UPDATE: No dice with these over long distances, which might be why they aren’t on the market anymore. The air pocket in the forefoot is very cushiony, but the constant repetitive up-and-down motion of long walks causes friction at the edges of the pocket. My feet started blister a bit after about six or seven miles on a hard-packed trail. These are fine for walking around the mall for a few hours or a job like nursing or cash-register attending where you’d spend a lot of time standing without much motion. But they aren’t hiking shoes.

Not to be confused with Run DMC, the Walk DMX Max, which I picked up at the Reebok outlet store in Gilroy the other day, has an extremely spongy insole and air pockets under the ball of the feet and the heel to provide super squishy walking.

I’ve put about five miles on them so far — on flat ground — and they did fine. Kept my feet dry despite a light rain.

I’m pretty sure this model has been discontinued, actually, but it’ll be interesting to see how long they last before the little air-bubble inserts pop and go flat.

Lately I’ve discovered I’ve got short, fat feet, and that I had been buying shoes over a full size too long to get them to fit comfortably around the toes. I’ve also discovered I can spend hours in a shoe store looking for the best fit, once I make up my mind. Once I started trying on shorter shoes in wider widths (harder to find but worth the effort), I noticed the fit improving dramatically.

I don’t know if these new shoes have enough traction for hiking but it’ll be interesting finding out (in the same way that it’s interesting to discover your car tires have gone bald when you’re veering off the side of a curvy mountain road).