New Balance Minimus: The Right Direction

It’s obvious that I don’t wear “shoes”. A year after I ran my first mile in the Vibram Five Fingers, I haven’t looked back, and wouldn’t. It’s totally not a bandwagon thing where I want to be different. If you read my story on here from last August, it’s that I can’t run in shoes because I’ll heel strike or ignore my running as a technique and my right knee will start on fire, almost literally. That doesn’t mean I don’t keep up on the latest industry trends.

We all know there’s now a race amongst the top shoe producers of the world to “get minimal” with their shoe lines. They spent that last 40 years chasing bulkier, spongier, more corrective shoes and now the market has finally gotten sick of being injured all the time and they are trusting their instincts to get back to the basics.

New Balance, with the release of the new Minimus Trail Shoe, is probably the best shoe advancement I’ve seen in this latest race to minimalism by major shoe brands. It’s bitter sweet for me to be honest. You see New Balance was the last shoe I owned that pretty much made me give up ever being able to be a runner. But then, they got Anton. Fellow Nebraskan, and ultra running god, Anton Krupicka is someone that I have followed for the past year now. He’s an all around great guy and his running philosophies are something I totally feel aligned with. I was waiting for what they would do with him at New Balance since they picked up earlier this year and this shoe now makes it clear that they listened to his every word.

So, if you must own a shoe to run in, and you run trails…this has to be the best one out there to date.