Elf Martin

In my recent interview with Tim Norwood, sales monkey for Luna Sandals, I spoke to him as he was heading down to Mexico with Barefoot Ted to run the 50-mile Ultramarathon Caballo Blanco. The race, formerly called the Copper Canyon Ultramarathon, was made famous by Christopher McDougall’s book Born to Run. The book documented Caballo Blanco’s […]

Okay, so you’ve got your trusty RunAmocs, you’re realizing that running properly makes you feel great and maybe you’ve even started entering some races. Maybe you’re considering pushing yourself to do some longer races. Maybe you could even do… a marathon? Does the idea of training for a marathon seem daunting, or even unimaginable to you? […]

Elf Erica (or as I like to call her, Elfrica) has the most physically demanding job at Soft Star. As our expert sole attacher, it’s her job to make Vibram soles stick to the bottom of our RunAmocs. While this involves a lot of gluing and trimming, it also requires a good bit of hammering […]

As some of our readers may recall, we made a special pair of shoes for Missy Franklin after the Olympics ended last summer. The swimmer and four-time gold medalist said in an interview that she had trouble finding shoes to fit her size 13 feet. Upon hearing this, our seamstresses went to work right away […]

We’re very excited to announce that Soft Star will have an exhibition booth at the Portland Shamrock Run Fitness Fair this weekend! For anyone in the Portland, Oregon area, this is a great opportunity to try on our shoes and ask questions about how we make them. We’ll have a full selection of moccasins and […]

It’s play time again! Twice a year, the Soft Star elves set aside an afternoon for a playday. This is an day in which we stop working and are encouraged to engage in a creative project of our choice. We’re allowed to use the equipment and materials at Soft Star and our activities don’t need […]

Tom Norwood at the Orcas Island Ultra 50kThe Caballo run gained fame after the publication of Christopher McDougall’s bestselling book Born to Run, in which McDougall chronicles his experiences in the canyons with Micah True (a.k.a. Caballo Blanco) and the Tarahumara Indians. Originally named the Copper Canyon Run, the race was renamed this year in […]