Shoe Review: New Balance Minimus Roads (MR10)

STATS

Weight: 8.0 oz (size 9)
List Price: $110
Drop: 4 mm (18mm heal, 14mm forefoot)
Released: March 2011

Pros: Light weight, durable, undercut heal helps correct form, enough padding to protect feet on higher mileage concrete runs.

Cons: First 100 miles of arch pain – long break in period, loose some traction on wet ground. 

SIZE & FIT

Length seemed to be pretty standard and the toe box was nice and wide, allowing for plenty of toe splay. I ended up wearing 10’s – same size as my typical ASIC running shoes.

Merrell Trail Glove Review

Finally my Merrell Trail Glove Review!

Merrell Trail Glove

STATS

Weight: 6.2 ozs
List Price: $110
Drop: 0 mm

New Balance Minimus Roads and Karhu Racer Fulcrum Rides

NEW SHOES!

The gear junkie in me strikes again.  Before I've even finished my Merrel Trail Glove review (Coming Soon!) I've picked up 2 new shoes to test and review...

Karhu Racer Fulcrum Ride

I had a free pair of Karhu's from beating the bear at the Karhu 5K earlier in the month.  Karhu is a Finnish Brand, apparently around since 1916, though I've never heard of them before.  It looks like they're just starting to try to make the move to the States, explaining the "Beat the Bear" promo events.  Their shoes look to be designed for heal strikers and I would never have considered them if I was shelling out money, but it's hard to turn down a free pair of shoes...  Most of their shoes have ridiculous looking soles, reminding me of Sketcher Shape Ups, though the color schemes are pretty cool.  The Karhu racing flats seemed to have the thinnest soles and lowest drop, but even then the drop is about 15.5 mm.  I want to stay at less than 8 mm drops (with the idea that anything more starts to make proper running form difficult) so these shoes will be working at a disadvantage already...  That said, free shoes can't be passed up, and thus these shoes will get a fair review despite not matching my typical requirements.  Plus the color is kinda cool...

Karhu Racer Fulcrum Ride

New Balance Minimus Roads

Since I had made the trip up to Runner Depot anyway I felt I needed to check out some of the other shoes in my search for the perfect marathon shoes.  I had seen the Minimus Roads and they looked just like what I was looking for.  Low (4 mm) drop, light (8.2 oz), designed for a forefoot strike, but with enough padding to protect against a return to heal striking late in runs.  The rear of the shoe is slightly under cut, making it more difficult to heal strike - a neat feature I thought.  I tried them on and the sock like feel was amazing - I decided I couldn't pass them up, a 15% off coupon helped that matter as well.  The first 15 miles in them have been questionable, the slight arch support is noticeable and they're perhaps not as comfortable running in as they were standing in at the store...  I also have questions on how long the soft soles will last.  We shall see as I put on some miles over the next couple months and write a review!

New Balance Minimus Roads

UPCOMING MERRELL TRAIL GLOVES REVIEW

I’m a gear junkie.  That’s the only way to explain the pile of camping gear that takes up most of my walk in closet.  I’ve reviewed camping gear in the past, but never running gear – the beauty of running was the need for relatively little gear (especially for 5Ks.)

My recent decision to start looking at Marathons and potentially Ultras along with my desire to go to more minimalist / barefoot running has (perhaps ironically) gotten me looking at new running gear.  I went out and got a pair of Vibram 5 fingers but returned them before running in them after discovering that wearing them around the house caused my toes to start to go numb because my feet just don’t fit the 5 finger mold.  Looking at other minimalist options lead me to Barefoot Jason’s review of the Merrell Trail Gloves released in Feburary (http://barefootrunninguniversity.com/2011/01/04/merrell-trail-glove-review/  It should also be noted that Jason is working with Merrell on their barefoot resources – check out Merrell’s site.)

Excited about these shoes I ordered a pair as soon as they were available and received them yesterday.  Obviously it will take me some time to put on enough miles to truly review these shoes, but I thought I’d post the sizing portion of the review early since that seems to be a big question for those looking at these shoes.