Footwear company Five Ten is known primarily for their rock climbing shoes. If you look a bit closer, though, they seem to have a shoe for every application you can think of, from mountain biking and hiking to BASE jumping, freerunning and slacklining. My personal favorite is the Atlas Pamplona running shoe ($150, fiveten.com).
It doesn't have the super-techy sole of the Mizuno Prophecy, and it's not the newest, baddest Five Finger shoe on the market. In fact, aside from its bright red exterior, it looks like a plain old running shoe. A plain old running shoe for the running of the bulls.
If the name struck a memory that you couldn't quite put a finger on, it's because Pamplona, Spain is where they hold the annual running of the bulls. You know those videos you've seen of hordes of people sprinting through alleys, followed immediately by a stampeding herd of horned fury? Yeah, these shoes are made for those.
I have a hard time with bullfighting, but I'll say this - at least in Pamplona, they get a chance to hit back. After all the beef I've eaten (and will continue to eat), it's the least I can to to give them that chance. Five Ten took a bunch of runners out to the 2011 running of the bulls and made this video.
I have a hard time with bullfighting, but I'll say this - at least in Pamplona, they get a chance to hit back. After all the beef I've eaten (and will continue to eat), it's the least I can to to give them that chance. Five Ten took a bunch of runners out to the 2011 running of the bulls and made this video.
Regardless of your thoughts on bullfighting and the surrounding culture, you can't deny that this is the most intense short run out there.
Five Ten took their Atlas freerunning shoe, with its Stealth Climbing rubber for maximum traction on cobblestones, and they redid the upper in an all-crimson hue. The shoes' freerunning background will come in handy not only for cobblestone sprints, but also for hopping fences and brick walls if necessary. As far as I'm concerned, the red exterior serves two purposes: 1) To cover any potential blood stains if you get gored, and 2) To serve as a middle finger to the bulls that you're outrunning. You're not afraid of them.
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| A bull's-eye view of your shoe. |
