maui 2009 press guide - Xterra

Lightweight XTERRA Shoes Designed to Help Athletes
Stalk Their On-Course Prey
XTERRAGEAR.COM NEWS
TJ Gray and Ashley Brown — designers of XTERRA’s new
line of footwear and apparel — stood at the finish line of the
XTERRA World Championship in Maui in October 2008.
While many of the competitors lay in bed the night before
counting sheep in anticipation of the race, that afternoon
Gray and Brown were counting shoes.
Road shoe, road shoe, road shoe. As athletes poured
down from the lower slopes of Mount Haleakala from their
nearly seven-mile trail run over roots, rocks and ravines,
Gray and Brown couldn’t believe their eyes.
“Maybe one in 100 was a trail runner,” said Brown, who
along with partner Gray have also developed shoes for
Nike, adidas and Salomon. “They were all sacrificing stability
for less weight.”
They returned to the drawing board, determined to make
XTERRA the lightest — but still, most stable — trail running
shoe on the market. With four months until the launch of the
shoes at the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City,
designs were tweaked, materials tested — including a
unique combination of lighter blown rubber in the forefoot
and a heavier high-abrasion carbon rubber in the heel.
But their biggest scientific sport discovery was yet to come.
After much trial and error in their New Hampshire lab, a
molding model never before seen in the category was
created. Gone was a traditional glued-together midsole,
replaced by a dual-injected, dual-density EVA made of two
layers — the top soft, the bottom harder — giving comfort
and stability while taking away weight.
The result: an eco-friendly design that’s one of the lightest
trail runners ever, weighing in at less than 10.5 ounces for
men, 9.5 for women.
With the weight issue solved, multi-sport competitors Gray
and Brown began to research every movement taken on a
trail — the footplant and lateral pushoff around a 90-degree
directional path change, the flexed-footed jump over water,
the balanced gripped-toe run across a log.
As they were going for a timed run in the woods near their
studios — furiously passing each other, taking turns as the
lead — the big-picture design inspiration for XTERRA’s new
footwear line came: a big-cat predator’s paw.
“Chasing its prey, a big cat grips into the earth — digging
into loose gravel, dirt, gaining time and distance on every
step, every leap,” said Gray, a former collegiate decathlete
at Syracuse.
“The outer part of their foot acts like a traction pad,” he
continued. “It’s from there that we came up with XTERRA’s
unique outsole lug concept.”
The concept’s name: WILDTred. According to Gray and
Brown, its carved claw-like perimeter lug design forms
independent touch pads from forefoot to heel with deep flex
zones for controlled, wrap-around grip. They also noted the
lugs are higher than the shoe bottom’s concave center,
helping it act as its front and rear suspension while creating
a larger surface area.
“With the cat’s paw, we liked the symbolism of man’s
co-existence with all things found in the environment, said
Brown. “We adapt to our surroundings, whether it be
animal, plant or any of nature’s elements.
Continued Brown: “The thought behind XTERRA’s new line
is that the outdoors are no longer to be conquered; they’re
to be connected with.”
XTERRA’s footwear launch includes five styles: trail
runner, trail trainer, ultra trainer, performance sandal, and
performance slide.
For more information on the product — or what retailers
are carrying XTERRA — multisport athletes can go to
www.xterrafootwear.com
64