Hoka's second-generation Skyward X arrives in UK shops in May at £185, holding the original's price while taking 28 grams off the women's sample weight and trimming four millimetres from the heel stack. After a North American rollout in late April, the European launch turns the Skyward X 2 into the first daily-trainer-leaning max-cushion shoe of the spring whose carbon plate has been redrawn from scratch, and the changes go well beyond a cosmetic refresh. Hoka has clearly heard the steady drumbeat of feedback that the original's 48mm tower was tippy under fatigue, and the V2 is the response.
The midsole geometry tells most of the story. The Skyward X 2 keeps Hoka's PEBA-over-EVA layered foam recipe, with the bouncier peba sitting on top of a more stable supercritical EVA carrier, but the stack drops from 48mm to 44mm in the heel with a 5mm offset preserved. Hoka has paired that lower platform with a noticeably wider base, sculpting more of a "bucket seat" under the midfoot to keep the load centred. The new carbon plate is split and tuned to flex more progressively through toe-off, where the V1 felt more like a single rigid lever. In hand the shoe still looks tall, but it sits flatter on the ground and the rocker engages earlier in the gait cycle.
On the run the Skyward X 2 lands in a different category from the original. The first version was best treated as a tempo-day cruiser for heavier runners who wanted some plate help; the V2 plausibly handles long Sundays at marathon pace and easy aerobic work in the same week. The lower stack and wider platform translate into a more confident foot strike at slower paces, while the new plate stiffness lets the shoe still bounce under faster efforts. There is a clear ceiling above 4:30/km where lighter, more aggressive carbon shoes will pull away, but for the long, steady miles that fill most marathon plans the value is obvious.
The upper has been overhauled in step with the platform change. Hoka has switched to a softer, more pliable jacquard mesh, added padding through the tongue and collar, and reshaped the heel counter to sit lower on the Achilles. Combined with a small width increase through the midfoot, the changes mean the V2 tolerates wider feet and longer hauls in a way the original didn't. Lockdown over speed work is still a notch behind a dedicated racer, but for the daily-trainer brief the upper is now a strength rather than the V1's biggest weak spot.
Where the Skyward X 2 leaves its rivals competing is on the supportive end of the carbon-plated spectrum. The Asics Superblast 2, New Balance SC Trainer v3 and Saucony Endorphin Speed 5 are lighter and snappier in isolation, but none offer the same combination of leg-saving stack and platform stability for runners building marathon volume in their late thirties or forties. At £185 the Skyward X 2 is not cheap, but as a single shoe asked to do tempos, recovery runs and the weekly long, it justifies the spend better than the original ever managed.