Altra Torin 2.0

A few weeks ago we had an Altra clinic at my work. The rep came in to talk about all the Altra shoes and tell us why they're different. I have wanted to try them for myself for awhile and I know several people who run in them and swear by them. 

Basically their concept is zero drop shoes (not to be confused with BAREFOOT or MINIMAL shoes) that still offer decent cushion and protection from the ground, yet allow you to run in a more natural form. Altra feels that the traditional running shoe is so built up with heel cushioning that it forces the heel to strike first, which is not a natural pattern and therefore could lead to injury. So in the quest to help people with their injuries they created shoes with an even platform from heel to toe (zero drop) and a more foot shaped toe box to help the toes spread out naturally during a run. All of this sounds right up my alley, so when I got these babies I was super excited

The Torin 2.0! 

I love the color!

... And my cat who was super curious about this shoe box. 

So the Torin - a highly cushioned shoe, which normally I shy away from but when I compared it to the Intuition I found I liked the feel of the Torin better. It seemed softer. I considered getting the Provision which is their stability model for overpronators like me, but my store doesn't sell it and the rep only had an 8.5 to try on which was way too small, so I couldn't really get an idea of the shoe. The rep said I should be fine in the Torin. Altra doesn't believe in stability in the traditional sense, as they don't do medial posting and put their stability in the forefoot because the toes should provide stability when they land. 

Anyway - this morning I tested them and here are my thoughts

This shoe felt great. It's really light. There's alot of cushion, perhaps more than I'm used to, but this is good news for distance runners/anyone who needs cushion. Yet I could feel my lower leg muscles working as is customary with a zero drop shoe. Now, I do have some problems at the moment. I took some time off from running and am now running 2-3 times a week and trying to increase mileage slowly. I'm experiencing some shin pain particularly on my right side, which is pretty new to me and I attribute it to my body getting used to running again. I had no issues for the past year in the same shoes, but then after I took a break and came back I suddenly have pain. So everything kind of hurts right now, but in this shoe I continued to have pain. I even had some pain in my arch which never bothers me during my run, although it can feel sore after a run sometimes. I also had issues with the fit of my left shoe, my heel was sliding around all over the place. Already laced it to prevent heel slippage. I could wear a thicker sock but I think it will still be an issue that would prevent me from using these shoes on longer runs, it's just way too distracting. I wanna use these shoes for shorter distances. They feel really good and the toe box isn't constricting like so many other shoes out there. One of my left toes did hit the end of the shoe but that may be a matter of my toenails being a little long at the moment. But I definitely couldn't go down in size because of this. I ended up in a 9.5, which is possibly too short but too big for my tiny ass heels. 

I wanted this shoe to be perfect for me. And it's so close... but there's just a couple issues with the fit that might not make it work for long distances. I'm going to keep testing it and try to fix the fit, and once my body adjusts to running again hopefully I can really get a better feel for these shoes. This is just the first of many runs with my Torin :)