I have been mainly trail running for the past 20 years after starting on the roads. The past few years I have mainly been using Altra trail shoes. This year I have been doing a lot of road running in hopes of qualifying for Boston someday. I have always wanted to run Boston. I have been running in the Hoka Mach 4, Clifton and Altra Torin Plush. I decided I wanted to try out some of the fancy carbon plated racing shoes. I bought a pair of Saucony Endorphin Pro's. I have now put 53 miles on the Endorphin Pro's including a marathon I ran this past weekend. I am now having some lower back issues. I am curious if the higher drop of the Endorphin Pro's might be the cause. They have an 8mm drop compared to 0mm for Altra and 4mm in the Hoka's. I should mention I am 54 years old so am more prone to injury than I used to be. Anyway I was thinking of going back to running mainly in Altra's in hopes they would be easier on my lower back issue. Altra doesn't seem to have any shoes geared just toward racing marathons. The Torin 5 is a little heavy at 9ish ounces depending on size. The Paradigm 6 is really heavy. The Escalante Racer looks promising but not sure if it has enough cushioning for my 54 year old legs. I really like the Torin Plush 4.5's I have ran in. Maybe being a couple ounces over what other racing shoes are wouldn't make much difference anyway since I would be doing well to get a sub 3:30 marathon. The lighter shoes probably benifit people more speedy than me anyways. Since I am not experienced with Altra's road lineup what would you guys suggest I try for training and running a marathon? I have a fall marathon coming up that I hope to use as my Boston qualifier.