高價跑鞋一定更好？不一定！

Your choice of running shoe is a very personal decision. You've got to balance how well they protect your feet and legs with how they fit, how heavy they are and, yes, even how they look. I've run in almost nothing but Asics for many years, and I bet you have a personal favorite that you buy again and again.
選擇跑鞋是個私人決定。你要平衡鞋子對腳的保護，和褲子是不是搭配，鞋子的重量甚至外觀。我多年來只穿亞瑟士，我敢說你肯定也一次次的選擇自己最鐘愛的。

But if you want the closest thing to an objective look at quality and cost, a Danish Web site called runrepeat.com has crunched the numbers from nearly 135,000 consumer reviews it gathered over a year, along with the suggested retail price of most of the popular brands.
但如果你想要最客觀的了解質量和價格，丹麥網站runrepeat.com從搜集了一年多的評論中匯總了13.5萬多名消費者的數據，還給出了大多數大眾品牌的建議零售價。

The biggest surprise: The higher the price, the lower the rating in many cases. In fact, the 10 most expensive running shoes, with an average list price of $181 per pair, were rated 8.1 percent lower than the 10 cheapest models (average price $61).
最令人驚訝的是：價格越高，評價越低。實際上，平均標價181美元，價格排前十的鞋子，評價要比價格排最后十名的款型低8.1%（最后十位均價只有61美元）。

"If money is a matter to you, you will not get more in expensive running shoes," says the Web site's founder, Jens Jakob Andersen. "Affordable mid-range running shoes are very nearly the same as expensive running shoes."
網站創始人延斯·雅各布·安徒生稱：“如果你比較在意錢，買昂貴的跑鞋就沒多大意義，中檔跑鞋不比更貴的跑鞋差。”

That doesn't mean that you should buy $15 running shoes at a department store. Those will almost surely cause you injuries. But Andersen believes that running shoe makers have poured so much money into marketing in their battle for a slice of a multibillion-dollar market that we don't know what's real any longer. According to Running USA, 46.25 million pairs of running shoes were sold in 2013, at a cost of $3.09 billion.
這不意味著你該到百貨超市里買一雙15美元的便宜跑鞋。這樣的鞋子幾乎無疑會給你帶來傷害。但是安徒生認為跑鞋制造商花成千上萬的銀子做營銷，只為了在這個百萬美元的市場分一杯羹，最后肯定會讓我們眼花繚亂。美國跑步協會（Running USA）的數據顯示，2013年美國跑鞋的銷售數量達4625萬雙，銷售額達30.9億美元。

Most of the shoes reviewed did reasonably well. "Runners are pretty satisfied with the shoes they buy in general," Andersen says. But that also highlights the fairly large satisfaction gap between high- and low-priced shoes.
多數鞋子的評價相當不錯。安徒生說：“跑步者總體來說對鞋子比較滿意，但是評論結果也顯示出高價鞋子和低價鞋子之間有很大的滿意度差距。”

"When you spend more, you expect more," Andersen says in trying to explain why expensive shoes may have disappointed some purchasers. "... But you should not expect to be less satisfied spending more money."
“你花的越多，期望值越高，”安徒生這樣解釋許多消費者不滿高價鞋的原因。“你不可能花的多還沒有期望。”

Runrepeat bills itself as the Yelp of running shoes. Andersen says he takes no money from any company, funding the site himself. There are no ads.
Runrepeat網站自稱跑鞋點評網站。安徒生說他沒有收任何公司的資助，完全是自己支撐網站運營，也沒有做廣告。

So which brands come out on top? Skechers, Saucony and Vibram FiveFingers took the three spots on the podium, while Reebok, Adidas and Hoka One One brought up the rear.
那么哪個品牌排名老大？斯凱奇（Skechers），索康尼（Saucony）和伐柏拉姆五指鞋（Vibram FiveFingers）躋身前三甲。銳步（Reebok），阿迪達斯（Adidas）和Hoka One One緊隨其后。

"What Skechers are doing great is that they don't do the really high premium running shoes," Andersen says. "They are the running shoe brand for moms."
安徒生總結道：“斯凱奇之所以如此牛，是因為他們的跑鞋溢價不會過高。他們的跑鞋連普通的家庭主婦也買得起。”

Vocabulary

crunch: 對……進行數學運算；（反復）處理
bill: 通告，宣布
premium: 溢價

英文來源：華盛頓郵報
譯者：劉傳坤
審校&編輯：丹妮