Thanks to James at Run Venture for getting a pair of Altra Lone Peak 5 transferred to the Honiton store for me, one of my whims to try something new and the advantage of shopping local!
A couple runs done now and holy crap these are a dark horse.
Fit like slippers
Zero drop
Grippy
Wide toe box
Fantastic ground feel
YET somehow protected/cushioned
UNEXPECTEDLY FAST!
Run 'lighter' than you expect
These dropped down under 6 min/mile on the road with ease (and felt better doing so than a lot of road shoes), for something I bought as a fastpacking/ultra shoe they are a real eye opener in comparison to my usual Inov-8 or Hoka etc.
The one downfall, they're not great at contouring on technical terrain, the wide toe box results in you sliding/rolling off the sole but that's unavoidable when your forefoot isn't locked in tight. For most trail running in the South West it's not an issue and something I'll happily put up when the other 99.9% of the run feels that great.
I think this will be my first of many pairs...
DON'T FORGET: If you're running The Bosun or CapTEN, trail shoes are STRONGLY RECOMMENDED, I'm not saying these are the shoes for you (far from it, they may be TOTALLY wrong for you) but boy do I like them!
A SOLID 9/10 AND WORTH A TRY
