Altra Running is a footwear brand founded in Orem, Utah, in 2009. It is now headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
SGB credits Golden Harper with the world's best marathon for a 12-year-old, 2:45:34. That is about 6:19 a mile, at an age when most of us were still being driven to practice. Harper grew up working at Runner's Corner, his parents' running store in Orem, and that is where Altra began.
His fix for injured customers was to cut the built-up heel out of big-brand shoes so heel and forefoot sat level. He called it zero drop. "We sold a thousand pairs of zero-drop shoes out of the store that year," he told Utah Business. Established shoe companies passed, so in 2009 Harper, Brian Beckstead, Jeremy Howlett and Quirl Jacob Hansen started Altra themselves.
In the 12 months before VF Corporation bought Altra in 2018, the brand brought in $50 million and sold in 55 countries. Its shoes are built around a wide toe box Altra calls Footshape, and many models keep the level platform. Icon Health and Fitness had owned the company since 2011, and VF now runs it from Denver.
Utah gets the credit for the store where a nine-year-old got his first job and, years later, took a bandsaw to the merchandise.
The 275 in Altra's Olympus 275 trail shoe, released in 2025, is the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit of the ovens used to make the brand's first prototypes.
I run in the Olympus 5, and the wide toe box makes a huge difference. Love that they name shoes after mountains.
Alex
New from Altra Running
Torin 9 road running shoe
The ninth Torin keeps Altra's zero drop and adds a Vibram outsole that the company says grips 8.5% better than the Torin 8. It costs $160.
