"A Bunch of Running Nerds on Their Favorite Shoes"

Interesting list, with people like Magness, Dicharry, and Lieberman:

“I wear a variety of different shoes to mix it up, but all are zero drop, because I’m a forefoot striker and don’t need or want any cushioning on the heel, otherwise I end up running like a ballerina”...

Barefoot Running In NYC and The State Of Barefoot Shoes

Nice!

"Chris Hawson didn't run much in New York City until he took off his shoes. That was three years, and more than 9,000 miles, ago.

"You can blame Chris McDougall and Born to Run for that,” he says while sipping hot chocolate in a coffee shop near the Union Square Paragon Sports where he works as an outerwear buyer. “It was inspirational to me. I didn't treat it as a technique manual, but it set me off on a path.”

"A health scare in 2009 prompted Hawson, now in his mid-50s, to start running a couple of times a week, but he found his IT bands, knees, and shins started to hurt, forcing him to resort to inline skating. Then Hawson, who spent a decade leading bike and ski trips in Northern Scotland, discovered Vibram FiveFingers and ran a few hundred miles during the summer and fall, mixing them in with a couple other pairs of more traditional shoes. But winter came, so he packed the FiveFingers away because of the cold. That plan didn't last long, however, and pretty soon he had ditched conventional shoes entirely."

Read the whole thing.

I went to see In the High Country (a movie about ultra-runner Anton Krupicka) in NYC last night, and Chris was there. (Paragon organized the showing.)

Chris, as the Outdoor story makes clear, is the real deal. I've run with him a couple of time in various McDougall-organized "events". He really does do the bulk of his miles barefoot.

As a buyer at Paragon he had some interesting thoughts on the minimalist shoe market: it's fading. In large part because the minimalist shoes last so long. With no foam to break down, you replace your shoes when they tear, or when the sole wears through. Chis explained that he just tossed a pair of Altras that had 2,500 miles on them, because the sole wore through and he had torn the upper on a rock.

Given that the typical running shoe companies recommend that you replace their products every 300 miles, that's a major difference. He then mentioned that he probably had bought enough pairs of minimalist shoes to last the rest of his life, at that rate. I also have enough to last quite a long time.

Altra Torrin: not minimalist.

He explained that there are no new minimalist shoe designs coming out: even Altra's new line has a lot of cushion built in. We both wondered about the future of Merrell's Vapor Glove, one of my personal favorites. It was nice to see them in Merrell's winter catalog, but I wonder if they'll last through next summer. New Balance's Mimimus line does doesn't seem to be doing well (according to a New Balance store I visited recently), as the most minimal models are falling by the wayside.

Guess it's not too surprising... When Dr. Munson first invented the barefoot-style shoe after World War I, they put millions of them on the feet of American soldiers. They were very popular, but then the whole thing disappeared as generations turned over, and they were forgotten...

Hopefully a few companies will stick with the idea so folks like me and Chris can replace our shoes when we need to.

Luna, Russell, and Skora seem to be pretty committed to the minimalist idea. [P.S. And VivoBarefoot!]

But there's more research coming along showing the clear advantages of barefoot over shod foot-binding, so hopefully the idea will stick around.

After 10 miles running in the snow.

My running rotation has been barefoot, Luna Sandals, Vapor Gloves, and Vibram Fivefinger Speeds. None of them show much wear on the sole. If I do a trail race, I'll wear the Trail Glove, and I wore the Sonic Glove the other day when I did a 10-mile run in the snow. I can't really see any reason why I'd ever want to go back to the sort of sneaker I used to wear.

(Found the Outdoor story via Chris McDougall on Twitter.)

"New Balance HI-REZ Minimus Review"

Wow.

"New Balance really nailed it with the Hi-rez. Putting these on is like putting on a pair of slippers—the mesh lining is soft and comfortable and the uppers contour to your feet with a process the NB marketers have termed “FantomFit.” I generally prefer sock with shoes, but I am comfortable enough going without in these for shorter runs. The toe box is nice and wide, with plenty of room to wiggle your little piggys and the heel cup is pleasantly snug without feeling too tight. There is no noticeable toe spring and the toe box flexes and widens as your foot lands with each step. The lacing system is pretty standard and allows you to cinch things up pretty securely if needed."

They're $120, which is quite a lot more than the $80 Vapor Glove, and the sole looks quite a bit thicker, but if you find the Merrell a bit too narrow, the New Balance Minimus line tends to run a bit wider. I'd have to try it on to tell... But read Tim's entire review over at Birthday Shoes.

I may have to see if the New Balance store has these in stock...

Thoughts on the Ancestral Health Symposium 2012

Last year I missed the opportunity to attend the first AHS, in Los Angeles. I have a certain visceral opposition to LA, for no good reason (I once spent a night there when I missed a connecting flight, and that's my entire exposure to the place). I spent the rest of the year regretting that, especially after hearing what a great event it was.

AHS 2012

So this year I rectified my error, made easier by the fact that they held it at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, 140 miles from my house.

I was a little apprehensive heading up there as I was unsure how valuable this event would turn out to be, as I do spend a fair bit of time reading about all this stuff. What would I learn? Where would I eat dinner? All sorts of concerns...

All of which were totally unfounded. What a terrific event, what a terrific bunch of people. The event reminded me very much of the early meetings of the World Wide Web Artists' Consortium in 1994 and '95 in New York. The WWWAC helped to creat the Internet that we all take for granted today, as it was the focus of early web development in NYC. Just like then, at AHS you got the feeling that you were in on a Great Truth, and that all that remained was to let the world in on it, and thereby change everything. I don't doubt for a minute that AHS will help this to happen, just as the WWWAC did. It's a great feeling to be at the early stage of a revolution like this.

The symposium was organized into sessions, held in what seemed to be rapid-fire order. The first day only contained one track, but the second and third had dual tracks, which got annoying when you wanted to attend two simultaneously, or even worse, when you started chatting with someone and then realized you'd missed the first 10 minutes of your next session.

Dan Lieberman of Harvard was the keynote speaker, opening the symposium with a terrifically funny (as usual: he's wasted on Harvard, he should do stand-up comedy) overview of human evolution and evolutionary adaptation, setting the stage for all the sessions to follow. I understand the sessions are all to be posted on the 'net, I highly recommend watching them: access will be free. Some of them were breathtaking, some left me with tears in my eyes, like Joel Salatin's ringing cry to take back our freedom to feed ourselves, and Terry Wahls' account of her recovery from multiple sclerosis. A few annoyed me, like Dr. James O'Keefe's misconceived but well-meaning account of the cardiovascular dangers of marathon running, but all that I attended were very informative and led by intelligent and well-spoken presenters.

When Robb Wolf describes John Welbourn as large, he's wrong. The dude's enormous, and he gave a fascinating discussion of how some athletes he's working with have become world record holders while eating a low-carb paleo diet. Carbohydrates appear to be seriously over-rated...

Joel Salatin closed the first day. What a speaker! It felt like a revival meeting, and he was the preacher of real food and the good life. He also explained how much more productive his holistic approach to farming is, and touched on how impossible it is to do with government meddling. He got a resounding standing ovation.

Prof. Lieberman led a barefoot run along the Charles River the morning of the second day, which offered a rare opportunity to have a guided tour through Cambridge by a leading scientist. Lieberman's a fast runner! The easy, conversational portion of the run was at a quick pace, and at the end he announced that we were going to to "strides", "at the end, when they have the most benefit!" I kept up for a bit, but my poor aerobic fitness allowed the professor to leave me in the dust. Happily Ben Greenfield, a Maffetone disciple and triathlete, completely understood, and promised he'd never tell Phil that I exceeded my MAF HR. (I had to stop at the beginning of the run and turn off the audible alert on the Garmin.) Too funny.

The only negative thing about barefoot running is that the range of adaptation is narrow: the fact that I can run 6 miles around my roads didn't mean that I could run 6 miles on the rougher roads and paved trails of Cambridge, and my feet were tingling for the next two days.

Professor Lieberman was kind enough to offer me a tour of the Mecca of barefoot-running science: his lab at Harvard. I got to see the famous treadmill, some of his new gadgets for measuring runners, and an interesting explanation of how difficult it is to measure many of the things that may lead to running injury. Mathematical correction of jiggling is a major undertaking, it turns out. We also went looking for Eskimo teeth, but only found a few cavemen.

A few scientists and doctors recounted their research testing ketogenic diets on cancer progression (very promising) and epilepsy (the best treatment approach by far). Nevertheless, institutions are very reluctant to fund or even allow these studies; insurance companies are reluctant to pay for them, despite being more effective and less expensive; and one doctor described the need to refer to these diets as "therapies" to get them through the morass of bureaucracy...

Outside the sessions...

P.S.

Oh, and God, I got to meet Stephan Guyenet and thank him for probably saving my life. I wouldn't be typing this, or enjoying a symptom-free existance right now, if it wasn't for his incredibly level-headed and well-reasoned blog, and for all the hard work he's done. Thanks again, Stephan. I had the additional pleasure of standing around with drinks in our hands talking with him and Prof. Lieberman about teeth. Moments like that made this whole thing worthwhile. And I'm really looking forward to what he produces in his professional career.

End P.S.

I met too many other people to recount here, but have a few thoughts in general. It was an incredibly healthy-looking crowd. But the game I played was to ask the people I met how they'd gotten into the paleo/ancestral health scene. Most recounted some story of health issues that the medical establishment had been unable to resolve, which abated once a healthy diet (meaning one in opposition to the government regulations) had been adopted. Terry Wahls is the most extreme, but many of the rest of us had similar experiences. Considering how many of these people have intractable, incurable conditions of one sort or another, they're looking terrific and acting like they're the happiest people on the planet. Oh, and a couple of years after getting out of her wheelchair poor Dr. Wahls showed up to AHS with her arm in a sling. She broke it falling off her bicycle.

I've also never seen so many people with minimalist, or no, shoes on. Lunas were a popular option (Prof. Lieberman and John Durant wore them for part of our run, as did I, Ben ran the whole thing in his bare feet.), Vibrams, VivoBarefoot, New Balance Minimi (suitable, since their HQ is in Boston), Skora, Merrel and again, too many others to recount, including some I didn't recognize. It's hard to believe that two years ago it was hard to find a minimalist option. Now I couldn't keep track of them all. Happily, there were many doctors in attendence. While one cardiologist did explain the many difficulties in changing the "standard of care" in our bureaucratic, sclerotic medical system, one hopes that a grass root effort like this one can upend the medical establishment's understanding of the relationship between diet and chronic illness, and offer help to the many people who are ill-served by the current regime.

Tower of low-carb power

Of course the closing ceremony was the Barefoot Banquet, held at the Charles Hotel just down the street from the law school. As with all the rest of the sessions, all the food was paleo, so folks like Dr. Wahls and me could eat without concern, and enjoy the famed NorCal Margarita. Some of us seemed to enjoy them a bit too much. ;) The funniest moment of the evening was when they brought out the grass-fed, gluten-free sliders. So many buns were left over that some enterprising folk built a fort out of them. What a terrific time.

And then, to top it off, I gave John Durant a ride back toward NYC to save him from a long bus ride, and got to hear all about the book he's working on. It sounds terrific, I'm quite excited to read the whole thing.

I think this alliance of scientists, doctors, patients, and athletes have a real chance to change the world. What exciting times.

And a side note: the conference was organized by volunteers. I've been to expensive, professional conferences that weren't this well organized, and certainly not this cheerful or thoughtful. Bravo to all involved.

P.S. Here's a roundup of recaps of AHS12 if you're interested.

New Balance MT110 Wide First Impressions

They sound nice, especially if you've got a wider foot.

"Bought these last week and now have 2 runs in them. I have wide feet and have a hard time finding shoes that fit comfortably. I buy waaaay to many shoes, unfortunately by mail order, bc no local place to try them on.

"I did not have luck with the NB Minimus Trail, even with Pete's bandotomy surgery, and the 101s were too narrow, but when the 110 came out recently and in wide sizes (EE) I decided to take a chance..."

New Balance Minimus Zero Trail and Road Reviews

Nice review, Jason.

Minimus Trail Zero

The weights on the Trail vs. Road were ~4oz vs. ~6oz, I recall.

Seems to me like the Trail is a pretty ideal cold-weather road shoe... I'm looking forward to Jason's review of the Road to explain to me why I'm wrong.

I'd also be interested in trying it on the super-technical trails here in CT once I get a pair. I've been using my Speeds, but I wouldn't mind something that's lighter but has a bit better traction than those. ;)

The lime green is an awesome color.

P.P.S. Jason's review of the Road is up:

"...This may be the single biggest improvement I’ve ever seen in one generation of shoes. I get the feeling the design team realized they produced a turd, then redesigned the new Road based on the MT10. The sole has changed dramatically. The upper is even more radical. The shoe is lighter and more flexible. It’s zero-dropped (heel height is the same as the forefoot height.) It went from being the red-headed step-child of the minimalist shoe world to being a legitimate contender for one of the best minimalist road running shoes ever...."

Everything you wanted to know?

Justin at Birthday shoes and two colleagues also review the Minimus Zero line-up.  In typical Justin style, it's completely over-the-top comprehensive.

Troublingly, two of the reviewers note a "crinkling" of the fabric over the toe of the Trail model, which turned into a pretty fatal flaw in the VivoBarefoot Evo shoe.  Hopefully this is just a break-in issue, as the lightness of the Trail due to the laser-cut and welded upper makes it worth a little bit of hopefully blood-free break-in.

I'll be in line for a pair of the lime-green Trails when they're released.  The Road model will likely become my daughters' new school sneakers.

P.S. Here's Christian's take, and Angie Bee's.

Runner's Knee

As I detailed in this post, I had a bout with Runner's Knee (patellofemoral syndrome, to address it formally) a couple of years ago.  I attributed it in part to the shoes I was wearing at the time.  What I've since come to realize is that those overly-cushioned shoes merely exaggerated poor form.

Well, RK is back.  This time, however, I've been doing most of my miles in minimalist shoes like the Vibram FiveFingers Speeds, or barefoot.  I've had many successful miles in the Speeds, in the VivoBarefoot Ultra, and barefoot this summer.  I've increased my mileage, as I did the last time RK appeared, and this time I think it's safe to say that while the shoes, even minimalist shoes, accentuate the conditions that lead to RK, they're not the cause.  RK re-appeared on a 10k run in the Speeds, by the way.

When RK first appeared switching to Vibrams from the NB MT100s was enough to make it go away.  That's clearly not going to work this time.  So what could it be?

It's got to be form.  Today I went for a 10 mile Maffetone run, 5 on road, and 5 on trail.  I wore the Speeds, as it was in the low 30s F at the beginning of the run.  RK appeared almost immediately on the road stretch, but went away when I got on the rougher trail sections, only to reappear on the flat parts of the trail.

As I've posted before, I've been working on form issues on my weaker right leg.  While that leg is not 100%, it's much improved, and running on the trails I ran today is where those issues first appeared.  The right leg was good to go today.  One of the key suggestions Lee Saxby gave me was to press down on the big toe while running.  This resolved the metatarsal-cuboid joint pain I was having almost immediately.

So once I got back to the road section (after stubbing my second toe on my right foot nicely on the trail: blood from the nail, but no break: thank Heavens for shoes sometimes...), I took off my shoes for the 2.7 mile run home.  RK continued to bother me, even barefoot.  So finally what I decided to do, as an experiment, was to exaggerate the toe-press.  Basically, I was running on my big toes.  This forced my left foot inward.  My right big toe and foot have straightened much more than my left, and I have much more trouble flexing the left big toe down, so this seemed like a pretty good approach to take.  My hypothesis is that the feet should be doing pretty much the same thing, so if one leg hurts and is working differently from the other, try to make it the same.

Running on the big toes was kind of an odd feeling, and a bit of a strain on the calves, including a nasty pull in my left calf I suffered a few weeks ago while mountain biking.  I probably ran about 1.2 miles on my big toes, until I got home.

RK is completely gone in the left knee.  It feels great.

Your mileage may vary. :)

P.S.  I forgot to mention one of the key hints: I've been getting pain in the tendon under the second toe on the left foot during runs.  Lee had said that people often put too much pressure down on the second toe, which is why pressing down on the big toe makes a difference.  You're shifting the pressure to where it ought to be.

Best Sellers In Men's Running Shoes

At Amazon, no minimalist shoes until no. 17, the Merrell Barefoot Trail Glove.  Next it's the Tough Glove at 44, and Vibram FiveFingers KSO at 50.  (I'm skipping the New Balance Minimus MT10 at 47, because it's got a heel rise.)

Still a long way to go...

More NB Minimus Zero (aka MT00)

A 4.4oz trail shoe? I'm so excited I can barely talk... Wow.

Thanks to Andy.

"The Evolution of the NB Minimus Zero Sole"

NB Minimus Zero

This is super-exciting:

"As we've covered before, it's impossible to discuss the sole design of any NB Minimus shoe without acknowledging the influence of Tony Krupicka's original MT100's. Both the worn rubber and the parts Tony carefully carved away played a role in informing the areas in which the sole should be providing additional support — and areas in which minimizing material will lead to enhanced ground feel."

So they took the foremost minimalist runner around, and designed a pair of shoes around him.  Way to go, NB!

Can't wait to try these out, I'll be buying a pair as soon as they're available.

The Munson Last

M-42 Service Shoe, Munson Last

Unfortunately, it's now largely forgotten:

"...Red Wing began fulfilling military needs with the onset of World War I, manufacturing in 1918 the regulation Munson U.S. Army Last, designed to "fit all feet" with maximum comfort and durability. After the war, the Munson remained a top seller and influenced other popular shoe designs for over 50 years...."

Of all my minimalist shoes, the most comfortable single-toe shoes are the Munson Last shoes from Russell Moccasin.  I'm interested to see if the new New Balance line gets it right, Merrell is almost there.

(What's a last?)

P.S. God bless the Japanese: A reproduction Munson Last GI Boot is available:

"We are now pleased to announce the release of 'M-42 Service Shoes, Type II'. Our M-42 Service shoes have been reproduced authentically to WWII Original M-42 Service shoes at all the details. Besides, we're proud of making the Shoes with full copied WWII Shoe Lasts which is well known as 'Dr. Munson's Shoe Last'. We surely believe in that you'll appreciate for the good fitting of the WWII Shoe Lasts which was developed by Dr. Munson almost 100 years ago."

P.P.S.  The reproductions are $565!!!  Wow.

"Marketers Sprint to Join Lightweight-Running Craze"

The revolution continues apace:

"Runners have always taken pride in the lack of equipment and technical gear their sport requires. And now many are getting even more basic, fueling the rise of so-called minimal or lightweight footwear that strips out cushioning and structure.


"While not for the weekend warrior, lightweight-running products are gaining traction with a broad swath of the population. And marketers are taking notice, flooding the market with major campaigns in an effort to grab a piece of the fast-growing category.

"According to SportsOneSource, lightweight products -- loosely defined as shoes that weigh 9 oz. or less in a men's size 9 -- accounted for 28% of the running category in the second quarter. Minimalist styles, a subset of lightweight, accounted for 5% of the running category. Lightweight and minimalist products have been around for years. Nike Free was launched in 2004 and Vibram's FiveFingers shoes (think: gloves for the feet) followed in 2005. The trend has incubated since then. The 2009 book, "Born to Run," which followed a tribe of distance runners in Mexico who run in flat, homemade sandals, is credited with catapulting the discussion to the mainstream...."

"While not for the weekend warrior" is hooey, but the rest is pretty interesting, and I hope this woman is right:

""Once you've made the transition [to a minimal or lightweight product] it's difficult to go back," said Katherine Petrecca, collection manager for New Balance's minimal line. "What will happen in the more mainstream channels remains to be seen, but in performance and specialty channels, it's here to stay.""

Modified New Balance MT101s

Hey, they're becoming famous!  (If you came here from RunBlogger, don't click that link, you just  read it. :)

It's nice to see your creations go forth and have a life of their own. ;)

Here's the summary post of that little experiment.

I don't wear my New Balance MT100s any more, which is why I sent the MT101s to Pete.  (I wore them twice: once while shopping for about half an hour after I bought them and before I had them zero-dropped, and once for the race.)  After modifying them, they were decent sneakers, although they had too much cushion for me, as Pete mentioned.  Due to a leg issue I have, these sneakers gave me serial injuries.  Although other folks had issues as well.

I'm currently running happily in Vibram FiveFinger Speeds, and Merrell Barefoot Trail Gloves, when I'm wearing shoes.  Barefoot running has been key to helping me sort out my leg issue.

"Appealing to Runners, Even the Shoeless"

Interesting, but about what you'd expect from the Times:

"Those gains come not from traditional models — which add stability and cushioning to cater to a variety of gaits, and whose sales are actually down as much as 18 percent over last year — but rather from a new crop of pared-down running shoes, whose sales are up 283 percent."

That's good to hear.  I'm always happy to hear about barefoot-style running getting press, but I've got a number of bones to pick with this article...

"Now, to promote its new NB Minimus collection, New Balance is making a case to runners who may be considering going barefoot or converting to barefoot-style shoes, but still would like something more significant between the bottom of their feet and bottle caps on the trail."

Unfortunately, the ads as described in times make the barefooters sound pretty obtuse.  Odd, given that New Balance got the idea for these new shoes from barefooters, but I guess they've got to sell shoes.  Fear, uncertainty, and doubt is a Madison Avenue staple, after all.

"Advocates of barefoot running contend that modern running shoes, which over the decades have increasingly swaddled feet in cushioning, may actually cause injuries in some runners rather than prevent them."

It would be nice if the author had mentioned that some of these "advocates" are scientific researchers in the field.  But that would make NB look bad, since they still sell lots of non-minimalist shoes still.  Gotta keep the advertisers happy, and NB is increasing ad spending...

And now, drumroll please, the Obligatory Ding-bat Podiatrist Quote:

"Marybeth Crane, a podiatrist in Grapevine, Tex., who also is a marathon runner and specializes in sports medicine, told Men’s Health recently that “85 percent of my patients get injured trying to transition to the new shoes.”"

First, the New York Times couldn't find a podiatrist?  They had to quote one from Grapevine, TX, who was invterviewed by another publication?  What is the Times coming to?

Second, I've done a lot of races.  I drive around a lot.  I look at every single runner's feet to see what they're wearing.  I'm OCD.  People may be buying a lot of minimalist shoes, but very few are actually running in them.  At a recent half-marathon I ran in, I could count the number of Vibram-wearers on both hands, for instance, and that was out of 4,500 people.  If 85% of Dr. Crane's practice really did get injured running in barefoot-style shoes, then she must have a very, very small practice.  Grapevine has a population of 46,334, so if she's right, it must have the highest percentage of barefoot-style runners (and runners, for that matter) in the United States.  Color me skeptical.

Back to the Times, NB is spinning as fast as they can:

"“What consumers are looking for is not necessarily a true barefoot shoe but rather the benefits, a product that encourages a more natural gait,” said Katherine Petrecca, manager of the NB Minimus line at New Balance."

What exactly is "a true barefoot shoe", I wonder?  I honestly have no idea, since the term barefoot shoe is an oxymoron in the first place.  But if I had to guess, I would say that it looks a lot like the NB Minimus zero-drop line that they're releasing any day now.  Unlike the current Minimus mentioned in the Times, which features a cushioned heel that prevents a "more natural gait", the new model does away with the heel, becoming a truly barefoot-style shoe.

They look nice, too.  I like NB, but it would be nice if they had a little more respect for the barefoot runners who are their partners in this revolution, and the ones most likely to buy their new shoes for the winter shod running season. :)

Saucony Hattori Review

If you want to continue heel-striking in your zero-drop shoes, then these are for you.

Compare to the abrasion pods on the new New Balance Minimus, and you'll see what I mean.

But it's still progress, and as Donald notes, and decent shoe.

New Balance Minimus for 2012

Bravo, New Balance...  These look darn near perfect.

Runblogger's got the video, watch the whole thing.

The Birth Of the New Balance Minimus

Anton Krupicka interviewed about minimalist running shoes and New Balance:

"...These slippers trace their inspiration to a blend of cultural factors, but also to an evening in 2008 at a downtown Colorado Springs, Colo., sandwich shop.

"That night, Anton Krupicka, an ultra-runner working at Colorado Running Co., was having a post-run beer with the product manager of New Balance, a running shoe manufacturer from Massachusetts.

"The product manager, Bryan Gothie, was in town showing off a new trail shoe and asked Krupicka what he thought.

"'It's all wrong, Krupicka said....'

"..."It's overbuilt. It's too much of a shoe," Krupicka remembers saying.

"When Gothie asked what he meant, Krupicka held up his shoes.

"They looked like they had been attacked by Freddy Krueger.

"Four years before, as a cross-country runner at Colorado College, Krupicka had had a revelation. For much of his life he had been running in clunky, motion-stabilizing shoes with orthotic inserts, and for most of that time he had struggled with stress fractures in his legs.

"He wanted a shoe that would mimic the design of the human foot, which spreads out shock through the foot's arch and the runner's bent knees.

"'But there were none,' Krupicka said. 'I was so frustrated.'

"Every shoe he looked at, with the exception of racing flats, had a big fat heel getting in the way. And racing flats could not hold up on the trails.

"So one day he pulled out a kitchen knife and started hacking the heel of a pair of old New Balances. Over the next few months, between runs, he cut off more and more pieces he felt he did not need. He did the same to every new pair of shoes he bought.

"...'Since I started running in those shoes I haven't had a stress fracture,' Krupicka said. 'It encourages you to run in a much more natural way.'

"New Balance asked Krupicka to work with them on a new line of shoes. The company would come up with designs. He would test them on the trail, then, Gothie said, 'take the switchblade to them...'

"...Krupicka said that while he ignores most trends, he is pleased with this one.

"'It is a trend built on some actual fact and truth,' he said, because it encourages people to run in a more 'natural way.'..."

Read the whole thing.

Runblogger on the New Balance MT101

Too bad Pete's not feeling 100%, as I was really looking forward to his thoughts on my old shoes.  Looking forward to further posts.

P.S.  He took them out for a run.

"New Balance Launches 'Let's Make Excellent Happen' Global Brand Campaign"

In this post, I wrote:

"And now, the last piece of the plan: You want something a little more traditional? New Balance Minimus, with a Vibram sole, and Tony Krupicka's smiling face."

Well, here it is: "New Balance Launches 'Let's Make Excellent Happen' Global Brand Campaign":

"For the first time in its recent brand history, New Balance is closely aligning key products with its roster of world-class athletes to highlight their source of inspiration. The NB 890 is named "Barringer" (women's) and "Baddeley" (men's) after record holders Jenny Barringer Simpson (U.S.) and Andy Baddeley (U.K.). NB Minimus Trail is inspired by ultra champion, Anton Krupicka (U.S.)."

They're going to make an ultra-runner their front man in a global shoe campaign pushing a pretty minimalist shoe.  That's a big deal.
That old post is holding up pretty well, I think...

New Balance Minimus Life

Looks like a VivoBarefoot Evo knock-off.  With a 4mm heel.

I guess it's a good sign that a company like New Balance feels the need to copy the Evo.