Easy transition into flats

Puma Harambee Streets

Onitsuka Tiger 81s

Nike Streak XC

These three shoes would have to be the King of flats now days imho.

People liked the New Balance 150s, but those are discontinued and hard to find.

I would try any marathon flat at first. Cushioned enough for your needs at the beggining, but minimalistic at the same time.

Is the Nike Air Zoom Elite considered a minimalist flat?

no, it would be considered a minimalistic trainer.

stress fracture to my second metatarsal from switching into flats at my 90 mile weeks. careful...

I cannot emphasize enough the need to transition slowly. I have not seen anyone make the switch while doing a high load. Everyone I've known that did it was either coming off an injury and building back from zero or wasn't doing a high volume of running and was able to transition without a huge change in thier workload.

I should add that I just finished 15 miles for the day in H Streets. It took me months of walking around in those, running in flats and running w/o shoes before I could do that.

Fila K4 Racer

Mizuno Wave Phantom

Both flats, but not so minimilistic that you'll get hurt. Good marathon flats, but they've got enough under foot to train in (for those that can get away with it).

what do people think of adidas

cubato

adistar comp

getting harder and harder to find, but Onitsuka Tigers 'Limber up Moscow', with the thin overall material, is actually stellar as a workout shoe. Very light, very minimalist, but your foot gets a little hot compared to modern flats - i.e. not as breathable. Better than the Ultimate 81's for running, in my opinion. Low cost.

cubato plus are nice, much more stable than they look but relatively low. A good transition shoe/everyday trainer.

The Cubato Plus IMHO is a great shoe. They have a low profile, are light (unlike the Ultimate 81), and seem to have good upper durability (which is important for me.) The sizing is somewhat strange though (I'm 11.5 in most everything, 12 in the Cubato.)

As far as transitioning goes, if you have a big peak and then some down time, it might be wise to wait until that downtime to switch.

PEOPLE, PEOPLE, PEOPLE, You must learn to understand the relationship between getting injured do to running 90miles a week and getting injured because of a shoe. Whether you do 90miles a week in thick cushion/stability trainers or you run in flats you are still at risk of pulling, straining, stressing, or tearing muscles,ligiments,and bones simply because of the amount of training you are doing.

Wearing a flat for your everyday training, simply allows your body to perform at a more natural gait cycle which will promote a healthy functional efficient stride for your individual unique body type. Where as by wearing a thick soled high heel shoe for everyday walking and running you weakend your foot and promote an unnatural gait cycle thus causing more pronation and an ever weaking foot, ankle, and achilles which leads to a greater risk for overuse injuries.

If this is to simple for you to understand than go do some biomechanical research so it can become more for clear for you!

stress fracture man here. i ran for about 6 weeks at 90 miles in flats before the fracture happened. i had no problems apart from some initial calf pain in the transition. the break happened when i was cruising at sub 5 min pace down hill on concrete, with a group. i agree that minimal shoes lead to a more natural stride, etc. and i hate anything that's built up. i agree that built up shoes are really bad for you in the long run. but i think that if you are doing very hard training on very hard surfaces and you are a mid-foot, toe striker (like me) its best to run your really hard/long runs in something low but with a little more padding, like the NB 900s. We evolved to run on grasslands not concrete, and there's not much give in ye olde 2nd metatarsul. i want to run very fast and breaking bones isn't helpful to this project. this is just my view, perhaps others have different experience.

I am glad to see the we can agree on a few things. But why do you insist on assuming that your stress in your metatarsals would have been any better with a couple more millimeters of cushioning?

trackhead, If you don't mind me asking, what are your training for specifically? Track, marys, half-marys, road 5ks?

Thanks.

If shoes that happened to have more cushioning would have prevented the injury, it would most likely be because his mechanics would have been at least slightly different, not because of the cushioning. Unless rcb does something very strange and lands with his metatarsals almost perpendicular to the ground, they'll take more compressive stress and bending during midstance and pushoff than during initial footstrike. I don't think cushioning per se would have changed anything.

yes, you are an idiot. You are claiming that shoes with extra support actually weaken the foot. If that is true, than non runners would have significantly stronger lower leg and feet than runners. Please go to any podiatrist and give them your theory, or any doctor. You might get 1 out of 20 to buy into it- that a cushioned pair of nike or addidas will weaken your foot.

i wouldnt say a cushy shoe weakens your foot...but definitly doesnt strengthen it as well as a less cushioned shoe.

does anybody know what size I'd be in a cubato or H street if I am a size 9.5 in mizuno and 9 in ultimate 81's?

But trackhead and others on here say it weakens the foot. Alex is right, if that were true , than non runners would have stronger feet than runners, which I highly doubt. This notion that cushioned shoes cause injuries is rediculous. There are plenty of horror stories about training in minimal shoes as well.