New Trail Shoes

This evening I stopped over at Vertical Runner in Hudson to purchase a new pair of trail shoes since my old ones are long overdue. When I walked in I told Vince to give me a pair of Montrail Continental Divides in a size 12 since those have been my bread and butter ever since I got into trail running. He said OK but told me to try on this new pair of trail shoes that he just got from Merrell called the CP Paragon. He told me that I would be the first person in the store to actually try them on. I figured what the heck.. So I laced them up and was surprised to find out that they fit like a glove and were noticeably lighter. The Merrell CP Paragon is 10.5 ounces versus the 13.6 ounce Montrail Continental Divide. A big difference for sure. Now the question I had was - do I want to have a lighter shoe and risk giving up the higher ankle support and protection that the Continental Divides have to offer? Plus, I always go by the slogan - If it's not broke, don't fix it. After tossing around the decision in my head for awhile I finally decided to purchase the Merrell's since I don't have any trail races coming up that are extremely technical. If I had to buy a pair of shoes before my last trail race (which I probably should have) I would've picked the Montrail's for sure since the course is fairly rocky, but my next race is the Buckeye Trail 50K which is a little bit more tame. I guess only time will tell how much I like my new shoes. I'm definitely looking forward to getting out on the trails and test driving them though!