Once upon a time, there were just running shoes, give or take a racing flat or a track spike. We now have running shoes tailored to every type of run: daily trainers, carbon racers, easy-day recovery shoes, speed session super trainers, tempo shoes. Trail running isn’t immune to the endless subcategories, and the newest niche is gravel shoes—a subset of trail running shoes designed specifically for mixed-terrain runs across compacted gravel paths, forest roads, hard-pack trails, and regular old roads. If you’re recently been scouting for the best running shoes for trail, chances are you’ll have stumbled across gravel shoes. Gravel running shoes are basically hybrid running shoes built to handle multiterrain runs.