Running Revyoo: Merrell Trail Glove

An epic always starts in media res, that is, "in the midst of things" (ah, the benefits of a liberal arts educatiom), meaning that the narrative begins smack dab in the middle of the action, which grabs the reader/listener/watcher from the git-go.  The problem is exposition, explaining how the story got to where it is.  Writers will often use some tiresome device to bring the audience up to speed, like the naive character who's new to the present action and gets a filling-in from the grizzled veteran ("awright, cherry, you're new to the unit, so you gotta learn that you never go sticking your nose in foxholes or you'll get all us grunts killed" etc. etc. etc.).

You may already be well familiar with running minimalism, in which case a summary would be laborious, or all of those people running in bare feet and weird toe-shoes may seem cultish, in which case you may simply not be interested, but anyway, in terms of the recent history of running, minimalist footwear, and the reason why I got this particular shoe, it's kind of a long story, so in the words of Inigo Montoya, let me sum up (you can think of this following bit as something like the narrated montage that they use at the beginning of a t.v. show's new season):

Here's the idea:  human beings are natural born distance runners, and for most of history we ran barefoot, landing lightly on the balls of our feet with our legs working like springs.  Landing on our heels with legs stretched straight was a development of Nike running shoes with over-cushioned soles in the 70's, and like most things from the 70's this idea was bad for our knees, backs, and photo albums.  Enter the barefoot/minimalist running movement which preached that having less to no cushioning in one's shoes, particularly in the heel, was next to godliness (this guy even looks a bit like a prophet) (or Forrest Gump, if you wanted to be mean about it) (he seems like a nice kid) (pretty good runner, apparently), which resulted in those unease-causing Vibram Five Fingers and talk about the soles of shoes (or souls, if you want to continue the religious/cult theme) amount of height difference between (over-cushioned) heels and the toes, or the "heel-toe drop", the idea being that less of a drop means that the sole is flatter and therefore closer to the way a foot is supposed to work.

Whew!  So, that bit of exposition safely behind us, without any talk of cherries or foxholes, we can move on to the present action, my try-out of the Merrell Trail Glove.  Others have observed that "glove" is a misnomer, because unlike the Vibram Five Fingers shoes the Trail Glove doesn't have individually articulated toes pockets;  many of these same observers have already made the joke that the Merrell's are therefore more like trail mittens, although that doesn't sound as sexy, one supposes (although "glove" doesn't sound all that sexy either) (unless you're into that sort of thing).  But without any further ado, here's what they look like:

Not a bad looking shoe, huh?  Get this:  the color is "smoke and yellow"!  (I had no idea what that meant or who Wiz Khalifa is, but recently I had a drunk/stoned guy at work sing that in my face.  "What's he saying?" I asked, concerned that he might be hallucinating about Sting.  The weary-looking paramedic holding him down turned to me and said, "that's just a hip-hop song, doc."  Oh.)  On the plus side, it looks like a shoe.  I've had Vibrams before, including the Bikila and the TrekSport and actually really liked running in these zero-drop, "natural" running shoes, but the Bikilas had a manufacturing defect that required their return and the fit on the TrekSports gave my feet gnarly blisters, and since then my aesthetician has forbidden me from buying shoes that make people want to feed me bananas and in turn make me want to fling poo at them (although I wonder what my cosmologist would say?) (okay, so he's a political philosopher and not a cosmologist - or a cosmetologist - but gimme a break, I'm trying here, people!).

Since my dalliance with the Five Fingers shoes I've been running in Nike Free Run+ shoes, Nike's minimalist, or at least transition-to-minimal shoes, that have served me well - I've run about 850 miles in them, including the recent drizzly L.A. Marathon.  But the Nike's aren't zero-drop shoes, and seeing photos of me from the marathon with sloppy form and a wicked heel-strike motivated me to look for a new pair of trainers.  (Of course, my sloppy form may have had to do with the fact that it was raining at levels that inspired animals to pair off and start looking for arks to board, but it's gotta be the shoes, no?)

See?  Good form=smile on my face.

Bad form=wicked heel strike, no smile.

The Trail Gloves meet the high standards of low soles that minimalist running shoes are supposed to have, in that they are zero-drop, which was ultimately the reason I chose them over their nearest competitor, the New Balance Minimus Trail which have a 4mm drop.  (I struggled a while trying to decide between the two, particularly since the Minimus was developed by Tony Krupicka, the bearded, long-haired ultrarunner I referenced earlier, but it's going to take a whole lot more than a pair of shoes to make me run a 100 miler.)  (Although at times I think it'd be fun to grow my hair back out.)  (Cue disapproving expression on the above-referenced aesthetician's face.)  (Insert re-use of joke about cosmologist.)  The outsoles are rugged-looking, tready Vibrams:

Unlike the Nike Free's, it doesn't look like pebbles are getting anywhere up in there.  (Bam Bam's another story.)  (Um, gross.)  (But the point is that there's no protective rock-plate in the midsole, so if you tread on a rock bigger than a pebble, you'll notice.)

The uppers are really nice-looking mesh, with a roomy toe box for toe wigglin':

Which, of course, makes them look all the more like mittens.  Maybe boxing gloves.

I laced them up;  the laces really aggressively lock the uppers down onto your feet, particularly the midfoot, but with all of the toe-wigglin' referenced above still preserved.  As others have noted, the shoes typically fit best about a half size down from what you may be accustomed to wearing.  I was going to wear them to the gym to try them out in controlled, indoors conditions on a treadmill, but looking out the window I noticed it was a nice day and decided instead that I'd take it to the street.  And then immediately regretting using the douchey phrase "taking it to the street."

Standing in zero-drop shoes was momentarily odd, because rather than feeling like the heel is lower, they feel instead like someone put a tennis ball under your midfoot (and for those who actually run trails on a regular basis rather than the concrete jungle I run through, repeat N.B., there is no rock-plate in the midfoot) (no tennis ball either, despite what I just said), and then they felt supremely familiar - they feel just like the Vibram Five Fingers shoes do.  The insole is comfortably silky, just like the Vibrams.

Heading out in minimalist footwear is literal:  you lean forward and let your feet kinda catch up with your fall.  The Trail Gloves have a firm sole with little cushioning, so you hear a "tap-tap-tap" rather than a thud or a pad, that tap another familiar sensation from the Vibrams.  Running in zero-drop shoes for the first time will really tax your calves - when I first ran in the Vibrams my calves, particularly the flat soleus muscles, killed for a week or two, the cramps in which my aesthetician kindly rolled out with a rolling pin (the joys of marriage - picture me whimpering on the couch while my long-suffering wife takes a wooden rolling pin to my solei - that's love, people).  However, it appears that all of the early training and practice in zero-drop shoes is still paying off, because running with a midfoot strike in these new zero-drop shoes gave me no problems.  Setting out in the Trail Gloves, I felt a momentary twinge in my left Achilles' tendon, which then disappeared, and the rest of my run was easy, smooth, and light, just the tap-tap-tap of my midfoot strike.  That trail?  Yeah, I'd tap that.

Like a lot of these minimalist shoes, they're meant to be worn without socks.  Wanna know something?  Running in shoes without socks totally exfoliates your feet!  Gross, huh?  I know.

Yes, I'm Smitten with the Merrell Trail Mitten!
5.38 mi.  46 min.:3 sec.  8:33 pace.