Shoes with roughly 20 millimeters of foam underfoot. In 2009, at the peak of the barefoot-running craze, Frenchman and adventure racer 聽had an idea: What if shoes could absorb a runner鈥檚 pounding like shocks on a bike? Mermoud and business partner tapped a Chinese chemist, who used a proprietary compound to create a shoe with 29 millimeters of foam鈥攖hree times the average鈥攚ithout adding weight. The Hoka One One聽was born. Since then fat shoes have been on a tear: every major running–footwear company now makes one, and Hoka鈥檚 2014 sales were up 350 percent over the previous year.
(Photo: Tim Tomkinson)
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