Interesting report out of Colorado. Would you wear these crazy shoes?
The Pedestrian Shops in Boulder have had a monopoly on the curious-looking shoes. Lauren Polk, operations manager for the stores, says sales of Five Fingers have kicked into a sprint since McDougall’s book hit the stands. “Every week it’s fair to say we’re selling 40 to 50 pairs,” she says. Polk is intrigued by the sudden popularity of what many see as ugly shoes (as one local Facebook poster wrote, “These are weird even by Boulder standards.”)
“They are sort of the opposite of everything that the running industry has been telling runners until now. I think it may be a turning point, the whole idea of training yourself to run on (the forefoot) as opposed to heel strikes,” she says.
That’s the concept behind Boulder-based startup Newton Running’s super-light shoes, low-support concept shoes, whose design virtually forces forefoot or mid-foot running instead of contacting the ground with a thick, padded heel. – from here