Studies show a 2% performance boost from these shoes. That is 4+s for a 3:45 1500, 16s for a 14:00 5k, 35s for a 29:30 10k. Pretty close to the 100th ncaa performance data shows in the 2 years following introduction of the super spikes vs the previous decade which was near constant. (See my ncaa data post on page 6).
There is no question about the rapid performance change. However, discussing the best time ever (El G) is not a large enough sample to draw conclusions. Taking the 100th (or more) performance is a much better measure because so few approach record times and the data shows the 100th performer is pretty consistent over the years. That data shows a significant performance increase, on par with the 5s/mi suggested in this thread.
So something happened at the exact time the shoes were introduced that increased performance equivalent to what studies have suggested. This happened at every level of the sport from middle schoolers to professionals. Here are some possibilities of that "something" that changed.
1. Rinners at every level of the sport started using a new drug(s) that no one has been able to identify despite tens of thousands of users including young teenagers with no money to buy them...
OR
2. The shoes, which everyone does have, are mostly responsible for the performance gains that are equivalent to lab testing of their performance improvement...
4 seconds in for a 3:45 guy but, -.73 seconds for the 1500m WR? The new shoes provide a benefit at 14.9 mph (3:45) hour but not for 16.3 (3:26). At what mph do the shoes stop aiding in performance?
In all this specious waffle about the claims enabled by the shoes there is the necessary but unacknowledged conclusion that if you put the best of today against the best in the '90s, where they are all competing in the same shoes, the best today are several seconds behind El G, Lagat, Ngeny and Komen over 1500-3k. That is a huge margin. But it would also apply from the 800 up (Rudisha and Kipketer are faster in superspikes than Wanyonyi and co) to the 5-10k (Bekele still beats everybody). So we have the strange phenomenon of spikes that enable today's athletes to run faster but all the best runners today are not a patch in ability on the best before supershoes. Their times in the same shoes would show it. The sport seems to be declining. How can that be? (And doping is just as present today as it was then, so that is a constant.)
Since about 2010, the money dried up on the track, and many of the talented East Africans skipped the track and turned their attention to the roads.
With less competition, the best today can win with slower times.
How else do you think Slo Mo dominated both the 5K and 10K on the track, with PBs 15s and 30s slower than Bekele, respectively, but could not compete on the roads?
4 seconds in for a 3:45 guy but, -.73 seconds for the 1500m WR? The new shoes provide a benefit at 14.9 mph (3:45) hour but not for 16.3 (3:26). At what mph do the shoes stop aiding in performance?
Who says it is -.73 seconds for the 1500m WR?
We need to be careful throwing these numbers around. The 2% performance is the estimated gain from supershoes. The superspikes are estimated to be less, like 1%.
Furthermore, maximum oxygen economy improvements are observed between 14-18 km/h (8.7 - 11.2 mph).
Since the reason for the expected gains are improved oxygen economy, the benefits should be expected to decline as speeds get faster, and distances get shorter, as athletes start to rely more on non-oxygen sources of energy.
If I had to speculate, I would guess that someone like Jakob gained 1-2 seconds over 1500m, and would be about comparable to Coe or Cram without superspikes. Nick Willis estimated similar gains. Maybe El G would gain a second.
Exactly. So many factors go into racing times. I personally believe that this current era of runners just started in a point in time where running was taken seriously, and ideas about training methodology were more widely available. Racing strategies also changed by what I call the Bannister effect. I think Jakob specifically changed everyone's tactics because they knew they would have to be able to run fast in order to win, shifting people's strategies from less tactical races to more time trials. This lead to faster times on average, leading to athletes becoming more confident in chasing records.
The Bannister effect is real - once one athlete breaks a certain barrier, it gives others the confidence that they can do it as well and I think that's why we've seen such a jump in performance.
I was still running in college when the supershoes came out. A lot of people bought them mid-season because they thought it would help them, and nobody ran any faster, some of them even got slower. According to supershoe doomer logic, that means they all magically got 5 seconds/mile slower at the exact time they tried the supershoes.
Again, you are using a very small sample with a personal bias. Big data sets paint a clearer picture.
If the performance gains are not from shoes, name the other factor that caused it. Not a hand waivy "everybody got serious about running" or "it was probably some drug". Neither of these accounts for significaint gains for middle school to pro, male & female. The shoes fit the timeline and the proliferation. It could be something else, but no one has offered another plausible explanation that fits.
Again, you are using a very small sample with a personal bias
Look, either the shoes/spikes either provide this massive benefit or they don't. You don't get to cherry pick results that show that they do, and then eschew the results that don't, and then accuse others of having some bias. You're also attributing causation to correlation - it's fallacious to say that because running times got faster around the same time that these "super shoes/spikes" came out, that therefor the faster times are due to the shoes.
Also, I already did provide my reasoning. Running got more popular due to great performances, bringing in more talent. This has been a slow snowball effect for the last 10-15 years. Times were With better talent, people pushed the boundaries more, like Jakob. At the same time, the Mo Farah era ended and runners were willing to actually time trial instead of practicing racing tactics - people don't remember the amount of sit-and-kick races that happened when Farah was in his prime.
Now that we're at the end of the NCAA season, the 20th best D1 miler is 3:54.56, in 2020 (before super spikes) 20th was 3:58.58. So if you use this as the end-all-be all, then it makes a 4 second difference, not a 5 second difference.
But this is a 6 year time span. If we look at 2014 the 20th best was 3:59.33, and in 2010 a few years earlier 3:59.8... So it's been trending faster for a long time. I would have expected it to be down to a mid 3:57 by now just keeping the previous trends, so it's about 3 seconds faster than I would have assumed by looking at fast data. But you have to look at the massive amounts of people running on the BU track and other over-sized 300m tracks. Back in 2010 11 of the top 20 were on oversized tracks or the BU track. And at that time travel budgets were tighter and in a lot of programs only the athletes with a real shot to run fast even made the trips to those types of meets and everyone else stayed fairly local. So the amount of fast people even shooting their shot at those fast tracks were limited. In 2026 13 were on oversized tracks or BU, so small increase on top performances coming from the 'fast tracks'. Additionally, the number of races with pacers taking people out at fast paces has increased a ton, no data on that. It used to be hard to find a race that was even setup for a sub 4 attempt, now they're setup all over the place.
This post was edited 6 minutes after it was posted.
4 seconds in for a 3:45 guy but, -.73 seconds for the 1500m WR? The new shoes provide a benefit at 14.9 mph (3:45) hour but not for 16.3 (3:26). At what mph do the shoes stop aiding in performance?
Who says it is -.73 seconds for the 1500m WR?
We need to be careful throwing these numbers around. The 2% performance is the estimated gain from supershoes. The superspikes are estimated to be less, like 1%.
Furthermore, maximum oxygen economy improvements are observed between 14-18 km/h (8.7 - 11.2 mph).
Since the reason for the expected gains are improved oxygen economy, the benefits should be expected to decline as speeds get faster, and distances get shorter, as athletes start to rely more on non-oxygen sources of energy.
If I had to speculate, I would guess that someone like Jakob gained 1-2 seconds over 1500m, and would be about comparable to Coe or Cram without superspikes. Nick Willis estimated similar gains. Maybe El G would gain a second.
Improved oxygen economy only at slower speeds? According to the other poster there’s a 4 second improvement for someone otherwise running 3:49, or 14.7 mph, but meanwhile, there’s only been a 2 second improvement from the previous 5000m record of 12:37, which is 14.8 mph. Same speed, but the 1500 guy is improving by four seconds, while the 5000m WR has improved by .6 seconds per 1500m.
Even if it’s Willis, anecdotal stories don’t have much value. He would be in your too fast to benefit group anyway.
Improved oxygen economy only at slower speeds? According to the other poster there’s a 4 second improvement for someone otherwise running 3:49, or 14.7 mph, but meanwhile, there’s only been a 2 second improvement from the previous 5000m record of 12:37, which is 14.8 mph. Same speed, but the 1500 guy is improving by four seconds, while the 5000m WR has improved by .6 seconds per 1500m.
Even if it’s Willis, anecdotal stories don’t have much value. He would be in your too fast to benefit group anyway.
I didn't say "only at slower speeds". I can't speak for other posters, but I'm just summarizing what I posted earlier in this thread, which helps interpret when 4 seconds (or 5 seconds) might make sense, or not.
Back on page 11, I linked to a paper that said "The greatest RE improvements (~4%) have been reported at submaximal intensities of 14–18 km/h".
Back on page 5, I summarized other papers, one of which said "The improvements in super shoes are around 4% for running economy and 2% for performance, and speculatively around 1% to 1.5% for super spikes."
For the 4-minute miler, 1%-1.5% is 2.4 to 3.6 seconds. But given the above, it should be less at speeds greater than 18km/h. I suspect "Hot Takes" is on the right track by subtracting out the previous trend to say "about 3 seconds".
The limited value of Nick Willis is that his anecdote is in line with these estimates.
Having said all that, supershoes should show more improvements than superspikes, yet I quoted another paper looking at sub-2:08 marathon performances and working out an estimate of 1:31, or 1.174% decrease in time. This seems reasonable for the men.
In another thread, there was a study ("zzzz" linked to a thread on page 4 announcing that study) that looked at observed improvements as a function of racing speed, while subtracting out the historical trends, finding improvements ranging from about 0.3%-2.0% for events from 800m to 10000m. Women tended to improve more.
There seems to be some wiggle room in all these figures, as conversions from running economy at preset paces to race times is not perfect, and observing historical times can be influenced by other factors besides shoes.
The increase in performance of the super shoes is undeniable and has nothing to do with what’s happening on the track. How can 1500m and 5000m runners traveling at the same speed have over a second per lap improvement, and a .16 second one, respectively.
I pointed out that there has been minimum, if any, improvement in WRs and the response was that there was a sweet spot at about 3:45 that disappears as the WR is approached but meanwhile, that sweet spot doesn’t exist in the 5000m. Your 8 paragraphs are all over the map, and none of it explains away my example of a big inconsistency in people’s estimates of track spike improvements.
One of my favorite things about track is that beginning with all-weather track time compared over decades were apples to apples. You guys are determined to claim that’s no longer true, but the only calculations provided are top 50, or whatever, averages, but an increase in depth can explain that. There’s been a huge increase in MLB big power hitters over the years so the average distance of home runs has increased , but the single longest home run each season still tops out at about 500’.
The increase in performance of the super shoes is undeniable and has nothing to do with what’s happening on the track. How can 1500m and 5000m runners traveling at the same speed have over a second per lap improvement, and a .16 second one, respectively.
I pointed out that there has been minimum, if any, improvement in WRs and the response was that there was a sweet spot at about 3:45 that disappears as the WR is approached but meanwhile, that sweet spot doesn’t exist in the 5000m. Your 8 paragraphs are all over the map, and none of it explains away my example of a big inconsistency in people’s estimates of track spike improvements.
One of my favorite things about track is that beginning with all-weather track time compared over decades were apples to apples. You guys are determined to claim that’s no longer true, but the only calculations provided are top 50, or whatever, averages, but an increase in depth can explain that. There’s been a huge increase in MLB big power hitters over the years so the average distance of home runs has increased , but the single longest home run each season still tops out at about 500’.
When I talked about a "sweet spot", that was for the slower 5:00-6:30 1500m runner. (Maybe you are mixing up mph with km/h?)
In your example, 4 seconds for 1500m seems too much, and 2 seconds for 5000m seems too little. In part because you are comparing two individuals in the 5000m WR with estimated gains for 3:45 (3:49?) runners. Looking at 50, or 100, or 1000, tends to smooth out any individual outliers, but you are right -- a significant change in depth for other reasons can skew these "deep" results.
In the study that "zzzz" linked on page 4, looking at the top-100 performances, they found a maximum of ~1% improvement for men at 5000m compared to women at 1500m at roughly these same speeds, or about 0.6s per lap for both. Curiously they also found ~1% improvement for the men at 1500m at a higher speed, and a larger ~1.4% improvement over 10000m for men at a slightly slower speed. Women in 5000m and 10000m gained the most at about 2%.
You suggest in increase in depth can explain the results, which is true, and might help explain the women's larger results. Similarly a decrease in East African depth on the track can also explain why old WRs haven't been attacked or moved as aggressively.
I like to compare people within similar groups. Then I see runners like Jakob, Hocker, and Kerr running about 2-3 seconds faster than the ~3:30s of Coe and Cram and Wheating and Centro and Webb. And someone like Laura Muir who gained about 2 seconds over her 2016 self, and runners like Hull and Bell running 3-4 seconds faster than a 2016 Muir. In 5000m, outside of Africa, 13:00 was a formidable barrier for a long time, with only a handful of non-African runners breaking it, and Baumann's 12:54.70 performance seemed untouchable. Fast forward to today and these times have been obliterated by Jakob, Fisher, Young, and Blanks, running 6-10 seconds faster than Baumann.
In all this specious waffle about the claims enabled by the shoes there is the necessary but unacknowledged conclusion that if you put the best of today against the best in the '90s, where they are all competing in the same shoes, the best today are several seconds behind El G, Lagat, Ngeny and Komen over 1500-3k. That is a huge margin. But it would also apply from the 800 up (Rudisha and Kipketer are faster in superspikes than Wanyonyi and co) to the 5-10k (Bekele still beats everybody). So we have the strange phenomenon of spikes that enable today's athletes to run faster but all the best runners today are not a patch in ability on the best before supershoes. Their times in the same shoes would show it. The sport seems to be declining. How can that be? (And doping is just as present today as it was then, so that is a constant.)
Since about 2010, the money dried up on the track, and many of the talented East Africans skipped the track and turned their attention to the roads.
With less competition, the best today can win with slower times.
How else do you think Slo Mo dominated both the 5K and 10K on the track, with PBs 15s and 30s slower than Bekele, respectively, but could not compete on the roads?
So tell me about how all these talented 1500 runners today have been turning to the hm and the marathon. So Hocker, Ingebrigtsen, Kerr, Nuguse and co are not the "best" today?
As for the best today winning with slower times, isn't the complete opposite being argued, that everyone is getting faster than a decade or more ago and it's because of the "shoes"?
4 seconds in for a 3:45 guy but, -.73 seconds for the 1500m WR? The new shoes provide a benefit at 14.9 mph (3:45) hour but not for 16.3 (3:26). At what mph do the shoes stop aiding in performance?
Who says it is -.73 seconds for the 1500m WR?
We need to be careful throwing these numbers around. The 2% performance is the estimated gain from supershoes. The superspikes are estimated to be less, like 1%.
Furthermore, maximum oxygen economy improvements are observed between 14-18 km/h (8.7 - 11.2 mph).
Since the reason for the expected gains are improved oxygen economy, the benefits should be expected to decline as speeds get faster, and distances get shorter, as athletes start to rely more on non-oxygen sources of energy.
If I had to speculate, I would guess that someone like Jakob gained 1-2 seconds over 1500m, and would be about comparable to Coe or Cram without superspikes. Nick Willis estimated similar gains. Maybe El G would gain a second.
So explain how the carbon plate aids a runner at cruising speed but not in a sprint? It aids the lungs but not the muscles? Really? The shoes seem to operate according to the principles of diminishing returns; the faster you go the less you get out of them. Is that "efficient"? So when has a shoe ever been like that and why now?
Again, you are using a very small sample with a personal bias. Big data sets paint a clearer picture.
If the performance gains are not from shoes, name the other factor that caused it. Not a hand waivy "everybody got serious about running" or "it was probably some drug". Neither of these accounts for significaint gains for middle school to pro, male & female. The shoes fit the timeline and the proliferation. It could be something else, but no one has offered another plausible explanation that fits.
Again, you are using a very small sample with a personal bias
Look, either the shoes/spikes either provide this massive benefit or they don't. You don't get to cherry pick results that show that they do, and then eschew the results that don't, and then accuse others of having some bias. You're also attributing causation to correlation - it's fallacious to say that because running times got faster around the same time that these "super shoes/spikes" came out, that therefor the faster times are due to the shoes.
Also, I already did provide my reasoning. Running got more popular due to great performances, bringing in more talent. This has been a slow snowball effect for the last 10-15 years. Times were With better talent, people pushed the boundaries more, like Jakob. At the same time, the Mo Farah era ended and runners were willing to actually time trial instead of practicing racing tactics - people don't remember the amount of sit-and-kick races that happened when Farah was in his prime.
Sit and kick hasn't fallen out of fashion. Shoes haven't changed tactics.
What is still not being addressed by "the shoes are making everyone faster" proponents is that if the shoes enable gains of several seconds it must mean the best runners today are nowhere near as talented as the best in the '90s and 2000s.
Even if it is claimed the shoes may enable a gain of 2-3 secs (and not 5 secs) over 1500 that must mean El G, Lagat, Ngeny and Kiprop could have run 3:23-24 in superspikes and that Ingebrigtsen is only a 3:28-29 runner without them, and Hocker and Kerr aren't even 3:30 runners. That has to be the conclusion if it is argued the spikes add even a couple of seconds over that distance at the top of the sport. I can anticipate the fall-back argument that the shoes mostly make a difference at a lower level - which no research supports.
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It's fun to imagine what Kratochvilova would have run if she was competing today. She would have to gain at least a second from the shoes - so the argument goes. So 1:52. But then let's add modern tracks - another second - modern training - another second - and nutrition - a second. They have to make some difference, right, or they wouldn't be touted as being what's behind faster times today. So Kratochvilova would be a 1:49 runner with today's advantages. Not bad. We can discount the possible contribution of drugs because we are told repeatedly there is "no evidence" drugs enable performance gains (except in Russian female md runners. Kratochvilova is Czech.)
The increase in performance of the super shoes is undeniable and has nothing to do with what’s happening on the track. How can 1500m and 5000m runners traveling at the same speed have over a second per lap improvement, and a .16 second one, respectively.
I pointed out that there has been minimum, if any, improvement in WRs and the response was that there was a sweet spot at about 3:45 that disappears as the WR is approached but meanwhile, that sweet spot doesn’t exist in the 5000m. Your 8 paragraphs are all over the map, and none of it explains away my example of a big inconsistency in people’s estimates of track spike improvements.
One of my favorite things about track is that beginning with all-weather track time compared over decades were apples to apples. You guys are determined to claim that’s no longer true, but the only calculations provided are top 50, or whatever, averages, but an increase in depth can explain that. There’s been a huge increase in MLB big power hitters over the years so the average distance of home runs has increased , but the single longest home run each season still tops out at about 500’.
When I talked about a "sweet spot", that was for the slower 5:00-6:30 1500m runner. (Maybe you are mixing up mph with km/h?)
In your example, 4 seconds for 1500m seems too much, and 2 seconds for 5000m seems too little. In part because you are comparing two individuals in the 5000m WR with estimated gains for 3:45 (3:49?) runners. Looking at 50, or 100, or 1000, tends to smooth out any individual outliers, but you are right -- a significant change in depth for other reasons can skew these "deep" results.
In the study that "zzzz" linked on page 4, looking at the top-100 performances, they found a maximum of ~1% improvement for men at 5000m compared to women at 1500m at roughly these same speeds, or about 0.6s per lap for both. Curiously they also found ~1% improvement for the men at 1500m at a higher speed, and a larger ~1.4% improvement over 10000m for men at a slightly slower speed. Women in 5000m and 10000m gained the most at about 2%.
You suggest in increase in depth can explain the results, which is true, and might help explain the women's larger results. Similarly a decrease in East African depth on the track can also explain why old WRs haven't been attacked or moved as aggressively.
I like to compare people within similar groups. Then I see runners like Jakob, Hocker, and Kerr running about 2-3 seconds faster than the ~3:30s of Coe and Cram and Wheating and Centro and Webb. And someone like Laura Muir who gained about 2 seconds over her 2016 self, and runners like Hull and Bell running 3-4 seconds faster than a 2016 Muir. In 5000m, outside of Africa, 13:00 was a formidable barrier for a long time, with only a handful of non-African runners breaking it, and Baumann's 12:54.70 performance seemed untouchable. Fast forward to today and these times have been obliterated by Jakob, Fisher, Young, and Blanks, running 6-10 seconds faster than Baumann.
Come on. The thread title claims there has been a 5 second per mile benefit from the super spikes but your belief is that it only helps joggers. Did you debunk the OP’s opening post? Why would people running near walking pace, be buying super spikes? If your sweet spot pace is true, the spikes have zero impact on elite runners. You claim that there’s been 1.4% increase in performance at 10000m, but that’s over 20+ seconds.
Why are you comparing WR holders to Baumann who was never close to running one and Muir who is a sample of one. Kipyegon has only improved Dibaba’s WR set in 2015, by 1.4 seconds and Kipyegon might be a slightly better runner.
Some of you claim there has been x improvement at y distance from the super spikes, but such estimates always clash what’s happened at other distances. They also include the absurd caveat that the spikes help the otherwise 3:55 miler and not guys chasing the WR.
Many posters believe biocarbs, pacing lights, training at altitude and better training methods, have had a significant affect on performance so how much should be added to any estimated benefit from the spikes?
You are just so sold on today's runners. Do you really believe that Hoey, Fisher, and Kessler are the fastetest runners in history? They all went under world records this year.
You are just so sold on today's runners. Do you really believe that Hoey, Fisher, and Kessler are the fastetest runners in history? They all went under world records this year.
Those are indoor times and which brings in another variable as the fast indoor tracks were not available prior to the use of super spikes. Indoor times should now be compared to those run outdoors. Indoor times might even be faster than outdoors.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Come on. The thread title claims there has been a 5 second per mile benefit from the super spikes but your belief is that it only helps joggers. Did you debunk the OP’s opening post? Why would people running near walking pace, be buying super spikes? If your sweet spot pace is true, the spikes have zero impact on elite runners. You claim that there’s been 1.4% increase in performance at 10000m, but that’s over 20+ seconds.
Why are you comparing WR holders to Baumann who was never close to running one and Muir who is a sample of one. Kipyegon has only improved Dibaba’s WR set in 2015, by 1.4 seconds and Kipyegon might be a slightly better runner.
Some of you claim there has been x improvement at y distance from the super spikes, but such estimates always clash what’s happened at other distances. They also include the absurd caveat that the spikes help the otherwise 3:55 miler and not guys chasing the WR.
Many posters believe biocarbs, pacing lights, training at altitude and better training methods, have had a significant affect on performance so how much should be added to any estimated benefit from the spikes?
I'm somewhere in the middle -- shoes are not nothing but they're not everything either.
I only partly support the 5 seconds, and by all means, I'm happy to hear about these other factors like bicarb and lights and training -- heck, even drugs if someone can name the new methods and/or substances that even high schoolers have discovered.
My first post to the OP said Nick Willis estimated 2-3 seconds for a 1200m trial -- not quite debunking, but not fully supporting a 5-second rule either. All throughout this thread I said we should temper these numbers and consider the speed. 5 seconds is too much for an El G or a Nick Willis, but maybe not so unreasonable for the 4:05 high school miler.
I didn't compare WR holders to Baumann, or really looking at WR holders at all. I did say I like to compare similar groups of athletes with each other. I compared Jakob, Fisher, Young, and Blanks (in 5000m) to Baumann.
In 10000m I look at someone like Grant Fisher, who bettered Rupp's time by 11 seconds, and Solinsky's time by 26 seconds. The 1.4% came from comparing the times of the top-100 runners, so again, not WRs. Would he be 20+ seconds slower in old spikes? Maybe.
And as you point out, these are all anecdotes and sometimes samples of 1, which have limited confirmation value depending on several other factors besides shoes.
You suggested we could consider the depth as skewing the figures. In the case of East Africans, we should similarly consider the reduction of depth, as top talent skips the track and goes to the roads where it is more lucrative. This can help explain why WR times are improving less on the track, but not on the roads, while other nations keep improving over their compatriot predecessors.
Look, either the shoes/spikes either provide this massive benefit or they don't. You don't get to cherry pick results that show that they do, and then eschew the results that don't, and then accuse others of having some bias. You're also attributing causation to correlation - it's fallacious to say that because running times got faster around the same time that these "super shoes/spikes" came out, that therefor the faster times are due to the shoes.
Also, I already did provide my reasoning. Running got more popular due to great performances, bringing in more talent. This has been a slow snowball effect for the last 10-15 years. Times were With better talent, people pushed the boundaries more, like Jakob. At the same time, the Mo Farah era ended and runners were willing to actually time trial instead of practicing racing tactics - people don't remember the amount of sit-and-kick races that happened when Farah was in his prime.
Here’s an idea - ban all super shoes for two years at world, collegiate and HS levels. Collect the data and, ta-da! we will have much better assessment of how much the shoes are worth (or not worth).
Of course, this might cause a lot of tears in the running community because, although current competitive running climate is that the shoes offer no substantial boost in performance, competitive runners now know that there will be a substantial decrease in their performance. This will be very sad for them and they might not recover. 14:58 5k runners will now be forced to admit they are 15:15 5k runners w/o the shoes, severally disrupting their social status in the running community.
But no need to get upset since this is only temporary.
You are just so sold on today's runners. Do you really believe that Hoey, Fisher, and Kessler are the fastetest runners in history? They all went under world records this year.
You misunderstood what I was saying. Today's runners don't appear to be near the best two decades ago - if we are to believe what's claimed about the shoes.
The runners you name haven't set wrs but world best indoor times. They aren't anywhere near the official world records, which are outdoors. And that is with superspikes. Take away the spikes and they aren't even close to the best from the pre-superspikes era.