Hattori Love/Hate continues...
Boy! Do I love these Hattories!... Boy! Do I hate some things about these Hattories!
After running in "free" huaraches, cheap flipuaraches and water socks it was quite a stretch to buy running shoes! I decided to take the plunge with a great deal and good return policy at my local Road Runner Sports (Westminster, CO, 104th and I36).
After my first 4.5 miles in the new shoes I had to get out of them and finish with 1.5 barefoot. That was a perfect combination!...
In the middle of my next run of 7.5 miles, I got to do about 2 miles bare on a side walk, then put the shoes back on to finish. At about 6 miles they were causing pain on the ball of my big toe because of the edge of the rubber wear pads on the inner edge... great rubber, bad application! I stopped, pulled the shoes off, found a 2 pound rock and beat the shoes until they gave up... I thought... It did help a lot and I got back to the car OK. The toe box issue was still not so good.
Before my next run I knew I had to do something about the restricted toe box and wear pad edges or take them back! You see, Saucony went to a great deal of trouble to put "side walls" on the toe box that really bothered my feet! Why do that???
So... when I saw the side rubber coming disconnected from the left shoe upper fabric, I felt comfortable pulling it away a bit more to ensure that I could remove some sidewall without unattaching the upper. It lookeded like it was good for a try...
So... I cut it off! Yep... brand new shoes... cut off the beautiful siderails...
Now for the other shoe... oops... the side rails on the right shoe were still firmly attached and I had to work hard to get them off! (Good - tough bond! Bad - Why different than other shoe? First shoe siderail came unbonded on the first run...)
I had to do some undercutting and then pulled the side rail rubber off with a pliers. not so pretty, but I did not damage the upper, so I called it a success.
The third run was about 8 miles and all on sidewalk, so I was able to go bare several times to give my feet a break. I do really enjoy the shoes when they aer not causing problems! I also noted some wrinkling of the soft inner padding... I may have to loose that! I decided to give it a try to grind down the edges of the big toe pads to stop the pain they cause to the balls of my feet (In an earlier post I described doing a similar thing to the trailing edge of the ball pad). I hit it with some course and fine sandpaper and appreciate just how tough that rubber is! Cool Saucony! Really great rubber... just extend it out over the 2nd metatarsal joint and taper the edges, PLEASE!
The fourth run was pretty good, but I still was not satisfied with the toe box... it still has raised edges! I had little metatarsal stress pain with the less restricted side movement. The pad sanding helped a lot and I did not have any issues with the soft liner. I decided to make one more set of modifications...
I did some undercutting to cut edge relief grooves on the inner edges. That allowed the last of the inner ridge to lie flat while protecting the attachment of the upper... hard telling if it will last...
I also decided to remove some of the arch support. I do not need it or want it and I fear that it will cause me to slack on my barefoot form. The trusty knife did a great job but revealed a small void in the arch area of both shoes. I grabbed some silicon calk and filled that in and feathered the edges to anchor it. Also hard telling how long that will last.
Well, I do not suppose RoadRunner will be too excited to take back these babies now! I loved them enough to perform surgery to save them!!!
I took the Hattories back to the store to show off my handiwork. I missed seeing my barefoot expert, but got to see other folks give me that..."you did what??" look while trying to remember "the customer is always right" - ya'know?
I got to take a look at the newly arrived New Balance Minimus Trail MT20... tune in for my next post about that experience.
Barely running
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