Good shoe recommendation needed

I anticipated 100-125 as the high end. We have a place in Shreveport that specializes in running. I’ll see if I can get him there soon. Planned to go there anyway, just wanted to be prepared in case I get a salesman try to push some $250 shoe as “needed.”

Two of mine run CC; main thing I’d look for is a flexible shoe that is a comfortable middle ground.

You can build from there but this is not the time to buy a stability, max cushion, minimalistic, etc shoe.

Will he be doing most of his training runs on pavement, grass, or dirt?

My son's team does about 80% of their miles on pavement, with the remaining 20% on the track or grass. I also know that 95% of his the miles he runs in meets will be on grass. So I bought him a nice pair of road shoes (Adidas SL20) and a pair of spikeless XC shoes for grass days and meets. You can routinely find these on sale for under $40.

In terms of terrain, XC races differ from region to region, as well as from host to host. I would suggest having your kid ask his coach what type of terrain they will be mostly running on. That should give you a good start when shopping for shoes.

On many XC shoes, you use to be able to substitute rubber spikes for the metal spikes if you were running on a particularly hard or dry course one meet. Not sure if that's still a thing.

ETA: Make sure your kid cleans and dries his shoes properly after a dirty or muddy run. Not doing this is the quickest way to ruining a good pair of shoes. He'll probably still log some miles in these shoes come track season.

Agree with others that more info is needed on training surfaces. I have Altra Vanish XCs for speed trail runs. Paid $60 and have been good investment so far. For runs that have both road and crushed trail combo, I'll usually go with a road shoe that have a tougher outsole.