To All Those Screaming, "It's the Shoes"

sub sub elite local hobby jogger wrote:

When people like Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce and Sha'carri Richardson are running some of the fastest sprint times ever,....

So dear reader, if you are following along, we just discovered that Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce is no longer with Puma, and was wearing the Nike AIR-BAG spikes in her recent Jamaican 100m record. In addition, it seems the fact that she was wearing AIR-BAG spikes in her record setting feat, does not even seem to get mentioned by the media. Indeed, it almost like the shoes are getting left out of the pictures, and you would be hard-pressed to find a media article discussing her shoes. (WHY IS THAT?)

Now to proceed, Sha'carri Richardson is another interesting data point. She recently won the 100m at the 2021 USATF Golden Games:

It is pretty obvious in that video that Sha'carri Richardson is also wearing the Nike AIR-BAG spikes. Does Anton Bolton care to mention that in the video?

a data point wrote:

It is pretty obvious in that video that Sha'carri Richardson is also wearing the Nike AIR-BAG spikes. Does Anton Bolton care to mention that in the video?

So Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce and Sha'carri Richardson seem to be atop of the women't sprint world, and they just coincidentally (or not), are wearing the Nike AIR-BAG spikes, and coincidentally (or not), that fact seems to be overlooked (or purposefully neglected) by the media.

Is there any more to this story?

Well, actually...it turns out that Dina Asher-Smith recently triumphed over both Sha'carri Richardson and Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce at the Gateshead Diamond League last month. Does anyone care to research, and report back here, as to what shoes Dina Asher-Smith was wearing in that race?

` wrote:

The Insider wrote:

Since not everyone read it, I'll repost it for you.

Basically everyone agrees that the shoes are helping. But let's stop with the nonsense that the shoes are turning average runners into world beaters.

I actually think that it's the time trials that are the biggest driver. From the U.S. side, we've never had the amount of perfectly set up time trials like we do today. This is why we've got depth like we've never seen, whereas the rest of the world has virtually no improvement from a depth perspective.

American pro times are not any better than previous years. The ONLY improvement is in the NCAA, which was obviously impacted the most by the pandemic.

Even funnier than that, the only event that has really seen a dramatic increase in depth is the Men's 1500. I don't know why people can't just enjoy the fact that the US has a a large depth of young, fresh talent in the 1500 instead of complaining that spikes might be making people faster.

I've said it before: companies like On and Brooks would only let their athletes use another brand's shoes if they were convinced that they offer a significant performance improvement. Don't kid yourself that they haven't tested these shoes in the lab and on the track. I know for a fact that at least two shoe companies test their rivals shoes for comparison. They have no reason to release this data as it only serves to boost a rival's products but safe to say, they know the advantage provided by the Dragonfly.

And I love the argument that these shoes don't work at th shorter distances. They were designed for them, especially the NB spike. People used to say the same about the Vaporfly until the study that showed they even improved 3k times across every participant in the experiment.

Really, enjoy the racing, I do, but the times are close to meaningless. These are not historically great athletes, they're just very good, as we see in every cohort. Maybe one or two will breakout, like Kessler but don't expect a sudden wave of US dominance in the mid-d events

a data point wrote:

So Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce and Sha'carri Richardson (and Dina Asher-Smith) seem to be atop of the women't sprint world, and they just coincidentally (or not), are wearing the Nike AIR-BAG spikes, and coincidentally (or not), that fact seems to be overlooked (or purposefully neglected) by the media.

C'mon now, why would there be some conspiracy by the media to purposefully overlook (or neglect) to mention that the top women sprinters are setting records wearing AIR-BAG SPRINGS?!? Maybe in doing so, it would start to register in the general public's minds that Kipchoge and Rupp are getting some benefit in the other distance extreme, the marathon, by wearing AIR-BAG SPRINGS, eh?

Then, when some Nike shill regurgitates their mantra 'but, they don't create energy', maybe more of the understanding general public would respond, 'well, neither does a trampoline?!?'. And when that happens, more of the general public might just tune out completely, because of the apparent mockery of the 'sport'?

Instead, maybe it is time for the media to embrace and trumpet up the FACT that the shoe technology DEFINITELY is going to play into the record setting times, and they consequently, should investigate it more closely, rather than ignore it, and embrace it for what it is.

I ran the 5000m 6x this spring.

I’m not world class but the shoes made literally zero difference.

I ran 16:23 in old Nike Lunar racer

16:17 in the 4%

16:27 in dragon fly

16:25 in dragon fly

16:44 in 4%

16:30 in 4%

brooks least wrote:

` wrote:

Yeah, it must have been the piece of foam under her feet and not the metronomic futuristic lights that keep even pace for 10km.

Well, you need something to help keep up with the lights, why not a carbon fiber plate propelling you forward, waste a heck of a lot less energy with that, will certainly need that energy 20 minutes in.

people are so dumb.... dragonflys dont have carbon fiber plate, old school victory elites do.

Honestly I find it so mad that people keep banging on about these spikes because some college kids are running faster. Let's look at the IAAF top lists for the 1500:

Potato Farmer Tim - 3:30 - 2 seconds slower than he ran in 2018 AND 2019 in normal Victorys

Josh Kerr - 3:31 - 0.97s. faster than he ran in Brooks spikes 2 years ago

Stewie McSweyn - 3:31 - 0.24s. faster than he ran in regular Victorys 2 years ago

El Bakkali - suddenly decides he's a 1500 runner with nothing to compare it to

Ali Musab - seems to have come out of nowhere but ran 3:36 5 years ago, so maybe just had a breakthrough?

Tefera - 3:32 - ran 3:31 in both 2019 and 2018 in normal spikes

Hoare, Knight & Katir - all made huge improvements and only went pro over the past couple of years so had to pinpoint improvement specifically to a pair of spikes

Birgen - 3:32 - has literally ran faster every single season since 2011

Engels - 3:33 - a 0.4s. improvement in since his PR two years ago

Grice - 3:33 - 3 seconds slower than he ran in Monaco wearing normal Victories in 2019

So apart from Ali Musab (who?), and the three young guys who've just emerged on the scene literally ALL these other guys have basically stayed the same except for some marginal improvements. If the shoes equate to even ONE second over 1500, then why are the top guys not running ANY faster than they did in 2019 and before.

Bearing in mind a lot of them had very quiet years last year, you would think with these magic new spikes and a huge return to racing, there would be a massive spike in top performances - there isn't. Depth is improving because all the college guys have essentially just become full time athletes for 16 months, but overall top level performances literally haven't changed.

The spike-hoaxers will say all of what you just said is evidence that those guys are having a bad year, and would still run 3+ seconds in the spikes from 2 years ago. So basically, it's impossible to falsify the magical spike theory.

shoes ran same time wrote:

I ran the 5000m 6x this spring.

I’m not world class but the shoes made literally zero difference.

I ran 16:23 in old Nike Lunar racer

16:17 in the 4%

16:27 in dragon fly

16:25 in dragon fly

16:44 in 4%

16:30 in 4%

Interesting...nearly 100% of people I know who switched to carbon fiber shoes had a clear 30-60 second (3-4%) improvement in 5K race times. It's only a sample size of 7-8 people. But the results have been pretty consistent.

PTF wrote:

shoes ran same time wrote:

I ran the 5000m 6x this spring.

I’m not world class but the shoes made literally zero difference.

I ran 16:23 in old Nike Lunar racer

16:17 in the 4%

16:27 in dragon fly

16:25 in dragon fly

16:44 in 4%

16:30 in 4%

Interesting...nearly 100% of people I know who switched to carbon fiber shoes had a clear 30-60 second (3-4%) improvement in 5K race times. It's only a sample size of 7-8 people. But the results have been pretty consistent.

Stats or nothing man.

I ran a faster time with my old vics than dragonflies in pre season. Post season ran faster in my dragonflies (did not have a comparison of with my old vics) than earlier in the season. I think I just got better throughout the season and the shoes made a null difference.

I have high school athletes that dropped significantly more time that I expected after running in their teammates’ dragonfly’s that they borrowed. One was an experienced 3200 runner that dropped 20 seconds from one race to the next. Another was a miler that dropped 10 seconds when I thought a good day would have been a 4 second PR. I estimate they are worth close to 5 sec/mile. These drops in time are end of season drops where they are nearing their peak for the season, not the “just getting in shape” drops in time which are more significant.

PTF wrote:

shoes ran same time wrote:

I ran the 5000m 6x this spring.

I’m not world class but the shoes made literally zero difference.

I ran 16:23 in old Nike Lunar racer

16:17 in the 4%

16:27 in dragon fly

16:25 in dragon fly

16:44 in 4%

16:30 in 4%

Interesting...nearly 100% of people I know who switched to carbon fiber shoes had a clear 30-60 second (3-4%) improvement in 5K race times. It's only a sample size of 7-8 people. But the results have been pretty consistent.

Eh, the one kid on my team that switched spikes this season to Dragonflies and ran progressively slower in the 800/1500. He was running in old racing flats, not even spikes, and was a 1:50/3:54 8/15 guy before getting dragonflies. His fastest after getting Dragonflies was 1:51 and 3:57, so I am going to say that spikes really don't have much of an effect.

It's not the shoes, it's micro dosing peds.

China Joe wrote:

PTF wrote:

Interesting...nearly 100% of people I know who switched to carbon fiber shoes had a clear 30-60 second (3-4%) improvement in 5K race times. It's only a sample size of 7-8 people. But the results have been pretty consistent.

Eh, the one kid on my team that switched spikes this season to Dragonflies and ran progressively slower in the 800/1500. He was running in old racing flats, not even spikes, and was a 1:50/3:54 8/15 guy before getting dragonflies. His fastest after getting Dragonflies was 1:51 and 3:57, so I am going to say that spikes really don't have much of an effect.

If I am not mistaken, dragon fly does not have carbon fiber. Also, my observations have been with people who are racing mostly on the roads...not on the track except for 5K...so I may be off topic. My marathoner friend (~2:35) feels the carbon fiber shoes give him about 3 mins advantage...which somewhat correlates with the 5K results.

it would be good to have many coaches at the college level chime in,

and even do experiments with shoes in training.

with a great volume of data, you can get an estimate on the shoes effect.

myself, back in the day, i hated nearly every shoe i had, if i got a good brand, the next season, it was gone, changed.

in any case, they should reset the record books, prior to 2021 and after.

i mean, when EPO and steroids did not show on the tests, no result is ratified.

so the old world records are all non-ratified by definition.

this kind of logic will get traction.

they'll reset the records at some point.

regarding shoes, ya, allow the improvements, where the shoe allows you to run naturally,

but no springs, and air gadgets.

experiment with the regulations for a couple of years, and nail it down to something that works good .... i.e. cuts down on injury, makes for the best stride, and gets rid of "bionic" effects.

there you go.

+1, nice post.

Albo1777 wrote:

I have high school athletes that dropped significantly more time that I expected after running in their teammates’ dragonfly’s that they borrowed. One was an experienced 3200 runner that dropped 20 seconds from one race to the next. Another was a miler that dropped 10 seconds when I thought a good day would have been a 4 second PR. I estimate they are worth close to 5 sec/mile. These drops in time are end of season drops where they are nearing their peak for the season, not the “just getting in shape” drops in time which are more significant.

This is honestly a ridiculous post. To suggest a guy ran 20 seconds faster over 2 miles because his shoes had a bit of foam in is crazy. Why haven't the 13 flat guys broke 12:30 if they make this much difference?

` wrote:

American pro times are not any better than previous years. The ONLY improvement is in the NCAA, which was obviously impacted the most by the pandemic.

This argument is wrong. No pro runners are close to their peak. Most fast times come from racing late June and July.

They are training for sit and kick races because the trials are always insanely strategic.

You also deliberately ignore the WORLD RECORDS in the 5k and 10k. Those alone destroy your argument.