Altra is a young but up-and-coming running company with a line-up spanning road running, trail running, and racing.

Altra was founded around its “zero drop” running shoe design in 2009, though its scheme also includes its FootShape with wider toe boxes. This leads to a foot strike that is more on the midfoot and forefoot than in traditional running shoes.

Its insistence on its own principles gives the Altra brand a unique personality, and the company has earned an enthusiastic following in a short time.

Altra’s benefits are often felt most by those on their feet the longest, so they have found many of their most passionate customers on the trails. Altra’s shoe names come from mountains, most in Altra’s original home of the Wasatch range in Utah. This tradition started with the Lone Peak, Altra’s first trail shoe continues to this day with their first shoe named for a mountain outside of the USA, Mont Blanc, which is the famous mountain in ultra-running thanks to the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc race.

Named for the temperature (in Fahrenheit) that melts the glue holding shoes together, project 275 is continuing the bold innovation that put Altra on the map from the beginning. The latest shoes coming out of this project are the Vanish racing shoes and Mont Blanc trail shoes. The bold thinking behind those running shoes shows that Altra is determined to continue shaping the running industry for years to come.