Norda Introduces its 005 Trail Racing Shoe

Nick Martiri, co-founder of Norda, introduces us to the Norda 005, a 210 gram trail running super shoe

Okay, we're with Nick Martiri, co-founder of Norda. He's going to show us something super special today, the 005. Go ahead, Nick

Good morning, everyone. We're live in Chamonix, France during UTMB week here. What a perfect week to be launching our new 005

We're saying that this is the lightest, strongest, most stable and resilient trail shoe ever made. Here you go. First look, first unveiling this morning

This shoe is a true innovation. We're using some of the latest materials in our sport. Basically, the upper is made almost entirely of bio-based Dyneema

It is the lightest and strongest shoe upper ever made. It's made of bio-based and recycled materials. The midsole is made of 100% pure Arnitel

Arnitel is TPEE. This shoe in its 100% purity gives about an 80.6% resiliency. Even with that extremely high rebound, it is very, very stable

It's not supercritically foamed. It's the pure material. Exactly. There's no mixing of foams in here. There's no supercritical. There's nothing to be confused at. It's only 100% Arnitel TPEE that's in this shoe

I'm just going to show you here the soleplate. This is a Norda-designed exclusive Vibram soleplate. It is made with a brand new compound, which is called Mega Grip Elite

You can see right there, this is the first time ever, the tackiest, grippiest rubber ever created in the history of Vibram. It is first and exclusive on the Norda-005

Tell us about the weight, because this is a big part of the story, and the durability with Jason

Absolutely. A big thing for us, obviously, is running economy. There's a famous thing that Bill Bowerman used to say back in the day. It's something like one less ounce of weight over the course of 10 kilometers is something like 5,000 less pounds of energy expenditure on the body

If you think about it, every time your knee raises, you're actually lifting an extra ounce. That's about 10,000 steps over the course of 10 kilometers. You add that all up, it's about 5,000 pounds of weight

Anyway, long story short, it was a big factor for us to try and make this shoe as light as possible. We were only able to do that because we used such cutting-edge materials

It just makes for an incredibly light shoe. The men's 8.5 is 211 grams. That is by far the lightest full-stack shoe that's ever been made for trail running

That's lighter than many road super shoes. What is the stack height, Nick

It's 28.5 at the back and it's 21.5 at the front, including the lugs. It's not necessarily as high as you think. One of the things that we wanted to do was we wanted to bring it closer to the ground

Because the foam is so powerful and bouncy, we don't need to go to that extreme stack height. We can actually bring you closer to the ground, but yet give you that really incredible rebound that you need with each step

And Jason's experience at Hard Rock, and this week too. He's actually live on course right now. Jason Schlark, as many of you know, an incredible legend, American course record holder at Hard Rock. I think it is 4th at UTMB a few years ago

He's currently live on the TBS course right now. A couple of weeks ago, he raced Hard Rock and he finished 3rd on the podium

And he's 50 or something, isn't he? Jason's just 47. Okay, okay

Maybe 46. Okay. Yeah, he's a couple of years younger than me, but he raced Hard Rock in this shoe and he podiumed in this exact shoe

And that's rough. That's a really rough course. There's a lot of shale rock and if you see the shoe, the shoe practically looks brand new. I mean, because it's impossible to cut this out there

Fantastic. What a wonderful innovation and introduction. Thank you very much for showing it to us

Thanks for having me by today. Okay. Have a great week in Chamonix

Thanks, Sam. Thanks for inviting me