An Update, Plus, The Continued Search For the One(s)

If you were raised as an evangelical Christian in the U.S. during the latter part of the last century, you were probably subjected to what became the near veneration of sex and marriage (stay with me on this one, it'll get to running eventually) (although some of you may be wishing that I'd stay on the subject of sex) that led kids of my age to absurdities like the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye and the constant, embarrassed, giggly, socially-ritarded practice of "courtship" over dating and looking for "the one".

Bullshit.

Okay - before you get me wrong, it's not that I don't totally believe in and practice monogamy (if you're reading this, love you, honey!), but rather that attitude of looking for a "the one" blinded a lot of us to the fact that there are a lot of cool people in the world who don't have to be a "the one" to get to know and still be friends with, without all of that fussy pressure of asking every new person you meet if you're going to have to spend the rest of your life with them.

Which is (finally) the roundabout way of me getting to say that today, I returned the Merrell Trail Gloves to REI (quick plug for REI - the outstanding return policy is reason enough to buy from them).  Over the past couple of weeks I'd put about 42 miles on them, and during the course of these runs I'd discovered that at least for my feet, these shoes were totally wrong.  I've had a number of really lovely runs in these shoes, including several around the south end of Manhattan with a nice view of Lady Liberty, but:  there's the pain over the head of my fifth metatarsal that I'd mentioned a post ago, which improved with loosening the shoes, but persisted.  The final straw was a run I took today:  the pain I'd been having over my Achilles tendon worsened to the point that I kept stopping every half mile to adjust the shoes, and then considered taking them off entirely, but deciding for certain that they were going back to the store.

Which is a shame, because in many other ways they're terrific;  the upper is rugged but breathable, the outsole is grippy Vibram, and I can't say enough about how much I enjoy, and how much faster I am, running in true zero-drop shoes.  But over the past week or so I found myself guiltily reaching for other shoes before today's decision to drop the Merrell's for good.  I thug them, love them, leave them because I don't really need them - I have become the Jay-Z of running shoes.

And like any philanderer I found that I couldn't be without a sole-mate for long and spent part of the day glumly and somewhat frantically looking for alternates.  I thought about another pair of FiveFingers, which had the advantage of being zero-drop, but worried that they'd be too delicate for trail running.  I went to the local running shop in search of the New Balance Minimus Trail, which I'd eschewed as not minimal enough but found myself minimizing the flaws I'd thought of instead, like the ex-lover you pine for and try to explain away all of the negative traits that'd bugged you into leaving, only to discover that like said ex-lover these shoes had all found other homes (the store was sold out).  I thought about other popular trail shoes, but found them too expensive, too bulky, maximalist rather than minimalist.

When I found these:

The New Balance MT101.  No cute name like "Minimi" or "Trail Kitten", just the manufacturer and a model number.  Not bad looking, not weird looking, but not anything special either.  But before the current explosion of minimalist/barefoot shoes had set the shoe-world a-twitterpated, these were the go-tos.

 They have the distinction of having an association with this guy:

Nice kid, looks like Jesus, American ultra-running super-duper guy.  Runs 100 milers.  (Although he and a number of others are giving mad e-props to some Spanish kid named Kilian Jornet, who probably also has running shoes to sell, but which aren't of the minimal/barefoot variety and therefore of less interest to your humble correspondent.)  But the MT101s were allegedly made with input from him and the brothers Skaggs, which works great as a marketing tool.  As you can see.  From my purchase.

This model is a couple of years old, though, and is being outshone by all of the new trail-running gear out there.  And the thing is, it's not minimalist, really, but more minimalizzle.  It has a whopping (at least it's whopping for me, although most non-min running shoes apparently have 18mm of drop) 10mm heel-toe drop, so it's not-flat, and more of a transition to zero-drop from a standard running shoe.  But there's a nice, roomy toe-box:

And the aggressive, lugged outsole that I wanted to run trails, but wouldn't trap pebbles in the sipes:

There've been a number of very positive reviews of the shoe, but then again, there were a number of positive reviews of the Trail Glove;  the reason I settled on the MT101s was because as an older shoe they had an established track record (no pun intended - that woulda been an established trail record), and as an older shoe, the price:  $60!  Awesome!

Final point of clarification:  I by no means settled for my wife like I settled for my MT101s - she's my zero-drop rugged upper Vibram soled perfection!

What, you don't find running-shoe metaphors romantic?

Merrells Versus Achilles - Achilles Wins (because the Merrells went back to the store)

4.69 mi.  39 min:04 sec.  8:20 pace.