sessions per week where I work mostly on core strength and flexibility. I also keep a regular focus on my glutes and use a range of physio excercises to develop glute and specifically glute med strength - side steps back and forth with a slight squat (Space invaders). There is loads of infomation on the web about gym sessions for runners - I'm not up to speed enough to reccomend any one approach.

Technique

A minefield of opinion, but one of the key things to focus on is cadence. Most people run with too slow a cadence so they don’t recover any of the energy from their achilles, and this means that you run inefficiently. Most guidance suggests that you need to aim for around 180bpm, but I'd imagine that if you are short and light the optimum could be higher and heavy and tall would be a bit lower.  Try running with a metronome app on your phone to start getting a feel for this cadence. At first it may feel ridiculously fast, but over time it should lead you to shorten your stride which is generally a good thing. 

From there you should think in terms of having your feet land under you and then kicking out behind driving from your hips, through the glutes and then hamstrings. If you ‘reach out’ with your feet in front of you then you are slowing yourself down and also loading your quad while extending it which is very tiring (that’s what makes downhill such a killer on your quads). Critically, your knee joint should be opening as it hits the ground, not closing (on the flat at least). 

You may find with these changes that you naturally develop more of a forefoot strike rather than a heel strike, but focus on cadence first and the rest should follow.  In other words I (personally) think that a lot of the forefoot / heelstrike debate is misguided in that the footstrike is more of a symptom than a cause. The odd bit of barefoot running is no bad thing from time to time if you have a nice bit of grass to run on, but don’t take it to heart. 

One area of trail running where you have the biggest opportunity to make significant gains (particularly in longer races) is the downhill. A lot of people 'put the brakes on' coming downhills, leaning back and using lots of energy in the quads. Learning to run downhill well takes practice, but the prinicples of it are to try to keep perpendicular to the slope (lean forward) and let your feet fall under you and roll down the hill putting no energy in through your legs. You will find that you can go much faster with much less effort in this manner until the point where the slope gets too steep and your speed is uncomfortably fast - and therein lies the key clue to running downhill - it's mostly about having the confidence to let go and accept the speed that gravity is gifting you!

Eating

You can store about 1.5-2hrs of glycogen in the muscles after which you need to burn fat.  The body only produces the enzymes that break down fats into somthing that the rest of your system can benefit from if your blood sugar goes into deficit, so if you do all your training while cramming sugars into your system then you are going to struggle a bit on race day.  All the different forms of intermittent fasting are basically trying to kick the body into producing those enzymes.  

I haven't tried enough different approaches to endorse any one system over another but during training I try to limit sugar/carb intake and about one month before a big race I normally do a few fasted runs – ideally do an afternoon / evening workout then skip supper and breakfast and then go out for a run in the morning.  You’ll feel bloody awful the first time but it gets easier and on the plus side the enzymes tend to have a relatively long half life (at least a month) in the body, so you don't need to be doing this every week.

On race day it is so easy to forget to eat.  If you are doing races for longer than 2hrs then make sure that you keep eating or you’ll crash.

There you go – everything that I know about running... It hasn't made me any faster 😊

All the above comes from reading a many training sites over the summer and combining with personal experience. I have not got a handy list of references for all of the points above, but I may go back and update with links to some of the key articles or papers that I found when I get a chance. There are also a couple of point of personal opinion which I have tried to highlight as such in the text.

Inov-8 Terraultra G260 - Updated summer 2019

Inov-8 Terraultra G260 - Updated

Stoat Rating: 9/10

(-1 for squishy insole and a lack of protection from the cutaway outsole)
Weight: 266g in UK 8.5
Sizing: Runs large - you may want to size down half a size if you are on the boarderline

I originally posed some 'out of the box' thoughts on the G260 laster year, but decided not to keep them as the upper felt too roomy and overly stiff and clunky. They were also heavier than the 'advertised' weight. This summer, somewhat under the radar, Inov-8 has revised the design of the upper, which is now much closer to the non graphene version of the shoe and this transforms the shoe in my opinion - improving the fit, comfort and weight of the shoe significantly. This is now my goto shoe for the majority of my trail runs.

The OG version of the G260 with stiff kevlar overlays

The newer 2019 version of the G260

Weight

Generally, according to my (uncalibrated) scales, Inov-8 is spot on with weights in my size (UK8.5).  The OG version of the G260 I measured at 288g, nearly 30g heavier than the published weight, but the newer shoe is coming in at 266g - much closer to advertised and making it a light shoe - particularly given the intended use.

Trailroc 250 - 246g in a UK8.5

OG Terraultra 260 - 288g in a UK8.5

Fit and Upper

This is an area where the revised 2019 version has seen some changes. The original version had a stiff uncompromising upper that felt volumous and didn't seem to wrap around the foot the way Inov-8s normally do.  The revised version changes all this. The shoe still fits wide in the toes and slightly longer than some of my other Inov-8's of the same size, but it wraps snugly around the midfoot and heel giving a 10/10 locked down feeling.
Overall the shoes fit long -somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 sizes bigger and if you were on the fence with sizing, or you went up in size to get more width or toe room in other Inov-8's then you might not need to in these.  That said, it somehow feels like this additional length is 'by design' given the intended long distance use. Most of the extra room seems to be in the toebox and although overall longer, I stuck with my normal shoe size as the heel and midfoot were so well locked in.
I found the toe room to be wide but not excessive and the last doesn't seem as 'banana shaped' as some of their other shoes which often leave me with acres of room on the inside for my big toe, but cramping my little toes together. I were to liken the fit to any of the shoes in my quiver then it would be closest to the Nike Terra Kiger 4's, but with a bit more height in the toebox (which is welcome) and a bit more support in the upper.
I haven't used the shoes long enough to gauge upper life, but it is worth noting that the OG version used the kevlar overlays claiming that they were there to make a bomproof upper that would last as long as the graphene sole. The new version has a much more conventional upper, so will this (and midsole) limit the lifetime of the shoe to the point where there is no benefit to the graphene sole?

Midsole

Most of Inov-8's recent shoes have a fairly firm midsole, and then a thicker than normal insole to create a softness for the foot.  This shoe is no different and provides a nice level of comfort that makes a great compromise between groundfeel and stability for the softer conditions and isolation from harder surfaces. The midsole has no rockplate so you can get a bit of rock poke through, but out of the box and at my weight there is plenty of protection - I might consider a stonegaurd for a long rocky ultra though.  In case you didn't notice, they are zero drop and feel like it.  The combination of zero drop, relatively low stack / firm midsole means that if you are the kind of runner that loves a Hoka or a heavy heel striker then I suspect you may find them too minimal for longer distances.

The shoe overall feels very flexible both longditudanly and torsionally and I think that this enhances the ground feel.

Inov-8 continues to use the 6mm sponge insole which absorbs water and squelches horribly. I have posted about this already and is not the end of the world - just replace them - but it does add to the cost of the package. I'd love to know why Inov-8 uses them - particularly when most of their shoes are targeted at wet conditions.

Outsole

The outsole on the G260 has a decent tread which will cope with a bit of mud, but has enough surace area to run well on harder surfaces as well. It is certainly a bit better in soft conditions than your average trail shoe, but don't try them in full on fell conditions. The outsole has small areas of exposed midsole which would seem to be there primarily for flexibility, which it seems to achieve, but this does come at the expense of a chance of some rocks poking through if they catch the wrong spot.

'50% Stronger, 50% More Elastic and 50% Harder wearing' say Inov-8. I don't have the wherewithal to confirm or deny this, however they seem to make no claims about the grip! I'm a bit of a synic when it comes to marketing claims, but I have found the grip to be similar to the non graphene version so if the sole lasts longer for the same grip then I guess that this is an improvement. I'll post back on the lifetime of the shoe when I have past the 500km mark.

The thing that I can't really understand though is that it is rarely the outsole that stops me using a shoe most often it is the upper that goes first, or the midsole becomes too packed out for long distance runs, so if the outsole is not the 'weak link' then I can't see how the lifetime of the shoe will be improved?

Conclusion

Now that I have run in these I think that Inov-8 has designed a really great shoe for long distance running.  If you have ever wanted an Altra Superior but wished it had a bit more protection and tighter heel hold, or a Nike Terra Kiger but found the toebox too shallow and the sole a bit unstable then this could be the shoe for you.  Plenty of room for the toes, solid midfoot and heel hold and a firm responsive midsole look like a great mix to me.  They are zero drop, which I think is a bold move for a long distance shoe (personally I find ~4mmdrop to be my sweetspot), but I'd rather that than 8mm or more.
The outsole?  I don't see how it will improve the lifetime of the shoe and given that the non graphene version of the shoe is almost identical I might be inclined to save a few £'s in the future and stick to their traditional componds, but I'll see how it pans out over time.
Overall for me, these are a winner and seem to have taken up the number one spot for long and short distance trail runs, giving way to proper fell shoes only in really muddy conditions.

Linux Setup

A bit off-piste here, but with plenty of time, a job search on and in need of a PC I decided to explore the option of installing a version of linux on an old laptop that was unusably slow.

I started with the default version of Ubuntu 18.04. It was easy to download and make a self-installing USB.  On booting from the USB you even have a choice to run the OS without installing it to get a feel for it.  I jumped right in, and installed it as my existing Windows system was unusable.
Installation was straightforward, and I liked the operating system, but unfortunately, I found it a bit laggy and slow.  Not entirely surprising given that my PC was below the recommended minimum spec.

I then explored options for lighter weight distributions and settled on Xubuntu.  This is basically Ubuntu, but comes with a much lighter weight desktop called Xfce.  As shipped, Xfce looks a bit bland and has none of the slick animations that you get with more modern desktops.  However, you get lots of options for setting it up, and I feel that I have got a layout that works well, looks good and doesn't have the heavy overhead of Gnome etc...  You may or may not agree :)  Basically I have two panels, one at the top which gives all my information and open widows, and one at the bottom which just has launcher icons for my commonly used applications.  Both of these panels 'Intelligently autohide'; this means that they autohide when you have widows covering them, but not when they don't.

My Xfce desktop

In looking at different options I couldn't get a clear take on whether Xfce or Mate was the lighter desktop.  Different sites say different things.  MATE looks like it might have a slightly more modern default setup, but I actually prefer the setup that I achieved (2 panels) on Xfce.  Similarly, I also looked a bit at Mint rather than Ubuntu, but didn't get much of a steer on which I'd prefer - most sites suggested that Mint might be a touch easier to get into, but I suspect that was more related to the use of the Cinnamon desktop which is its default.  I might try an install of Mint with the MATE on another old laptop and compare to what I have.

UPDATE: I did install Mint with Xfce.  The default installation comes with some better applications by default (picture viewer and Impress) however, I prefer the Ubuntu setup overall and it is not hard to add these extra applications.

Anyway, my take is that linux has come a long way from when I played with it last. I'm just going to list the things that I did to get my system setup.... mostly for my own record in future.  I'm not going to list all the detail - there is so much help available on the web for each of these steps.

1) Installation:  Simple.  Go to the Xubuntu site and download the installer here:https://xubuntu.org/download/  Here you can download a bootable iso image or get a file that will make a bootable USB key.  Boot your computer from the USB key and you will get an option to run linux from the key or install it onto your computer.  For the install procedure, there are a limited number of options, but you will need to think of a computer name, username and password.

2) Setup of Xfce: I wanted a panel at the bottom of the screen to launch applications... to do this right click on the top panel and go to panel preferences, you should be able to create a new panel and position it at the bottom.  I made this panel a bit deeper than the top 'title bar'.  I have set both panels to have a translucent grey background and they become more opaque as the mouse hovers over them.  I also use the 'intelligently hide' option for both which allows the applications to use the full screen and then the panels appear if you move the mouse over them.  I then added all the applications that I use regularly to the bottom panel.

3) Printers: Totally straightforward - got to the settings - it worked out of the box for my Samsung USB printer.

4) Other applications to install:
The following can all be installed from the software manager - it should be completely straightforward:
Spotify
Skype
KeepassXC (Latest version via Snap or a slightly older version from Ubuntu)
Dropbox
Impress (Powerpoint for Libre Office)
Mailspring (I'm still flicking back and forth between using Gmail through ICE or Mailspring.  Mailspring provides some interesting functionality including being able to see when people read emails etc...)
KeepassXC-Browser (enables you to auto populate passwords from KeepassXC to Firefox.

note: Historically I have used Chrome on my windows machine. You can download Chrome for Ubuntu or install Chromium which is basically the same thing less Flash support. However, I found Chrome and Chromium to be very resource heavy on Ubuntu, and seemed to end up getting heavily bogged down using the swapfile.  Because of this I switched back to Firefox which is a bit slower but I'm happy with it.

5) Less Straightforward:
Viewnior - install this to replace the existing picture viewer.  Much more intuitive and can rotate a pic.
I used ICE to create launchers for Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Drive.  A .deb installer for ICE can be found here:https://launchpad.net/~peppermintos/+archive/ubuntu/p8-release/+files/ice_5.2.8_all.deb

Still looking for:
A good Google Drive and Onedrive client.  There are a few but none seem quite robust apart from commercial ones which cost £'s. Rclone works well but it is command line driven and doesn't sync automatically when you edit something.

Training Hickup

Well, I had three weeks following my training plan to the letter, and I was starting to feel a little fitter.  This weekend was not meant to be too much training - 22k on Saturday and 10 on Sunday, so I headed down to Dartmoor to get some miles in with Joe. We mapped out a loop from his house up onto Cosden and then heading north to Sticklepath and then tracing a loop round west to circle Cosden and back home. Sunny skys and an easy pace - what could be better.

Our route

Joe on top of Cosden

Me on Cosden - feeling good

Unfortunately, the running gods were not with me and on the decent my foot rolled off a grass tussock, and I landed with it over to one side and the toes tucked under.  The crack didn't sound good and an X-ray confirmed that I had fractured my foot.  Specifically an avulsion fracture off the side of the calcaneus.

I maneuvered to a small stream to cool it in an attempt to prevent swelling while Joe and I decided what to do next.  The map showed that we were only a few km from a road, so after some tentative steps with my poles, I figured that I could make it down without assistance and Joe would run home to get a car to pick me up.  I stuck my buddy beacon on in viewranger (great safety feature - if you are not aware of it then it basically traces your movement on a map so that friends can see where you are / have been) and headed down.

Yum

I met up with Joe in Sticklepath having failed to buy a cream tea because Joe's emergency £10 was an old note that is no longer legal tender!  Then on to Exeter A&E to sit out the rest of the afternoon.

So what next? It's a real disappointment as the one positive about finishing up my job last month was that at least I had the opportunity to take my training for TDS seriously.  It's frustrating how all that can evaporate in a moment's lack of concentration.  That said, I'm trying to be sanguine about it: I don't think that running TDS is out of the question at this stage.  I have 12 weeks until the race and should be back running lightly in six, so that gives me an opportunity to get a three-week training block in before tapering. If I can work on some strength and fitness between now and then it is possibly worth starting TDS, even if I have to scale back my ambitions. The only thing that might change this is if there is any risk of the TDS impacting my long-term recovery - there will be more races, and my #1 priority has to be long-term recovery.

I have pulled out of my training race (Ham and Lyme 100k) which was in 5 weeks time - the race director kindly let me defer my entry until next year - many thanks.

So now to think about what training I can do over the next six weeks with my foot in a boot!  I'm hoping that after a couple of weeks I may be able to do some swimming, cycling and start on a mega program of squats!

Replacement Insoles

Many of my favorite shoe brands are gravitating to using open-cell, Ortholite insoles.  I can understand it as they have a great feel when first putting on a shoe, don't move about much and seem to last well.  In addition, brands seem to be gravitating towards thicker insoles; Inov-8 for example now uses a 6mm insole in most (all?) of its shoes.

A dry, Ortholite, 6mm Footbed

Unfortunately, these insoles are open-cell foam which means that they absorb water.  A lot of water.  A dry 6mm insole weights in at 25g in my size UK 8.5.  The same insole, soaked in water increases in weight to 121g.  Treading on the insole will start to pump this water out, but unless it leaves the shoe instantly it just sucks straight back into the insole again when unweighted. In practice, after a soaking and then running a short distance (100m) I have found that the weight gain of the insole alone is somewhere around 80-90g on average.

A wet, Ortholite, 6mm Footbed

Most shoe reviews discuss the weight of a shoe and cite small differences as being critical, and if you are running in wet areas then an Ortholite insole could be increasing the weight of your shoe by as much as 40% through water absorption.  In addition, this pumping of water in and out of the foam is costing you energy, and resulting in an unpleasant squelch.

A 6mm Neoprene Footbed

I'm a big fan of Inov-8 shoes but I don't like the additional weight or squelch with their insoles.  In searching for replacements I found very few that were thick enough and they were usually very expensive. To solve the problem, I have tested  EVA and Neoprene sheet which can be purchased on Amazon for less than the cost of a replacement insole.


Making the insole was quick and simple. I traced a line around the outside of the existing insole and then cut the insole out with scissors.  It took about 5 minutes to make a pair.

Results

EVA: Light (7g), stiffer and provides a bit more protection than either the original insole or the Neoprene.  It doesn't have much 'spring' to it, and feels like it could compress over time.  The EVA foam that I was able to get had no lining material, so it might benefit from a thin commercial footbed on top.

Neoprene: 18g, so lighter than the original footbed (25g).  The neoprene is 'floppy' but has more of a rubbery feel to it and you can definitely sense more 'spring' underfoot.  I don't expect this to compress much.  The neoprene deforms locally to provide more surface deformation or 'squish' - you can almost imagine it squeezing up between your toes and this provides a good slipper like softness when you first put the shoe on - personally I'm not a big fan of that type of feel but I know a lot of people are. The Neoprene that I got was lined on both sides - it might be better if you could find some lined on one side only.

Neither the Neoprene or the EVA absorbed any water.

What to use

The EVA might contribute a bit more protection, in effect adding thickness to the midsole, but I think that the EVA will work better with something to line it - either a thin off the shelf insole or perhaps a thin sheet of Neoprene.

I like the bounce of the neoprene and, for simplicity, I would probably go for that as a simple replacement of a thick Ortholite insole, unless I wanted to give a shoe a bit more protection.

I also liked the feel of the Neoprene under a stiffer insole - you still feel the bounce but without the squish (which I'm not a fan of personally).  I think that this could be my favorite combination and certainly, if I had a shoe which I was looking to take up some room in then a Neoprene layer under the existing footbed would be great.

I'm interested to try PVC and PU.  I suspect that PU, in particular, might be a little stiffer and could work well in combination with the Neoprene... watch this space.

It is worth noting that because these are foams, there could be fairly large differences in density and, because they were not bought from technical suppliers, I don't have those details, so your experience might vary.