Altra Olympus 6 Trail Running shoes For Men, Black/Orange

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] Altra gave me the Olympus 6 for free to test. I put this shoe through the wringer. 28 mile hike/run on Mt Greylock in MA and a 40 mile trail race in West Virginia where I encountered wet, rain, mud, and extremely technical terrain with a lot of elevation change. The good: held up unlike previous versions. Grip is outstanding. Wide toe box is indeed foot shape unlike Altra's new direction deviating from their roots on other models. Toes can splay. Comfortable after breaking them in and utilizing ankle lock lacing techniques. The not so good: just a tad short in my opinion. I'm an 11 all day in every model. I would go up to an 11.5 in this model if I bought another pair. To reiterate, just a tad short. The 11 work, I'm talking a quarter inch at most...maybe less. The pair they sent me had some stitching coming apart out of the box. Didn't cause an issue, but quality control should've flagged it before sending it out. There's some new heal cushioning pad that caused me some irritation at first, but not after breaking them in and adjusting my lacing. The heel tab/loop came folded in for some reason on one shoe (packaging I assume). This also caused irritation on my heel, but shouldn't be an issue if quality control takes a peak before sending out. Overall: I love this shoe and I hope the quality and durability are better moving forward as the last few pairs I've owned(Olympus 5, Timp 4 & 5) were not. I also hope Altra stops narrowing the toe box of other models, puts Vibram mega grip on all trail models as Max Trak is just flat out sub par, and treats their customers better when the durability fails well short of what a shoe should last at their price points.

I've owned 20+ pairs of Altra's, mainly Torin's over the years. I love this shoe and use it primarily for outdoor F3 workouts in which we cover lots of different terrain and do some high impact work. Over the years, the shoes have narrowed a bit, but this one is pretty true. I did find however that the heel pad is problematic and actually removed it to make room. The grip is amazing and the only complaint I have is that the sole at the heel is quite wide. I've caught it a time or two in the last few wears. I have a sz 15 foot, so I can't be picky, but these will be a definite repeat.