August 9, 2008
Executive Pursuits
Sneaker Tester, No Running Required (Thankfully)
By HARRY HURT III
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/business/09pursuits.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print
I STEPPED onto the quarter-mile track at Reebok International’s world headquarters in Canton, Mass., with a brand new pair of snowy white Hex Ride Rally sneakers on my feet and yet another unanticipated existential crisis in the offing.
The sky was lucent and the temperature in the low 70s, perfect conditions for a leisurely round of golf or a predinner cocktail on the back porch. But I had agreed to take the Hex Rides on a test run for Reebok’s Human Performance Engineering Laboratory.
Sue Roberts, a lean and lanky former Dartmouth basketball player who is director of product testing and engineering, stood on the infield grass clutching a clipboard and pen. “Take a couple of laps to get warmed up,” Sue advised.
I sucked a deep breath and hitched up my running shorts. In my younger and less vulnerable years, I used to jog six miles a day. At the ripe old age of 56, I seldom take six quick steps in a row. Even so, I figured running is like riding a bicycle: once you get the hang of it, you never forget how to do it.
I figured wrong. My brain called for fluid fast forward motion, but my legs and feet either didn’t get the message or simply ignored it. Moments after I rounded the first curve on the track, my thighs cramped. My calves burned and my lungs wheezed. It was all I could do to maintain a pace somewhere between that of a tortoise and a glacier. By the time I managed to finish my assigned half-mile warm-up, I needed a shave, a bath and an oxygen mask.
“How do you like the shoes?” Sue asked.
“What shoes?” I replied, gasping for breath.
It’s something to realize you can no longer run when you already know you can’t hide. I offered to turn in my sneakers and quit this quirky executive pursuit on the spot. But Sue convinced me that I could still prove to be a valuable sneaker tester. “We’re just as interested in getting feedback from casual wearers as from ultramarathoners,” she said.
My subsequent sneaker industry due diligence confirmed that Sue wasn’t just flattering me. According to a study by the National Sporting Goods Association, a recreation industry trade group, retail sales of athletic footwear reached a record $17.4 billion in the United States last year. The largest category of athletic footwear revenue in 2007 was “walking shoes,” which accounted for $4.2 billion in retail sales. I surmised that a big chunk of those sales had to come from my fellow baby boomers.
That, in turn, gave me hope and a renewed determination to fulfill my duties as a sneaker tester. According to industry analysts, Nike dominates the United States sneaker market with a more than 36 percent share. Together, Reebok and Adidas, which bought Reebok in 2006, claim about a 21 percent market share. I was an old dog with a rare opportunity to help out the underdog.
Sue Roberts told me that Reebok maintains a database of more than 2,000 sneaker testers of whom only 600 or so are serious runners. Testing periods typically last four weeks. Testers keep annotated daily logs of their running miles and casual wear hours or both. At the end of the testing period, they fill out a questionnaire with a seven-point scale ranging from “dislike extremely” to “like extremely.” In return, testers get a free pair of sneakers.
During a tour of the Human Performance Engineering Laboratory, Sue showed me some mechanical impact testing devices that repeatedly pound or flex sneakers over 24-hour periods. But she asserted that Reebok considers subjective “liking data” collected from human testers to be more important. “We have lab testing,” she said. “But for us the gold standard is finding out what humans feel about it as opposed to saying, ‘Try this. It’s better. We’ve tested it on a machine.’ ”
Appropriately enough, the Hex Ride Rally, which is priced at $84.99, is a sneaker that looks back to the future even as it enables you to run (or, in my case, walk) on air. Its design and construction are descended from technology introduced by the original Hex Ride sneaker in 1988. The crucial feature is a honeycomb of 33 hexagonal urethane cells on the soles of each shoe. The cells are 92 percent trapped air. Bill McInnis, Reebok’s managing director for advanced concepts, said the 1988 model cells measured 5 millimeters across; the 2008 model cells are 20 to 25 millimeters across.
“Now there’s more trapped air to act as a gas spring,” he informed me.
Reebok isn’t the only sneaker manufacturer to use air trapped in flexible cells in the soles of its athletic shoes. Nike, for example, does as well. Mr. McInniss noted that the honeycomb structure, which is used in cardboard boxes as well as in beehives, has the lightest weight-to-strength ratio in nature. As a result, each Hex Ride Rally sneaker weighs 11.6 ounces, lighter than some competing models, but is soft enough to provide shock absorption and firm enough to provide energy return with each stride.
“It’s always a trade-off between comfort and performance,” he said. “You could make a shoe that’s soft as a pillow, but after a day or so your knees would hurt. You need a certain amount of stiffness in the shoes to act as a platform for running, jumping and walking.”
During the four weeks after my visit to Reebok, I subjected my Hex Rides to 217.5 hours of “casual wear” testing. The more rigorous trials included 12 hours apprenticing as a groundskeeper at Shea Stadium and 14 hours training as a sous-chef at Le Bernardin restaurant in Manhattan. I survived both rather slippery executive pursuits without tripping or falling a single time.
I also wore the sneakers on the golf course. Not only did they provide better traction than my conventional soft-spiked golf shoes, they were vastly more comfortable. They were also cooler because of the breathability of the honeycomb mesh on the tops of the shoes.
The only glitch I encountered was a dress code conflict. When I entered the American Hotel, a fancy restaurant and bar in my hometown, Sag Harbor, N.Y., I provoked the disdain of one of the establishment’s well-heeled regular customers, who frowned at the honeycomb mesh and declared, “It looks like bees made them.” His comment attracted the attention of the hotel’s owner, Theodore B. Conklin III, who summarily banned me from wearing them on the premises.
At the end of the testing period, I had to ship my sneakers back to Sue Roberts for evaluation. Sue did her normal durability assessment and concluded that they had held up quite well, with nothing cracked or falling apart.
She also observed that I was a supinator as opposed to a pronator. I asked if that was good or bad. “It just means you walk a lot on the outsides of your feet,” she replied. “The fact that you wore them for over 200 hours is fantastic. It makes us very happy.”
The existential gloom I suffered upon realizing I could no longer run paled in comparison with the postpartum depression that overwhelmed me while I was without my Hex Rides. For five whole days, I had to pound the pavement in the worn-out soles of some dress shoes I had found in the back of my closet.
When my sneakers were finally returned via U.P.S., I wanted to celebrate with a glass of Champagne at the American Hotel. Then I remembered that they, and by extension I, had been banned. That’s when the health benefits of the Hex Rides really kicked in. Instead of spending the afternoon drinking in a bar, I decided to spend it drinking in nature by taking a nice long walk on air.