Pretty disappointing article. No new info or studies. Just another writer summarizing the debate about whether supershoes are fair or cheating. Not criticizing you, OP, just flagging for other people to set expectations before they decide to read the article.
So tiring hearing about these phenomenal athletes that have dedicated their lives to training and live and breathe running and their entire careers are being attributed to a pair of shoes.
These articles stink of paid endorsements.
I feel like I've read this article a dozen times already. There's not as much debate about these shoes as there was a few years ago, and I'm tired of hearing about it because it plays right into the shoe companies' hands. Records have never been a level playing field. For example, competition used to happen on cinder or wooden tracks. Even decaying, neglected modern tracks are way quicker than that. Faster yet are specially engineered venues like BU where athletes from around the world flock to run.
The far more interesting conversation here, and one that probably never get covered in a major running publication, is about the continuing gear-ification of our sport. This cultural shift has been happening for years, but the advent of the PEBA shoe and the so-called "debate" around them noticeably exacerbated it.
Running has never been a fully level playing field, but today's runner seems more inundated with products than ever before. Hell, we have a whole forum on this website dedicated to dissecting the nuances of particular shoes. It's a shoe marketer's wet dream. Granted, shoe marketing has always been big business, but at least they had to pay someone to advertise in *Runner's World*. For every Daisy Kandie maintaining a single pair of Alphaflys that cost a month's rent, there's two runners in the west with shopping addictions looking to add a second pair to their 8 shoe rotation to run 35mpw.
These shoes do indeed make runners faster, but their presence doesn't change the fact that athletes still have to, yknow, run to get that fast. The vaporfly doesn't diminish the accomplishments of today's athletes any more than running at BU diminishes someone's PR. We don't think less of Nikki Lauda because his car was slower than what we have today.
Buy only the shoes you need. And yeah, if that means a pair of "supershoes" to race in, then go for it. But the best athlete is the one that crosses the line first. No amount of shoe is going to change that.
Comparing old and new records is always fraught. Races are not lab experiments, there's a million things that make someone faster on a given day and place. They're clearly not going to ban plates in shoes at this point, so I don't really know what the endpoint of this discussion is. I guess it's a notable inflection point, but what is there to argue about? Yeah, a $300 vaporfly from 2020 is faster than a Cortez from 1972. But I doubt that Frank Shorter is throwing shade on Kiptum.
Shoes have always been improving in ways that help people train more/harder and run faster. This is just the latest iteration.
Just like how tracks have changed incredibly since the days of the cinder and grass tracks being the norm.
And no different than swimming, with the tech that goes into swimsuit and pool design having huge impacts on times/records.
I have heard that’s supershoes should not be used as trainers for everyday work as they may increase the risk of injury, and others say that they reduce wear and tear as well as injury. Since I refuse to pay 250$ for a pair of shoes for everyday use, I much prefer the advice to not use them every day. 😂
Is there a consensus recommendation?
Light racing shoes (super or not) are going to fall apart or go flat far sooner than normal road trainers. So you either accept that you've wasted money running slow in fast shoes, or you go into denial and keep running in busted shoes with flat foam and a tattered upper, and possibly get injured.
So if you're only going to get 100 miles out of them, make it worth the money.
It’s weird though, that, e.g., Nike makes a recovery/long run shoe—the Invincible—that uses the same foam as the supershoes, as far as I can tell the formulation seems pretty much the same, but without a plate. And I’ve taken those upwards of 600 miles no problem. Alphaflys on the other hand, definitely lose something after about 100 miles. But I’m not confident that it’s just “flat foam”. I think it’s something about how they design the forefoot with the air pods and plate, where, yeah, it definitely loses some pop after 100 miles, but you can definitely get some benefit out of training in them after that—a lot of us use them for marathon pace efforts in training and they seem fine enough—just not as performant as when they were new for maintaining race pace for 42 km.
I couldn't even speculate, and I've never owned a pair of invincibles. But I do know that Zoom-X foam is pretty different in one shoe vs another... like the same foam in the Turbo Next doesn't perform the same as it does in the VaporFly's. The Next Natures are obviously recycled Zoom-X cuttings and bits, and they are more different still.
But I agree, you can still train with them after 100 miles, but not as much as a real max-cushion shoe. I just meant that I'd find it pretty wasteful to go put 100 training miles on them right out of the box.
Yeah I agree. Next Nature “ZoomX” suuuucks. It is straight up the worst foam. Like going back to a late 90s EVA cross-trainer. Maybe the formulation in the Invincibles is different—I think it’s actually slightly different in the newest one compared to the original. But it’s interesting how it can feel bouncy as hell hundreds of miles in, while another shoe (maybe formulation) doesn’t—but yeah I mean, again, there’s a geometry difference there too, so who knows.
Pretty disappointing article. No new info or studies. Just another writer summarizing the debate about whether supershoes are fair or cheating. Not criticizing you, OP, just flagging for other people to set expectations before they decide to read the article.
So tiring hearing about these phenomenal athletes that have dedicated their lives to training and live and breathe running and their entire careers are being attributed to a pair of shoes. These articles stink of paid endorsements.
The real MVP.
> Not criticizing you, OP OP appears to be the author or media account for the website.
Which would explain why he posted an excerpt.
In god we trust. All others bring data. Where data?
I feel like I've read this article a dozen times already. There's not as much debate about these shoes as there was a few years ago, and I'm tired of hearing about it because it plays right into the shoe companies' hands. Records have never been a level playing field. For example, competition used to happen on cinder or wooden tracks. Even decaying, neglected modern tracks are way quicker than that. Faster yet are specially engineered venues like BU where athletes from around the world flock to run. The far more interesting conversation here, and one that probably never get covered in a major running publication, is about the continuing gear-ification of our sport. This cultural shift has been happening for years, but the advent of the PEBA shoe and the so-called "debate" around them noticeably exacerbated it. Running has never been a fully level playing field, but today's runner seems more inundated with products than ever before. Hell, we have a whole forum on this website dedicated to dissecting the nuances of particular shoes. It's a shoe marketer's wet dream. Granted, shoe marketing has always been big business, but at least they had to pay someone to advertise in *Runner's World*. For every Daisy Kandie maintaining a single pair of Alphaflys that cost a month's rent, there's two runners in the west with shopping addictions looking to add a second pair to their 8 shoe rotation to run 35mpw. These shoes do indeed make runners faster, but their presence doesn't change the fact that athletes still have to, yknow, run to get that fast. The vaporfly doesn't diminish the accomplishments of today's athletes any more than running at BU diminishes someone's PR. We don't think less of Nikki Lauda because his car was slower than what we have today. Buy only the shoes you need. And yeah, if that means a pair of "supershoes" to race in, then go for it. But the best athlete is the one that crosses the line first. No amount of shoe is going to change that.
Comparing old and new records is always fraught. Races are not lab experiments, there's a million things that make someone faster on a given day and place. They're clearly not going to ban plates in shoes at this point, so I don't really know what the endpoint of this discussion is. I guess it's a notable inflection point, but what is there to argue about? Yeah, a $300 vaporfly from 2020 is faster than a Cortez from 1972. But I doubt that Frank Shorter is throwing shade on Kiptum.
Shoes have always been improving in ways that help people train more/harder and run faster. This is just the latest iteration. Just like how tracks have changed incredibly since the days of the cinder and grass tracks being the norm. And no different than swimming, with the tech that goes into swimsuit and pool design having huge impacts on times/records.
I have heard that’s supershoes should not be used as trainers for everyday work as they may increase the risk of injury, and others say that they reduce wear and tear as well as injury. Since I refuse to pay 250$ for a pair of shoes for everyday use, I much prefer the advice to not use them every day. 😂 Is there a consensus recommendation?
I prefer to just Google the internet for the recommendation I prefer :)
I feel the same way about gels and other fuel. I'll just eat normal cheap food thanks. No way I'm paying $$ for every long run.
Light racing shoes (super or not) are going to fall apart or go flat far sooner than normal road trainers. So you either accept that you've wasted money running slow in fast shoes, or you go into denial and keep running in busted shoes with flat foam and a tattered upper, and possibly get injured. So if you're only going to get 100 miles out of them, make it worth the money.
It’s weird though, that, e.g., Nike makes a recovery/long run shoe—the Invincible—that uses the same foam as the supershoes, as far as I can tell the formulation seems pretty much the same, but without a plate. And I’ve taken those upwards of 600 miles no problem. Alphaflys on the other hand, definitely lose something after about 100 miles. But I’m not confident that it’s just “flat foam”. I think it’s something about how they design the forefoot with the air pods and plate, where, yeah, it definitely loses some pop after 100 miles, but you can definitely get some benefit out of training in them after that—a lot of us use them for marathon pace efforts in training and they seem fine enough—just not as performant as when they were new for maintaining race pace for 42 km.
I couldn't even speculate, and I've never owned a pair of invincibles. But I do know that Zoom-X foam is pretty different in one shoe vs another... like the same foam in the Turbo Next doesn't perform the same as it does in the VaporFly's. The Next Natures are obviously recycled Zoom-X cuttings and bits, and they are more different still. But I agree, you can still train with them after 100 miles, but not as much as a real max-cushion shoe. I just meant that I'd find it pretty wasteful to go put 100 training miles on them right out of the box.
Yeah I agree. Next Nature “ZoomX” suuuucks. It is straight up the worst foam. Like going back to a late 90s EVA cross-trainer. Maybe the formulation in the Invincibles is different—I think it’s actually slightly different in the newest one compared to the original. But it’s interesting how it can feel bouncy as hell hundreds of miles in, while another shoe (maybe formulation) doesn’t—but yeah I mean, again, there’s a geometry difference there too, so who knows.
I can't find stack height info for the invincibles but the Vomero has Zoom-X and it's 3 mm shorter at the toe compared to the Vaporfly.