I've been running for about 10 years now and I grew up knowing that shoes are supposed to be well cushioned to help reduce the shock. That's until I saw what minimalist running was about and decided to give it a try. My father and brother are both runners and both have suffered knee chronic knee injury. So I decided to try the minimalist running to ease the impact on my knee. I bought this shoes and while it's not a minimalist shoes, it's lack of cushion on the heel area means that naturally this shoe allows one to run minimal. I used them to run for the first time this week and I must say you really can feel the difference as opposed to the conventional running shoes. If used correctly, this would be a runner's dream. I was a little unfit going into this week having not run for about 2 weeks, and with the same exertion I was able to run much more efficiently - same distance in even less time than accustomed on a normal day's run. I gave it 4oo5 because of my own fault actually. I purchased size 9 which is my usual running shoe size and decided to play it safe and go with a 9, but the 9's a tad too big. My actual rating will be 4.5. My next shoe (and I'll definitely be buying another) will be 8.5. I love these shoes - they've given me a whole new perspective on running.