Honest personal feedback: how much faster are the best vaporfy/alphafly for you,personally?

Some independent studies have come up with that improvement in time, not just efficiency. The NY Times study based on Strava results comes to mind. Other studies suggest less time benefit (~2.5% time when 4% better efficiency). Not saying any particular study is right or wrong. The studies are all (or at least mostly) correct depending on the study subjects (joggers vs fast vs. super elite, plus individual variation), paces, etc.

I've got the Vaporfly, the Alphafly and the metaspeed sky+, I'm also slow. I find the alphafly significantly better than the other two at race pace, probably something like 20-30 seconds faster over 5k, I've been running around 20-21 mins this year.

I tested jogging in all 3 and they were significantly faster than pegasus' at easy run heartrate, something like 30 secs per mile, improvement per mile seems to be less pronounced for me as I speed up. Again the alpha was a little better than the other two, but seemed less pronounced than when racing.

I do my longruns and workouts in my vapors and sky+ now and save the alphas for racing, as for me, they are definitely the fastest shoes going.

Vapourfly about 5 seconds per mile for me Vs traditional racing flats.

hard to say exactly. I will say that if I try to run at let's say half marathon pace in regular shoes now, it is much harder. I don't know how much is mental, how much my stride has adjusted to the new shoes, and how much is actually the shoes.

You are misunderstanding the Nike super shoes claims. The shoes make you more efficient, they don't make any claims as to speed. Greater efficiency can lead to faster times particularly over long distances like the marathon. I personally don't think I run faster in them, but I am less beat up in the legs after doing workouts in them.

This is stupid & pointless. The difference between a Nike super shoe and a non-Nike super shoe would be marginal. The difference between a super shoe and a traditional shoe - now that is relevant.

Thank you for posting actual times & distances rather than per mile crap or energy efficiency crap.

Similar. It’s mainly easier to maintain a fast pace but nothing crazy. On similar training, I weasel running 38 flat 10ks and then ran around 37:30. Over HM time trials I dropped less than a minute on the same course.

then I increased training mileage by 10-20 percent the next year and improved more.

Was not ‘weasel’

Half Marathon went from 1:40:03 to 1:36:47. So a bit over 4%.

But, I also went from 45 MPW to 55 MPW, so there ya go.

I'm wicked old.

..you're 63, haven't raced in a while, and "magically" going to run under 20 min. 5k huh? Good luck. If you have any miles on your legs,say 20 years plus of running, you might be surprised. Sitting in a comfy lounge chair, breaking 20, no problemo! If you do, more to you, but, lucky for you house or may not be at risk.

I think 30 seconds off a 10K PB is significant. As is a minute for a half marathon!

From a theoretical perspective, I think you are supposed to get 2/3rds of that in time, right?

I trained in the Pegasus 36 or 37 and was doing marathon paced workouts at 6:15-6:18 and although I crashed after 20 miles in the race, I went through 20 in 5:53 and ended up walking in a 6:09 average pace. So I would estimate 6-12 seconds per mile for me.

Is giantdave1 replying to me? If so, wrong on all counts. Not sure what you are talking about in your ramble, but it sounds like you have an ax to grind? Or a point to make?

20 seconds in a track 5k compared with old spikes. Not an exaggeration.

The vaporfly is so fast I haven't even felt the need to try the dragonfly yet.

Back in 2014/2015 (24/25 y/o) without super shoes, I ran 4:22 (mile), 15:08 (5k road), 39:02 (12k road), 1:10:20 (HM), 2:30:38 (Marathon).

In 2021 (31 y/o) with super shoes I ran 4:06 (1500), 8:46 (3k track), 15:10 (5k track), 31:19 (10k road), 1:09:55 (HM), 2:26:41 (Marathon).

I think my fitness over the shorter distances was slightly worse when I was older and the super shoes helped stave off some age related decline. My HM/Marathon fitness was better because my training was more specific to those events. Where I really think the shoes helped was in recovery from long hard efforts. I was useless for 2 weeks after my 2:30 marathon in old school flats. I felt fine 3 days post 2:26 in super shoes.

My personal experience tells me that the shoes help most with recovery after hard efforts which allows me to train hard more frequently.

Also, in the years between 2015 and 2020 I basically quit running (I had a hip injury that wouldn't let me train effectively). I got fat and out of shape but I would occasionally put together a few weeks of training and jump in some kind of race. The first time I wore the Vaporfly was in a six mile road race (wharf to wharf) where my workouts (in old trainers) indicated that I could run about 35:00. I ran 33:42. I was shocked and sold on the tech because I had only been running about 20mpw and should not have been able to go that fast. I was able to get healthy about 6 months after that and I "trained" for a marathon where I ran 2:42:30. I still weighed in at 200lbs at the time. My conclusion from anecdotal evidence is that the super shoes help heavy and undertrained runners much more than they do those that are properly trained.

I disagree. Not every carbon shoe is a super shoe, e.g. the Carbon X has EVA foam and does not feel like a super shoe.

Other genuine super shoes are Asics Metaspeed Sky and the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro.

I'm going to mess up your data, but if anything, I'm running slower. M-60s, so aging is obviously part of the equation. Nevertheless, even if you look at age grading I'm often slightly slower, or gained just a little bit.

However, I have seen several age group competitors who I was beating 3-4 years ago--or running very close to--now running faster than they were then. I think they are super responders and I'm a mild to non-responder. And I think body type and running form are a factor. The ones I have seen really take off either run with a bouncy stride to begin with, or may be somewhat heavier build/pounders. I'm neither of those, and as I age some my knee lift has declined some unless I'm in an all-out sprint. You can see it the race pictures. So I'm becoming more of a shuffler.

By the numbers, 2018-19 was consistently running ca. 1:20 or under for the half (6:00-6:08); currently with the Vaporfly 2 1:21-1:23. For direct comparison, I ran a sea level half in 2018 in low 1:19 wearing Adidas Adizero 3. This year on a course with similar amount of elevation gain/loss I ran 1:21:40s, so maybe 1-2 seconds per mile faster now. My aforementioned super-responding peers seem to be running 5-10 seconds faster per mile, accounting for age grading.

I did run a good (for me) mile this year in Dragonflies, 5:27, fastest since 2019 and I do think the shoes were a factor. They bounce and you roll off with each stride. However, my theory is that you have to be running sub 5:30 or 5:40s to get that benefit--I have seen none when running 3K-5K in them because I'm too slow.