Nike Reactx Rejuven8 Slide Deep Royal Blue

Use them at both ends of a session, on before you warm up and back on the moment you finish, ideally with bare feet so the contoured footbed works. The second use is monsoon and travel: they dry instantly, they clear airport security in a second, and they handle wet floors that would destroy leather. Wear with shorts, or with wide track pants if you want them to look deliberate. Size true; oversized slides let the foot slide off the arch contour. Rinse with water and mild soap, air dry out of direct sunlight, and never leave them in a hot car or on a sunny balcony, where foam warps and does not come back.

Recovery footwear belongs to the same tradition as Just Do It, which first aired on 1 July 1988 featuring 80 year old runner Walt Stack rather than an elite athlete, and which Advertising Age later named one of the top five slogans of the twentieth century. Nike's whole argument has been that the brand belongs to anyone who trains, and this is the product for the hours after. Steve Prefontaine, the company's first track endorser and the enduring symbol of running as attitude rather than sport, represented exactly the kind of athlete who lives in a pair of slides between sessions. The category is unglamorous, which is why it stays honest.

A moulded slide built around ReactX foam, so the entire midsole and footbed are the product and the strap is just what keeps it on. The footbed is contoured rather than flat, which is the difference between a recovery slide and a beach slipper: your arch is supported so the foam does not simply flatten under standing load. Deep Royal Blue runs across the whole shoe, hiding marks better than a light colour would. Single material construction means there is nothing to stitch, split or crack, and cleaning is a rinse. The tradeoff is that foam takes a set over time, so the footbed you get after a year is softer and lower than the one you started with.