Mudtalon Zero

I have the Mudtalon zero and they are a great orienteering shoe if metal studs and cramped toes are not your thing. They also feel bouncy and fun to run in. But the new Trailfly does not fit me at all and the midsole and grip felt a bit meh. For the stuff they're good at I'd rather wear a road shoe. My wife loves them though and did her latest ultra race in them.

Inov8 Mud Talon Zero. Absolute best trail shoe for mud in my opinion. Super light for a trail shoe as well, 255g and has a more natural fit on your feet than most main stream brands.

Would definitely look at Inov8 Imo they fit this kind of foot shape. They are also relatively minimal compared to most, even their max cushion models are not particularly high stack by today's standards. They have a zero drop version of most models also. If you have a narrow heel I'd go 'precision fit', they still have decent toebox, and good ground feel imo. Depending on terrain - trailfly are good on hardpack and low-medium technical trails, trail talons are the all rounder for varied terrain and softer surfaces, and mud talons are for mud and highly technical terrain.

It depends on how much mud and slippery stuff you are going to encounter. If it's 10 mins of mud in a 3 hour race then you can loose 3 mins by wearing your Pegasus trail if not then get 6mm+ lugs on your shoes. If it's ice then any trail shoes plus decent ice grippers/studs will work well.  I did a race at the weekend with roal to trail shoes plus grippers and it would have worked brilliantly had I bought decent grippers rather than use my wife's 5 year old £3 a pair rubber grippers with metal coils on. I do a triathlon in Scotland and wear my Inov8 mudtalons with 8mm lugs and they work really well. Half the run is mud or bog and I do not slip or slide. I've tried it in Nike Ultrafly and I was a lot slower! The most efficient trail shoes on runrepeat seem to be the Saucony Endorphin Edge and the Xodus Ultra 3. So if one of those has enough grip I would maybe give that a try. The best shoe is the one you already own, so if you have the Pegasus trail just wear it... But it is a very middling trail shoe. It does every pretty badly. It's not massively comfy, it's relatively slow and it's good poor grip... But you can look up your own metric see what you might like then try on a couple of them 🤞.

Different models have different types of mesh, and maybe some of them do not last as long as other brands, but I haven't been disappointed in the longevity of any. I'm not a long-distance hiker, but for what its worth, the couple pairs of inov8s that I've retired, it hasn't been because of the mesh. I'm retiring some mudtalons soon because I've ripped a couple lugs off the soles and I'm tired of shoe-gooing them back on. I retired a pair of (an older style) of roadflys because the layers of sole started separating at the toe (after quite a few years of doing crossfit in them, so a lot of toe abuse from things like burpees). My trailflys have probably 50 days of hiking on them and show no real signs of wear.