Born to Run 2: The Ultimate Training Guide by Christopher McDougall and Eric Orton

Author:Christopher McDougall and Eric Orton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Nathan’s Footwear Wall is a bizarre experience, at least if you’re used to other running stores. As you take it all in, you’ll have the strangest sensation of being … not confused. There are no gimmicks or confusing jargon, none of the make-believe stuff about Motion Control and Stability.

You only have to consider the two factors that matter:

How much cushion do you want? And how much heel?

‘Most people are right in the middle: medium drop, medium cushion,’ Nathan says. And that’s where you’ll find them on the wall: dead centre. Nathan arranges his shoes left to right according to heel height, and top to bottom by cushioning. That puts Luna Sandals at top left (zero drop, zero cushion), and the Hoka Bondi on the bottom right (4mm drop, 33mm cushion), with everything else in between.

One fun perk of Nathan’s wall is it also functions as a motivational ladder. Whenever you return, you can gauge how much progress you’ve made on your running form by whether your eye is now drawn higher and more leftward towards the Luna side. That’s another refreshing feature of the Ultra Running Company system: even when shoe models are updated and everything has new names and colours, you can still tell at a glance exactly what each shoe offers and how it compares to what you’re wearing now.

For himself, Nathan likes to keep a quiver of three or so different shoes and work his way up the cushioning scale as the week goes on. He’ll start super-minimal on Tuesday when his legs are fresh, switch to mid-cushion by Thursday when fatigue is setting in, then treat himself to something a little more plush for his Saturday long run, like the Saucony Endorphin Speed, which Nathan calls ‘the best Hoka that Hoka never made’.

‘I can run in anything under 10mm and it won’t affect me, but I do this for a living,’ Nathan says. ‘The lower you go with your drop, the more likely you’ll land under your centre of gravity. It’s just easier.’

When new customers ask Nathan what to do, he tells them, ‘I’ll put you in minimal shoe and you’ll run a mile, and it will be your best mile ever. So freeing! But then you’ll sit on the couch for a week with sore calves because you overstressed. Or I can put you in a cushioned shoe and you’ll have fun and build up at the same time.

“‘I FEEL … WOW.’ FOR A SECOND, I COULDN’T REMEMBER WHICH FOOT HAD THE PROBLEM. ‘LIKE, PERFECT.’”

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