As a large-footed (size 14) runner, I tend to have a wee bit ‘o trouble finding shoes. That’s one of the many reasons I’ve come to love the world wide web, because on-line shoe stores, unlike their physical and local counterparts, tend to have a vast array of shoes in my size. Don’t get me wrong, I love supporting local businesses, but not enough to cram my feet into too small shoes.

Moving on, the trouble that not being able to try on shoes before purchasing them creates is a large amount of hesitancy and the need to find trustworthy shoe reviews before making any purchases. I probably spend too much time trying to gather information from on-line reviews and magazine product tests than most, but that’s just the extent that I have to go through in lieu of being able to put the shoes on my feet first.

Where is this all going? Here….

The Brooks Green Silence are a shoe I’ve long been eyeing. Snazzy colors aside, I’ve been intrigued by the barely-there look of the upper. I acutally did get to try these on way-back-when Melissa and were living in Detroit. However, at the time, I did not have the funds to purchase a pair of shoes at full MSRP, and by the time those funds were there, I did not have enough recollection of them to go out and by them.

That rare trying on of a shoe that interested me took place about two years ago. I now own a pair, the same color scheme as above, and am very happy to have finally picked ‘em up, and even happier to have done so when they were heavily discounted at RunningWarehouse.com.

The in-between from trying these on to purchasing them involved a lot of looks at them, but never the “Buy Now” click. I was intimidated by a lot of criticism of their durability, even though I’d witnessed (on Twitter) Scott Jurek setting a new American 24-hour run record in them. I’d also been intimidated by criticism of their being gimmicky and not a quality shoes, even though I’d spent plenty of time watching Sage Canaday run and race at an elite leve in them in Flotrack video coverage from Vo2Max Productions. I even followed Tweets as Mike Wolfe wore them for a 2nd place finish at Western States and TNFEC Championships win in San Francisco.

Time-and-time again these criticisms were a deterrent. In the meantime I’ve logged a ton of awesome miles in other racing flats and even in other Brooks shoes (the Launch), but kept shying away from the Green Silence.

And now, while the colorways and awesome pricing sold me on giving them a try, it’s their performance that has sold me on going back to them… Though maybe I shouldn’t get too far ahed of myself.

You see, I just took ‘em out for a spin today for the first time. Nothing too special, just a jaunt of barely over an hour around Alamosa. But I threw a lot at them. If my run at lunch today were a song, it would have been jazzy bluegrass with a Dragonforce-esque guitar solo thrown in for good measure. I went all sorts of different paces, ran over rocky medians and through grass, hurdled some short parking lot fences, and when confronted with a 1 mile stretch of perfectly flat pavement, floored it ‘til the road ran out.

Every second of that run felt great. Whether I was running slow or hauling ass, the Green Silence performed exactly as I wanted. I attribute this to the light weight, the sock-like fit of the upper, and the sole is made in such a way that it feels like a lower profile, lower heel drop shoe than advertised. I’ve never run in such a perfect fusion of style, performance and comfort.

After waiting so long to try these, my expectations were sky high, and today at least, they were met. Clearly, a bit more running in them is needed to make a full judgement on the Green Silence, but I’ve never been so impressed by a first run as I was today.