FWIW, Altra makes shoes with varying amounts of cushion and sole flexibility, all with zero heel to toe drop. That alone makes a HUGE amount of difference to me. Even if I could run minimal, I wouldn't, since a lot of my running is on gravel roads - a couple of times I've bruised a foot THROUGH highly cushioned shoes. Love my new Torin 1.5s. I'm also finding that since I'm in minimal shoes pretty much any time I'm NOT running, that I've been able to adjust to them very quickly.

I went ahead and signed up for Boston. All I can think about is how I'm going to train for it this year. I guess that's a product of having already decided I wasn't going to devote too much mental or physical energy to New York.