WSJ - the rise of 'illegal' running shoes

Ebay, poshmark, mercari, and depop. Be careful and check pictures - sometimes sellers mislabel sizes or the model of their product. Check the price compared to what you think the shoes are worth too - sometimes sellers think they're dealing with a collector's piece.

You can get the Puma H Street (anyone remember those?!).

us.puma.com

H.ST.20 Training Shoes | PUMA

We reached into the archives for this one. Hitting the streets in the early 2000’s as a low-profile silhouette with roots back to a minimalist distance spike, H.ST.20 is stepping straight to the future. Evolved with a dynamic...

Open link

I plan to build my own shoe, 1609 meters long, then I'll line up for a mile race to break the WR by simply taking one single step.

Thanks - What is your go-to flat these days that you can still find?

Calling it doping is stupid. There's nowhere close to the same risk to the athlete as PEDs, and besides, everyone has access to them. If you have the money for marathon entrance fees, you can buy super shoes. All it does it help people recover faster and avoid getting injured by increasing the foam for the stack height. World Athletics can eat a shoe and quick hyperregulating the sport to hell.

Used to have to run in these in primary school and most of high school - no choice.

Open image

They were the ultimate 'flat'.

What shoe are you using now, out of curiosity ?

Adizero Adios 9. I have it and it's perfect for this.

No one claims that "the shoes" don't make a difference, it's the exact amount that people disagree on.

And it's funny to see people being unable to differentiate road shoes and track spikes. No decent college runner or elite runs in 40mm road shoes for legit track races, and if they do, their results are invalid.

It's pretty boring to have to clarify these points every time this discussion comes up.

Was the 5K world record (and almost every fast 5K time) set in shoes with 20-25mm of stack height. If Stack height matters so much, then why are spikes with 20mm of stack height faster than supershoes with 40? And why did Nike only put 34mm of stack height on the vaporfly?

ALTRA Escalante - 0 drop , light, great control, ~ $130 - who the hell cares about your PRs from 20 years ago??

When they were still legal on the track, the BYU guys dominated with Vaporflys, including putting 6 guys in the finals of the NCAA 10,000 one year.

Semantics. Before bouncy shoes (and just a few short years ago), anyone using the term “stack height” when describing a racing shoe would have gotten blank stares. If your shoe has a “stack height” you’re wearing bouncy shoes.

And, yes, I’ve seen d1 college runners race in bouncy road shoes.

For most people the only real question is whether they "like" running in the shoe. Legal or not is not much of a concern. The vast, vast, majority of runners are not getting on the podium or winning an AG award, and they know it. They are just out trying to have fun. Now for those trying to win the race . . . that is very, very different. For them there are rules in place for obvious reasons.

But one thing seems to be true, is that if you are an elite runner, then the new super shoes let you train longer and harder without injury. Maybe the illegal shoes will up that some more. Fewer injuries for the pros seems like all upside to me. Who wants anyone to get hurt?

I am a 45 year old woman. My lifetime running goal was to break 20 minutes in the 5K, but I never quite did it. (20:20 was my best.) Babies, career, laziness all got in the way. I'm quite sure if I'd run as many committed miles in my 20s or 30s as I did in my 40s I could have done it. Anyway, I read this article and wondered if I could "cheat" my way to a sub-20 with the illegal super shoes.

Why are the higher stack shoes allowed for road races but not on the track?

The spikes are not faster. The pros simply race a lot more time trials on the track. But the women’s world records for 5k and 10k are now faster on the roads than on the track, and if professional men ran more time trials on flat road courses I suspect we’d see the same there.

wont work, your torso needs to go cross the line...

Streakfly 2 is a great lower stack racer - 27mm heel

Large number of D1 athletes train in shoes like Vomero for its recovery benefits. Not abnormal for people to like to run faster for longer.

personally dislike some inherent instability in a higher stack shoe. Older NB Rebel was great too.