The shoes your toes will thank you for

It is not a bad thing to be kind to your toes. A shocking number of shoe brands, however, seem to think that our feet enjoy a nice, prolonged constriction. Not, Altra, though. The American sneaker brand’s consideration for our toes’ freedom was the very plan from its founding. And this is especially true for their Lone Peak style, the flagship trail runner and thru-hike shoe, launched in 2012, a year after the brand was launched by two elite runners, Golden Harper and Brian Beckstead. As the brand’s origin story goes, the first prototypes were literally created by the founders heating up existing running shoes in a toaster oven to remove excessive heel cushioning and level the platform. Inspired by Nike’s Bill Bowerman creating the brand’s signature soles in a waffle iron over breakfast?

Altra was introduced to Singapore in 2019 through the sports goods distributor Sing Phil Enterprise that made it the “official footwear” of the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon of that year. We have seen Altra in stores such as Running Lab, but for reasons we now cannot recall, the shoes did not speak to us. Then it appeared before us recently and something clicked. They were not just talking to us now, they were gesticulating too. The kicks in question is the Lone Peak 8, a trail shoe distinguished by their wide toe box, known as the Original Footshape Fit. The roominess afforded in the front side of the foot basically allows air to circulate around the toes so that they can breathe, even with socks on.

The first Altra Lone Peak was introduced in 2012, and they quickly became appreciated for their Zero Drop “bare foot feeling”—the heel and forefoot are levelled with a 0mm drop. This encourages a natural foot strike and posture, which many trail adventurers and pavement walkers alike prefer. We have not put the eighth iteration of the Lone Peak, released in 2024, to the test on a trail, but it was a joy to walk in them from ION Orchard to Raffles City. We are not sure if it has also something to do with this colour combination (shown in the above photo): tan (as Altra calls it), with the blue accent and mid-sole. They went very well—and still does—with our Jonathan Anderson X Uniqlo straight-cut jeans.

The Altra Lone Peak 8 in ‘Tan’ (men’s sizes only), SGD239, is available at Outside stores. Photo: Zhao Xiangji