On the instep of this shoe is a splatter pattern intended, I guess, to look cool. It doesn't. It looks as if you stepped in some paint and didn't notice until it dried. That being said, no one will ever notice it unless you tell them about it.

I purchased these because they ranked #1 in Consumer Reports and because I've been very disappointed with my last several training shoe, tennis shoe, whatever category these things are now in. For the last five months I've not been so nice to them. They've been both on and off trail, through puddles, on the hard surfaces of different streets and over more miles at the gym than the rest of my body shows. So far, so good. I highly recommend these, as long as you can let yourself forget about it really dumb design splatter.