Why don't you try the floatride run fast or run fast pro? Same type of foam as the vaporflys but with much lower stack heights.
Why don't you try the floatride run fast or run fast pro? Same type of foam as the vaporflys but with much lower stack heights.
Everyone I know who races in the VF also has a pair of Zoom Flys that they use for training at least once or twice a week. The VF is definitely a different experience.
Shunpo wrote:
Okay so it’s not a secret, if you look at the stats it’s easy to see, the stack height of the Nike Vaporfly is 39mm at the heel (that’s the same as the Hoka Bondi) yes, that’s a huge shoe. Now why is this a problem? It doesn’t seem to be a problem for Kipchoge, Rupp, Hasay, and literally thousands of semi elite/hobby marathoners, and it’s not. But what about the 5% of people like me? See I raced in the 4% on 3 separate occasions, 2 halves 1 full, all 3 times my quads were completely destroyed afterwards. I’m not complaining that the 4% didn’t make me as fast as Rupp, in fact I equaled my PR in one of those halves, but in the full my quads and hamstrings got so bad I was forced to drop out at mile 23.5. Didn’t take long for me to realize that problem was the specs of the shoe, see I typically run in New Balance Zante, Saucony Freedom, and race in New Balance Hanzo. All those shoes the heel is 20mm or less off the ground, while the 4% the heel is 39mm off the ground, that’s double! I’ve seen pictures and videos of myself racing in the 4% and my foot strike and form is off. So if you’ve found the 4% didn’t work for you and you wear more minimal shoes, you’re not alone. I’m patiently waiting for Saucony to release their prototype that Jared Ward uses, as well as Sketchers who made the razor hyper with a carbon plate for Ches. These two shoes will have low stack heights and lower heel to toe off sets. Brooks Hyperion proto will have very similar dimensions to the 4% so that won’t work for me. If anyone else has had this problem please let me know and share what shoe you’ve turned to.
Thanks.
Hey OP
I've just had exactly the same experience as you after running the London Marathon in the 4%. .. my quads were an absolute mess.
I didn't have the same problem in 10k & half events, but maybe the distance was just too short to fully develop this issue.
And also looking back at photos of myself running, i look ridiculous.
I am starting to wonder if the gains in the energy return and being somewhat offset by the losses in how badly this shoe makes me run.
ps. I'm flat footed, and maybe thats part of the problem too?
Shunpo wrote:
Again I work in run specialty, didnt pay full price lol. And sold them.
Ok Al Bundy
It doesn’t seem to be a problem for Kipchoge, Rupp, Hasay, and literally thousands of semi elite/hobby marathoners, and it’s not.
I'm not so sure about these two and the shoe?
I always raced in lower drop shoes before the 4% too. My experience with the 4% was they added NO benefit and may have even hindered me in a 5k race but the half marathon was a totally different story. Those suckers literally do feel springs propelling you forward on the downhills in particular. Plus my legs were way less fatigued by mile 11 than usual. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t be as useful in a shorter race, but that was my experience.
It is funny that we are at the point where people need to learn how to properly pilot their shoes.
Hopefully runners will also learn to look back on this and laugh.
Maybe Nike will just start their own sport so they can explore this phenomenon further.
This might seem like an obvious question, but did you do a significant amount of training in the same shoes you raced with? If not, you may be confounding your quad/ham issues. Could be caused by wearing a significantly different racing shoe than you wore in training, rather than the design of the shoes themselves.
Shunpo wrote:
Okay so it’s not a secret, if you look at the stats it’s easy to see, the stack height of the Nike Vaporfly is 39mm at the heel (that’s the same as the Hoka Bondi) yes, that’s a huge shoe. Now why is this a problem? It doesn’t seem to be a problem for Kipchoge, Rupp, Hasay, and literally thousands of semi elite/hobby marathoners, and it’s not. But what about the 5% of people like me? See I raced in the 4% on 3 separate occasions, 2 halves 1 full, all 3 times my quads were completely destroyed afterwards. I’m not complaining that the 4% didn’t make me as fast as Rupp, in fact I equaled my PR in one of those halves, but in the full my quads and hamstrings got so bad I was forced to drop out at mile 23.5. Didn’t take long for me to realize that problem was the specs of the shoe, see I typically run in New Balance Zante, Saucony Freedom, and race in New Balance Hanzo. All those shoes the heel is 20mm or less off the ground, while the 4% the heel is 39mm off the ground, that’s double! I’ve seen pictures and videos of myself racing in the 4% and my foot strike and form is off. So if you’ve found the 4% didn’t work for you and you wear more minimal shoes, you’re not alone. I’m patiently waiting for Saucony to release their prototype that Jared Ward uses, as well as Sketchers who made the razor hyper with a carbon plate for Ches. These two shoes will have low stack heights and lower heel to toe off sets. Brooks Hyperion proto will have very similar dimensions to the 4% so that won’t work for me. If anyone else has had this problem please let me know and share what shoe you’ve turned to.
Thanks.
I had the same experience the first few months with VaporFly/Zoom Fly. But my form and stride "adjusted" eventually. Now it's awkward to run in Adios and Boston like I did before
Going from 4mm drop to 10mm drop would feel like running downhill the whole time.
mol_42 wrote:
Shunpo wrote:
See I raced in the 4% on 3 separate occasions, 2 halves 1 full, all 3 times my quads were completely destroyed afterwards.
Hey OP
I've just had exactly the same experience as you after running the London Marathon in the 4%. .. my quads were an absolute mess.
I didn't have the same problem in 10k & half events, but maybe the distance was just too short to fully develop this issue.
I have yet to see the magic in the Vaporflys as well. I felt just as sore after races ranging from 10km to the marathon with the Vaporfly as I did with anything else.
And I've never understood it when people are like "I felt sooo great two days after my marathon when using the Vaporfly!" Like that's a selling point? I'd take a wheelchair two days after a marathon if that's what it took to hit my goal time. The last thing I'm thinking about during a marathon, is how I can't wait to feel fresh again two days later.
This is a pretty interesting theory to me. I wonder if there really something to this idea that the VF4% is particularly hard on your quads if you're used to lower-stack shoes. Last year I ran two marathons and in both of them my quads started to feel sore by 10 miles and felt trashed by 15 miles, and I couldn't figure out why and hadn't had that experience before. I still don't know why. I even started a thread on it on this site asking for ideas. I had a few different theories, but I hadn't considered the shoes as a possibility. I do almost all my training, including long runs, in shoes like the Kinvara (4mm offset, 23/19 stack) and rarely wore the VF4% and didn't try to "adjust" to them with a shoe like the Zoom Fly. Something to consider for sure.
mol_42 wrote:
Hey OP
I've just had exactly the same experience as you after running the London Marathon in the 4%. .. my quads were an absolute mess.
I didn't have the same problem in 10k & half events, but maybe the distance was just too short to fully develop this issue.
And also looking back at photos of myself running, i look ridiculous.
I am starting to wonder if the gains in the energy return and being somewhat offset by the losses in how badly this shoe makes me run.
ps. I'm flat footed, and maybe thats part of the problem too?
UA Runner wrote:
And I've never understood it when people are like "I felt sooo great two days after my marathon when using the Vaporfly!" Like that's a selling point? I'd take a wheelchair two days after a marathon if that's what it took to hit my goal time. The last thing I'm thinking about during a marathon, is how I can't wait to feel fresh again two days later.
Sheer madness here. Have you even ran a marathon and ran it bloody hard? Because if so you'll know how beat up you feel, how sore your legs hurt in those last few miles. If people are saying their legs feel ok a couple of days later it's not too hard to understand they weren't feeling too bad at the end of the marathon either. Which is why people in Vaporflys are bouncing along to such great times. How can that possibly be so hard to understand?
Cheers
Alan
Hi thanks. Definitely not getting the next%, they added even more cushioning which was my problem with the 4%. They slightly lowered the heel but that won't matter for me with all that underfoot.
True Rupp and Hasay have had their issues with the shoe but those were stability and plantar fash problems. If I ran for Nike I'd have them customize mine as well and lower the heel and cut the stack height in half, regardless if that made it less than 4% or not, I just need the shoe to not get in my way lol.
Dr Logic Calling... wrote:
Sheer madness here. Have you even ran a marathon and ran it bloody hard? Because if so you'll know how beat up you feel, how sore your legs hurt in those last few miles. If people are saying their legs feel ok a couple of days later it's not too hard to understand they weren't feeling too bad at the end of the marathon either. Which is why people in Vaporflys are bouncing along to such great times. How can that possibly be so hard to understand?
Cheers
Alan
Well if people were saying "I felt fresher in the final miles with the Vaporfly than I did with my previous shoes", then yes, I would understand that very clearly.
Saying "I felt great three days later" is a very roundabout way to tell someone that they felt great in the final miles of the marathon.
Well they're not telling you that. But you can work it out... Because of the implication.
I deployed the Vaporfly 4% shoes at Boston as part of a secret plan to beat my running buddy. I had previously run only 11 miles in them, as a test, and they didn't feel particularly different than any other shoe. The only thing I noticed on my test run is they felt slightly wobbly when walking. During the marathon I felt they put more stress on my calves. The vaporfly effect turned out to be moot in my case because I became dehydrated and suffered cramps from neck to toe the last few miles.
Like any other shoe, YMMV. Different shoes definitely stress different parts of your body.
I don't have any further evidence for this besides myself but I can tell you it is undoubtedly true for me. I did meet a guy who had the exact same experience though and not surprisingly we trained in the same type of shoes. Low drop low stack.
I have no doubt that the zoom x foam is more responsive and carbon plate gives an advantage...it's just the dimensions of the shoe that don't work for me.