I don't find them to be faster than a flat or spike from even 15 years ago, in the case of 200 or 400 reps. the benefit comes from them keeping you from breaking down as the race goes on, and of course the better practices you are able to put in with them.
And I'd say this is backed up by the fact that sprints aren't getting faster and the 800 didn't even get faster until the 2024 bi-carb revolution.
I've also wondered what amount of training should be done in supershoes. Racing in them, I definitely noticed a difference both in faster race times and also faster post-race recovery time. However, when I switched to running all of my faster workouts in carbon plated shoes, I injured my hamstring. Took time off and physical therapy to let it heal, then tried training in supershoes again and inured my hamstring again. Now I only use supershoes for racing and my hamstrings are fine. When folks train in supershoes, what percent of total milage are they running in them?
All spikes are supershoes, they always have been and always will be.
with the distances run on track the foams are just marketing hyper. The tracks are super bouncy , the big difference is road training and high volume that modern shoes aka the super shoe is just not as hard of the body as they are light weight and cushioned.
in the past, light weight and cushion together was impossible, and if you are not a small man it beat up your body, especially as shoe shape with narrow with an extreme tapper it “damages” the foot natural cushioning behaviour
I've also wondered what amount of training should be done in supershoes. Racing in them, I definitely noticed a difference both in faster race times and also faster post-race recovery time. However, when I switched to running all of my faster workouts in carbon plated shoes, I injured my hamstring. Took time off and physical therapy to let it heal, then tried training in supershoes again and inured my hamstring again. Now I only use supershoes for racing and my hamstrings are fine. When folks train in supershoes, what percent of total milage are they running in them?
Younger runners are doing all their tempos and workouts in them. If you have injury issues maybe not for you.
All spikes are supershoes, they always have been and always will be.
with the distances run on track the foams are just marketing hyper. The tracks are super bouncy , the big difference is road training and high volume that modern shoes aka the super shoe is just not as hard of the body as they are light weight and cushioned.
in the past, light weight and cushion together was impossible, and if you are not a small man it beat up your body, especially as shoe shape with narrow with an extreme tapper it “damages” the foot natural cushioning behaviour
All spikes are supershoes!? Track spikes were invented in 1850. Eighteen Fifty! There is not a single time on any record book, anywhere that was ran when track spikes weren’t around.
The thread about where Ritz would place at today's NCAA's made me wonder what Supershoes are. I ran D1 track in the 1990s, were our shoes truly inferior to today's?
2/10.
You got some replies.
But we're supposed to believe a ex D1 runner and reader of LetsRun threas doesn't understand the benefit of supershoes?
I'd be curious to see how times would change if for like 1month current pros and collegiates had to race in shoes that came out in 2014. They can even be nike. It would be interesting to see the difference.
I dont think people think about supershoes correctly. It's more about training than racing.
Take a college guy who ran 3:59 in today's spikes and make him come back the next weekend and race in Zoom Victory spikes from 2013 he would might run a second or two slower all things being equal. Supershoes impact on actual race times increases on a percentage basis the longer the race is, hence absurd half marathon and marathon times these days, and for the 800/mile it is probably a smaller percentage than people expect.
That said, the REAL benefits from supershoes come from the compounding impact of training with them for many months. With new footwear college guys who would have been hard stuck at 60 miles per week can now get up to 80+ with more intensity because injury risk is lower and recovery times are shorter. And since this is almost training approach agnostic, it can explain why so many college runners from different types of programs started to see rapid improvements 2-ish years after the shoes were released. There is also the effect of simply realizing that 4:00 isn't as threatening of a barrier as it use to be. It's like Tony Hawk landing the 900 on a skateboard, nobody thought it was possible, he did it, then everybody started doing it-- but the shoes are still the main catalyst here.
If you are a 4:00 guy in Victorys and you throw on Dragonflys you might become a 3:59/3:58 guy, maybe. But, you can probably become the 3:55 guy you were unlikely to be by training in supershoes for several years
For 10+ years there were maybe 30 guys breaking 4 in the NCAA. These shoes were released, and suddenly we are seeing nearly 200 under that threshold. If it was something other than footwear then we should wonder why this rapid improvement curve seems exclusive to middle distance and distance running and not other events and sports in general.
Great post, even if it's a troll thread.
The question isn't what you would do next weekend with supershoes, relative to your current PB. (1s faster in the 800, 1-2s in the 1500, 5-10s in the 5000, 10-20s in the 10,000, 30-60s in the HM, 2-3minutes in the marathon are all approximate possibilities for a fast runner.)
The real question is what you could do next YEAR with supershoes as a major part of your training, or what a runner could do over the course of a career ages ~15-30y training with that level of injury prevention.
In the 90s, it was really difficult to do workouts in shoes different than your trainers. You would end up destroying your calves and struggling to recover (and you were putting tons of stress on your bones because there was no shock absorption). But in your trainers it was difficult to run as fast as you needed because they were clunky.
. . . I wonder if 90s runners would have been better off racing in road shoes rather than track spikes
> . . . I wonder if 90s runners would have been better off racing in road shoes rather than track spikes
Sample size of 1 here:
I wore spikes sometimes, but I did feel beat up and never really liked the feel -- either during or after a hard effort in a race or even a workout. Asics had a cross country focused shoe that was more like a racing flat. It had what appeared to be a spike plate, but the holes were plugged with plastic nubs. That's generally what I wore on the track. I tried to find a picture, but don't remember the name of the shoe. If I couldn't get that shoe, I would use road racing flats. I don't know if I'd run any faster in spikes; I never felt like I was disadvantaged by not wearing spikes. I think I avoided some injury, but of course that is difficult to prove.
The shoes are magic, just put them on and you can break any WR. Anyone can do it no matter how fit you are. This is why extreme trackflation is occurring.
> . . . I wonder if 90s runners would have been better off racing in road shoes rather than track spikes
Sample size of 1 here:
I wore spikes sometimes, but I did feel beat up and never really liked the feel -- either during or after a hard effort in a race or even a workout. Asics had a cross country focused shoe that was more like a racing flat. It had what appeared to be a spike plate, but the holes were plugged with plastic nubs. That's generally what I wore on the track. I tried to find a picture, but don't remember the name of the shoe. If I couldn't get that shoe, I would use road racing flats. I don't know if I'd run any faster in spikes; I never felt like I was disadvantaged by not wearing spikes. I think I avoided some injury, but of course that is difficult to prove.
No, the road shoes were bulky and heavy in the 90s. And the track spikes weren't so bad.
I'd be curious to see how times would change if for like 1month current pros and collegiates had to race in shoes that came out in 2014. They can even be nike. It would be interesting to see the difference.
I dont think people think about supershoes correctly. It's more about training than racing.
Take a college guy who ran 3:59 in today's spikes and make him come back the next weekend and race in Zoom Victory spikes from 2013 he would might run a second or two slower all things being equal. Supershoes impact on actual race times increases on a percentage basis the longer the race is, hence absurd half marathon and marathon times these days, and for the 800/mile it is probably a smaller percentage than people expect.
That said, the REAL benefits from supershoes come from the compounding impact of training with them for many months. With new footwear college guys who would have been hard stuck at 60 miles per week can now get up to 80+ with more intensity because injury risk is lower and recovery times are shorter. And since this is almost training approach agnostic, it can explain why so many college runners from different types of programs started to see rapid improvements 2-ish years after the shoes were released. There is also the effect of simply realizing that 4:00 isn't as threatening of a barrier as it use to be. It's like Tony Hawk landing the 900 on a skateboard, nobody thought it was possible, he did it, then everybody started doing it-- but the shoes are still the main catalyst here.
If you are a 4:00 guy in Victorys and you throw on Dragonflys you might become a 3:59/3:58 guy, maybe. But, you can probably become the 3:55 guy you were unlikely to be by training in supershoes for several years
For 10+ years there were maybe 30 guys breaking 4 in the NCAA. These shoes were released, and suddenly we are seeing nearly 200 under that threshold. If it was something other than footwear then we should wonder why this rapid improvement curve seems exclusive to middle distance and distance running and not other events and sports in general.
+1 that the bigger difference in current performances have come from training in Super Shoes than purely the benefits from wearing them on race day.
One quibble - while training philosophies across the board have been able to benefit from the Super Shoes, I would argue that systems that emphasize threshold training (anywhere from slightly slower than aerobic threshold to a bit faster than lactate threshold) have benefitted more than other systems. Why? The main limiting factor in a lot of workouts that are run more than just a bit faster than lactate threshold pace is the buildup of the byproducts of anaerobic metabolism in the system - in other words, blood chemistry ends up being a/the main limiting factor. Athletes still recover faster from these sessions with Super Shoes, etc.
However, for workouts at LT or slower, the buildup of byproducts of anaerobic metabolism isn't nearly as much of an issue. The bigger limiting factor is muscle fiber breakdown. The Super Shoes play a larger role here, allowing athletes to run substantially more volume at LT or slower in a single session (or day) than they would have been able to otherwise for the same wear and tear. Stack those longer sessions up over a couple years...
Foam with good bouncy energy return, and a stiff plate between foot and foam so that the foam is not compressed in different places at different times as the foot makes contact, but rather compressed in more of a uniform manner under that plate. It works as a better spring than shoes without the plate. More spring, less damping action.
Isn't this what the plantar human fascia is supposed to do naturally?
Yes but not as well and we don't have foam on our feet naturally.
I feel like they're should be some kind of survey or experiment of today's top runners running a race in 90s shoes and then in today's supershoes. I really want to see just how much of a difference it'd make and would settle a lot of arguments.
In the 90s, it was really difficult to do workouts in shoes different than your trainers. You would end up destroying your calves and struggling to recover (and you were putting tons of stress on your bones because there was no shock absorption). But in your trainers it was difficult to run as fast as you needed because they were clunky.
. . . I wonder if 90s runners would have been better off racing in road shoes rather than track spikes
90s spikes beat the hell out of my feet and legs to the point I could not do regular workouts in them. I used racing flats for workouts and most races 5k & up, even on the track. Air Mariahs were the best for me because the had some cushion and were light for the time (8-9 oz?).
Today's road shoes are cushier, much bouncier, and much lighter. First pair I got (2017), I did my weekly tempo run about 10 sec/mi faster than usual and it stayed there for subsequent runs. Spikes I got in 2022 were the same - night and day difference from before. At 50 I was doing more work in spikes than I did at 22. I actually got faster at a time most are slowing significantly. And I didnt really change my training, but regularly felt fresher.
Every masters runner I know got faster too. A few got 10 minutes faster in the Marathon. Some of them won't give credit to the shoes because they desperately want to believe they are training smarter or some other bs excuse. But their fountain of youth coincided exactly with the new shoes.
Go grab your 90s spikes (if you still have them) and then pull up a photo of super spikes and you will immediately notice a huge difference. Your 90s spikes have more in common with spikes from the 50s than they do with super spikes.
