Running shoes
Product 2018
Lady
The Altra DNA is recognizable a mile away. The King MT 1.5 is a testament to it. The two highlights of these shoes are the zero drop and a wide toe box, what the brand calls the “Footshape Toe Box”.
If you choose to wear zero drop shoes, and have never done so before – tread carefully. Going from a higher drop directly to zero can cause problems with your Achilles tendon and your calves, you need to reduce progressively if you don’t want any injuries. It may be fashionable to run with a zero drop, but learn how to do it progressively.
The King MT 1.5 has little cushioning and is the same throughout the shoe. Fore-foot runners feel immediately more at ease in this Altra. The foot strike is natural.
Even if the Altra has no drop it isn’t a minimalist shoe; the sole is quite thick, has very good grip on wet terrain, the entire front of the shoe has stone guard protection and some reinforcements. A “Stone guard” plate is integrated in the sole to stop the feeling of the stones coming up through the sole.
The sole isn’t floppy it has good torsional rigidity. The upper on the other hand is soft. There is also no heel support. So you have a shoe that follows all the movements of your feet. Especially in proprioception, finesse and foot strike.
The Altra King MT 1.5 becomes limited on technical terrain, scattered with large stones. If you want to run for a long time you need to be able to run in fore-foot position, and that isn’t for everyone. But having said that the Altra is designed for short distance trails, Vertical Kilometers, etc.
These are great shoes for working on your proprioception and foot placement, as the risk of injury are reduced thanks to the Vibram Megagrip®.
The toe box is very wide so your toes can spread with ease. This feels quite strange if you are not used to it, and it doesn’t necessarily look very aesthetic, but the comfort is genuine.
Lacing up needs a bit of care to slide the laces through the eyelets at the front of the shoe. The laces are quite short so difficult to do a double knot. There’s a strap on top of the upper, we didn’t tighten this strap whilst running to keep the flexibility. When we tightened the strap we had a strange feeling under the arch, so you need to be really careful how you tighten it.
Altra has kitted out their shoes with gaiter fixture points.
The Altra King MT 1.5 is an unusual shoe with a zero drop and grippy sole. A good compromise for trying short trail runs in fore-foot position.
9 mm 
We used this equipment over a long period of time
These are our thoughts after intensive use:
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