Altra Men's Escalante Running Shoe, Blue, 10.5 D(M) US

I love this shoe. I have been running for yrs. and I am 65yr. male. I started running on Brooks. Went to pearl n2. Pearl stops making running shoes so I have tried mizuno wave hoka Clifton 4 . nothing compared too pearls comfort. Then at a Lloyd all running store they said try these. Escalante. Wow. I was training for my 1st marathon and had 30 miles on them and did the marathon. I found my shoe. Escalante are the best ever. The fit was right on and I am a mid striker so the transition to zero drop was painless.

After using 4mm Sauconys like the Freedom ISO and Kinvara religiously for a few years, I decided to try out the Escalante 1.0, because I like responsive, low drop shoes. The Escalante was good, but I found the heel and midfoot areas to have very sloppy fits. I also felt like it ran half a size small. The ride and feel of the shoes was great, but I was constantly annoyed by the sloppy feeling heel. With the Escalante 1.5 (which I got a half size small), I noticed that altra slimmed down the heel cushioning and added just the right amount of structure to prevent slippage. This shoe kept all the great aspects of the Escalante 1.0, while also fixing the issues I had with it. I was about to switch back to Saucony, until I tried these shoes, and now I can confidently say that I won't be trying other brands for a long time.