Review on Optimized Elasticity: Xero Shoes Men's HFS Running Shoes - Zero Drop, Ultra-Lightweight & Enhanced Barefoot Sensation by Lamar Marshall

Almost every time I go on YouTube lately I seem to see an ad for Xero shoes. Your marketing department should be running at full speed. In any case, I've only heard rave reviews of their shoes, so I decided to order a pair of their recently released HFS sneakers in hopes that I might add them to my repertoire. the shoe felt very good - the sole felt very grippy - the build quality and materials were also top notch - the huarache style straps on the sides of the shoe hugged my feet without having to worry about that slip my feet in. Unfortunately, the mismatched fit turned out to be the issue I had with these shoes. From the back of the shoe to the ball of your foot the shoe felt great. Blocked but not restrictive - no problem; From the ball of the foot, however, the HFS felt cramped in both width and height. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the thick socks of my Lems Primal 2s and Altra Escalante 1.5s/Kayentas (all of which I wear without insoles). But the HFS is noticeably narrower from the midfoot forward compared to my Lems and Altras, and even with the insoles pulled out, I felt like my toes (especially my big toes) were constantly pressing against the sides and top of the toe. Overall The reason I switched to a zero drop wide toe box shoe is to allow my feet to function as similarly as possible to how they function barefoot and the shoes I wear to be as unobtrusive as possible have to. So when my toes are getting feedback from the shoe that they're moving too much and given the issues that lack of flexibility in the thumb can cause, that's not the feedback I want to give them, especially considering my lems and Altras let my toes do their thing completely. However, I have a feeling that the HFS will probably fit most people, but since I have relatively wide feet (probably an outlier compared to the size of the average person's foot), the narrow/flat toe of the HFS doesn't work for me. The rest of the shoe is great, so I'm hoping Xero tweaks the HFS "2.0" (or "1.5" as Altra numbers their updates ;) ) to have a slightly wider and taller toe box while keeping the center. - and the back foot fits the same. In the meantime, I'll be happy to continue riding my Lems and Altras :).