lexel: you wrote "It would be more scientific to show CR (cost of running) improvements with this shoes ....
but that's not scientifically possible without using isotope tracers and even then I don't think short duration (i.e. 2 minutes) >LT energetics could be discerned at 1-2% levels.
Science often begins with observation/quantification of a phenomenon and then pursues the mechanism(s). There are other ways to quantify the phenomenon. See
Background Quantifying the potential benefits of advanced footwear technology (AFT) track spikes in middle-distance events is challenging, because repeated maximal effort trials (as in sprinting) or aerobic running economy tr...
These studies should factor in improvements in anti-doping, particularly in Kenya.
Best to focus on improvements in European elite runners, but even there, that has almost certainly been influenced by the anti-doping in Kenya and Morocco (ie. standards have risen due to the extra motivating effect and more chances in big races).
In the 33 years since Seb Coe broke 3:30, up until super shoes in 2019, Nick Willis was the only European descent runner to do it, and that was at Monaco. In the five years of super shoes, nine have, eight of them away from Monaco.
Yeah, you’re totally right, Kenya is really running slowly in this anti-doping environment from the 800-marathon with superspikes and supershoes.
This does not say that at all. In fact the divergence for genders would indicate there are other reasons. First you would have to normalize against the average expected improvement per year without shoe improvements. So this is the crap thats published nowadays. Crazy
I just did a high level synopsis of what we did and glossed over the methods. We used regression models based on the average top 100 race times from 2001-2019 to predict what we would expect the average top 100 race times to be for 2021-2023. This would account for any improvements that men and women were experiencing before the introduction of super spikes. Women were improving in every event while the men were fairly stagnant in most events. So the race time improvements I reported accounted for historical race time trends and are normalized to the expected yearly improvement. Hopefully this clears up any confusion.
Pretty interesting stuff, and I look forward to reading the whole paper. A couple things have always troubled me: what's the rationale for analyzing the race results of completely different groups of runners (the people running in the early 2000s and contributing data are unlikely to be the same people running in 2023) and saying that data is high enough quality to determine a less than 1% difference? And so many potentially confounding factors.
lexel: you wrote "It would be more scientific to show CR (cost of running) improvements with this shoes ....
but that's not scientifically possible without using isotope tracers and even then I don't think short duration (i.e. 2 minutes) >LT energetics could be discerned at 1-2% levels.
Science often begins with observation/quantification of a phenomenon and then pursues the mechanism(s). There are other ways to quantify the phenomenon. See
and I'm sure Brad Needles, his advisor Alena Grabowski and the Hoogkamer group are hard act work trying to nail down the mechanism(s).
Interesting paper, thank you. Measuring interval times is an indirect method to compare CR, as they consider no change of performance during their studies.
This post was edited 49 seconds after it was posted.
These studies should factor in improvements in anti-doping, particularly in Kenya.
Best to focus on improvements in European elite runners, but even there, that has almost certainly been influenced by the anti-doping in Kenya and Morocco (ie. standards have risen due to the extra motivating effect and more chances in big races).
In the 33 years since Seb Coe broke 3:30, up until super shoes in 2019, Nick Willis was the only European descent runner to do it, and that was at Monaco. In the five years of super shoes, nine have, eight of them away from Monaco.
Yeah, you’re totally right, Kenya is really running slowly in this anti-doping environment from the 800-marathon with superspikes and supershoes.
Yeah, yeah, you're totally right again ThoughtsLeader. I mean six Kenyans broke 3:32 in 2004, and in 2024 only three did. In 2004, just one non-African broke 3:32 and in 2024 thirteen did.
20 years ago an 18 year old Kenyan was running 12:49 and that's still the best they can do in super shoes and kangeroo tracks and a near doubling in population. Meanwhile, one non-African ran faster than 13:06 in 2004, and in 2024 a dozen did.
You're absolutly right, anti-doping definitely has had no impact on Kenyan times in relation to non-African times, yeah, yeah, no wonder you get so many upvotes, definitely not Hoady with his mutiple accounts/personalities, yeah, yeah.
