A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to venture into a whole new area of the running scene that not too many athletes get to experience. I was invited by Mountain Hardwear/ Montrail to come to the Global Sales Meeting to talk shoes and gear with the designers and product managers. Being the shoe geek that I am, I found it amazing that I had a captive audience for two full days to talk about what I like and what I don’t like about shoes. It was awesome.   The thing that struck me most was how receptive the sales reps from around the world were to having an athlete give them their opinion on shoes and gear.  I can’t imagine it’s like that in every company but what I found were people really willing to listen to what the athletes want and what characteristics a shoe has to have for me to race in it.

Going down I didn’t know what to expect when they wanted me to meet with the Mountain Hardwear  product managers to go over the running gear. I was trying to figure out if it would offend the designers if I said something wasn’t working or that something needed some tweaking to make it fit better but what’s awesome is that they want the gear to work as well or better than I expect it to. I’ve been stoked on being able to wear the Mountain Hardwear brand and I’ve found they’ve got some of the most innovative and best performing gear I’ve owned, and that‘s a lot, but there are some products that do need some work. I sat down for over an hour with Tracey and her team and went through every piece of gear that I have and did the “this is good, this is bad, this could be sweet if you just tweak this, man those pants make my butt look big”. They listened to every word, made suggestions and I think you’ll be amazed at the technical running apparel coming out.   

The Rogue Racer that is being finalized for Spring 2011 is the shoe that I helped give input on and the main reason I was at the sales meeting. In being there I wanted to show my support for the products that I am endorsing by being a member of the Montrail team. The designers at Montrail, Rob, Scott, and others did an amazing job of taking a few hours of discussion about racing shoes and turning that into a shoe that I’m excited to be racing and training in. It’s just a great shoe. That’s a testament to the team that Montrail has assembled to design the new line coming out in Spring 2011.

The attitude of the meeting was far from what I expected with visible excitement from the product managers at Mountain Hardwear and Montrail, to the sales reps who were seeing that their job selling the product to retailers was about to get a lot easier.  Montrail has a new comprehensive line of shoes coming out and everyone is excited to see what happens next year. I say comprehensive because all of the shoes in the line have a purpose. Yes, they’re for running trails but more than that they take the concept of a trail runner and make it better by giving it specificity to individuals. You want a lightweight racer/trainer, we got it, want a posted trail shoe, we got it, want something you can run every surface with, we’ve got that too.

Not to be outdone, the stellar Mountain Hardwear team has created some of the best technical running gear I’ve seen…period. The Geist Jacket is probably my favorite piece of gear, it goes everywhere with me. New 2in1 shorts with innovative pocket locations and arm and leg warmers are coming out, haven’t tried them yet but they’ve got a unique design.

I’ve got to say, it’s great to be working with such amazing people that really care about the products they’re putting out and practice what they preach.  And it’s not every day that the president of the company can keep up with the sponsored athletes on their roster and is himself a very accomplished ultrarunner.

 Back in high school I remember that if anyone had a Mountain Hardwear jacket they were the s*&^ and the envy of others.  Everyone knew that Mountain Hardwear was the best.  I think both companies are starting to build product that will bring that feeling back.

Max

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