My view is, the shoes are quite effective at dropping "natural" times, but not as effective as EPO. It would make sense from a logical standpoint. Presumably, runners haven't gotten innately faster in recent decades - we're still dealing with the same old home sapiens.
So let's say, hypothetically, that without drugs or super-shoes, the very best runners in the world were capable of 7:35 to 7:40 for 3000m, and there were usually a few guys active at any given time who were capable of that. Well, here's what we might say in 3 different scenarios:
No drugs or super-shoes available: fastest time each year is in the 7:35 to 7:40 range, because that is pretty much as fast as a human can go.
EPO but no super shoes: fastest time each year in the 7:20 to 7:30 range, depending on drug testing, drug supplies, super-responders, etc.
Super shoes but no EPO: fastest time each years in the 7:30 to 7:35 range (I'm just going with a conservative 5-second improvement purely from the shoes).
But in today's era, we know we have the super-shoes, and we suspect PED use still abounds, but not as effectively as in the EPO era due to improved testing. So nowadays, you get all the benefit of the super-shoes, and a little bit from drugs.
I'm not trying to say this is definitely what's happening, because how would I know? It's not like athletes are publicizing their PED programs. I'm just saying it's not non-sensical to say that athletes are benefitting hugely just from having better shoes, even though many track WRs still stand.
EPO alone is worth 20 - 30 seconds over 5K according to several studies, so that would be at least 15 seconds for 3000m. Then all the other peds they were taking add another 5 - 10 seconds at least. I'd say 7:45 for Komen and closer to 8 minutes for El G given the coctail he was on. Subtract 3 - 5 seconds for cheater shoes. Komen was 7:45 before EPO and 7:43 when he stopped the EPO.
As this board still maintains that Komen and El G were cleaned how is it the best dopers in "super shoes" in this era can't get near their performances? The new shoes add nothing like the bozos here believe.
Before calling others "bozos", check your own ignorance.
"Super shoes" improve running economy. Therefore they work better/improve times by a bigger margin for runners with worse running economy.
99.9% of elite athletes already have excellent form, so the gains are there, just not as extreme as they are for sub-elites, serious but amateur, or recreational runners.
When you say that new shoes add nothing, you are being wilfully ignorant or dishonest. Or, third option, which seems to apply to you, you are stuck in the 1960s and believe your childhood heroes were perfect specimens and whoever runs faster than them is doping. Fortunately you will not be around much longer. Unfortunately, others like you will take your place.
As this board still maintains that Komen and El G were cleaned how is it the best dopers in "super shoes" in this era can't get near their performances? The new shoes add nothing like the bozos here believe.
Before calling others "bozos", check your own ignorance.
"Super shoes" improve running economy. Therefore they work better/improve times by a bigger margin for runners with worse running economy.
99.9% of elite athletes already have excellent form, so the gains are there, just not as extreme as they are for sub-elites, serious but amateur, or recreational runners.
When you say that new shoes add nothing, you are being wilfully ignorant or dishonest. Or, third option, which seems to apply to you, you are stuck in the 1960s and believe your childhood heroes were perfect specimens and whoever runs faster than them is doping. Fortunately you will not be around much longer. Unfortunately, others like you will take your place.
Empty words. If the new shoes add significant improvement how is it that none in those shoes today (that must include dopers) can get near what Komen and El G did in their gumboots - since their shoes were obviously cr*p?
As this board still maintains that Komen and El G were cleaned how is it the best dopers in "super shoes" in this era can't get near their performances? The new shoes add nothing like the bozos here believe.
Before calling others "bozos", check your own ignorance.
"Super shoes" improve running economy. Therefore they work better/improve times by a bigger margin for runners with worse running economy.
99.9% of elite athletes already have excellent form, so the gains are there, just not as extreme as they are for sub-elites, serious but amateur, or recreational runners.
When you say that new shoes add nothing, you are being wilfully ignorant or dishonest. Or, third option, which seems to apply to you, you are stuck in the 1960s and believe your childhood heroes were perfect specimens and whoever runs faster than them is doping. Fortunately you will not be around much longer. Unfortunately, others like you will take your place.
BTW - learn to read. I didn't say the new shoes "add nothing". I said they add nothing like what some claim - which is 4 secs/mile. That is ridiculous.
Based on today's times, and factoring in reduced blood doping since 2009 because of the ABP (say, "only" 20 IU/kg EPO), it can't be more than 2 sec/mile on the road, and maybe half of that on the track.
Otherwise, all records would be broken by now, and that by substantial margins.
There are no direct, published studies on elites for obvious reasons. Studies on sub-elites give larger improvements though. See below for some expert opinions based on their various experiences. In short, they say about 30 seconds over 5,000 m, 45 seconds to over 60 seconds over 10,000 m, and two minutes in the marathon.
“There’s no way you can compete without them,” Salazar said of performance-enhancing drugs. “It’s worth 45 seconds in the 10 kilometers and two minutes in the marathon.
From the summarized literature, it can be estimated that elite athletes may improve performance by up to 3% with blood doping, regardless of method [29–31].
Dr. Olaf Schumacher, who serves on the lAAF Expert Panel for ABP cases, during the Karamasheva CAS hearing (paragraph 77):
"Moreover, EPO is typically taken as a course of many weeks, not as a single injection. Professor Schumacher explained that it can increase oxygen supply by 6% and take as much as one minute off the time taken to run 10,000 metres, and proportionately more over lesser distances."
Experts say blood doping can improve the performance of a 5,000m runner by about 30 seconds – the difference between first place and last in the men’s final at London 2012. In the 10,000m the advantage could be more than a minute.
This is the easiest way to expose how ridiculous the super spike rhetoric has gotten. The notion of Komen running 7:12 is just comical, and that's not even including Monaco and wavelight. He'd be comfortably under 7:10 if half the clowns on this site are to be believed.
I agree with you but they are legitimate questions. I started running in 1971- the minimalist shoes they have now are like motion control shoes compared to what we ran in then.
In the 1980's shoes started to get better, cushioning, more control, etc.
When I coached in the early 2000's, I wondered how much faster I would have run if we had the training shoes and even spikes those kids had.
It's natural to wonder how much of a difference super shoes make. Obviously, they would make a much bigger difference for me (at my advancing age and speed than they would for Komen, El G, etc
Based on today's times, and factoring in reduced blood doping since 2009 because of the ABP (say, "only" 20 IU/kg EPO), it can't be more than 2 sec/mile on the road, and maybe half of that on the track.
Otherwise, all records would be broken by now, and that by substantial margins.
If it was 4 secs/mile Jakob would be yet to break 3.50 in the shoes that Komen and El G wore. (And around 3.33 for the 1500 - same as Ryun ran in '67). Pretty slow for an Olympic champion today, wouldn't you say? I wouldn't put any money on more than half a second over that distance. El G might have run 3.25x. The wonders of EPO more than shoes.
I think the real question is...How fast would Komen have run if he understood the concept of 'time'? My best estimate is that understanding the concept of 'time' is worth approximately 3-4 seconds per mile.
I think the real question is...How fast would Komen have run if he understood the concept of 'time'? My best estimate is that understanding the concept of 'time' is worth approximately 3-4 seconds per mile.
3-4 seconds per lap, Coevett. In reality Komen hardly is a 4 minute miler.
According to Rojo and others, super spikes are worth about 4 seconds a mile.
By my math that means Daniel Komen's 3k (which was run at about 3:56 mile pace), would be run at near 3:52 pace, giving Daniel Komen in modern day super spikes a staggering 3k WR time of 7:12.
EL G, doped to the gills in with EPO, and wearing the incredible super spikes, strolls in the mile in an incredible time of 3:39.
Why I would give to mix the EPO era with super spikes.
To answer this you have to understand what "super spikes" are and do. In a nutshell "super spikes" are just spikes with superior foam cushioning because lightweight rigid plates certainly aren't new and certainly existed in the era of Komen.
In Komens era the only material really available for cushioning was basic EVA and in order to keep the weight down in track footwear, low-density variations were used in thin geometries. The cushioning properties were therefore very poor so the cumulative fatigue created by the impact of hitting the track was higher than it is now with these spikes that have basically allowed double the amount of cushioning with no cost of weight or peak ground force application.
Now that being said, I would seriously doubt that over a distance as short as 3000m (let's just use 7min30 of running as the duration) that the reduced impact fatigue really makes an appreciable difference - especially at this level of athlete who is extraordinarily efficient to begin with. So in terms of in-race benefit of "super spikes"? I mean maybe half a second and that's a huge maybe.
However when we are talking about impact fatigue and how much better these spikes are at reducing it, we then start looking at the benefits over the course of a season and how this can compound. If each track workout in spikes you are experiencing even 5% less impact fatigue, then it doesn't take a genius to see how this could potentially be very helpful to improving/maximizing potential over the course of a season. But here is the thing with Komen and a lot of Kenyan runners in particular during that era - they almost never wore spikes on the track and were terrified of hard surfaces. What this means is that they were masters at reducing fatigue on their muscles to begin with. I remember running with Ngeny (and others) to Bushy Park in London and they literally walked the half mile to the park entrance because they didn't want to run on any type of asphalt, period.
So even assuming access to super spikes, it's doubtful Komen really accesses any of the biggest benefit of these spikes to begin with given he never worked out in spikes on the track save for a few stride-outs which certainly isn't fatiguing him to any degree.
What would he run in new spike tech? He ran a 5000m in Berlin 2 days before Rieti. Wearing super spikes in that race definitely would have helped reduce the amount of fatigue on his legs heading into Rieti though obviously this is almost impossible to quantify to what degree. Let's say it's half a second and there is a small in-race benefit. I'll give him 8 tenths of a second and say that he runs just under 7.20 in the 7.19.8/9 range.
Now if we want to talk a huge modern-day benefit that he didn't have access to let's talk wavelight - in this race the pacing was pretty great but no doubt an even more metronomic pace suits the perfectly metronomic Komen. Setting those lights to precise 58.5's is 7min18.75 - I think I could realistically see having happened with everything, including a small benefit with his footwear, taken into account.
As this board still maintains that Komen and El G were cleaned how is it the best dopers in "super shoes" in this era can't get near their performances? The new shoes add nothing like the bozos here believe.
Before calling others "bozos", check your own ignorance.
"Super shoes" improve running economy. Therefore they work better/improve times by a bigger margin for runners with worse running economy.
99.9% of elite athletes already have excellent form, so the gains are there, just not as extreme as they are for sub-elites, serious but amateur, or recreational runners.
When you say that new shoes add nothing, you are being wilfully ignorant or dishonest. Or, third option, which seems to apply to you, you are stuck in the 1960s and believe your childhood heroes were perfect specimens and whoever runs faster than them is doping. Fortunately you will not be around much longer. Unfortunately, others like you will take your place.
This is a great point I was going to touch on but didn't and you are right.
Using a sample set of college kids and sub-elite runners as evidence to create a blanket logic that applies to (in this case) Daniel Komen, is not good science or even good common sense.
The recent boom in running innovation 100% have created tangible benefits for athletes - undeniable. But it's not a universal factor from the roads to the track for one (where improvements on the road are much more pronounced for obvious reasons) and secondly it's not just "3-4 seconds a mile" for all athletes irrespective of talent and actualized ability.
Thinking that already hyper efficient Daniel Komen, gets improved so much by "super spikes" that he is out there running 7.12 in todays climate is about one of the stupidest takes you could ever have talking distance running.
It depends on the length of the race. For the mile they are worth around 1 second for elite world class. So El G would be around 3:42 for the mile on the day he ran his WR. For the 3k they are worth around 5 seconds for elite world class. Komen would have run around 7:15 on the day he ran 7:20.
2021 & 22 are the fastest and second fastest years ever for all distances 3k - 10k men and women on the world-class level except ‘22 was the third fastest for either men’s 5 or 10 - can’t remember (‘21 was the fastest). Based off all the numbers this is probably what they are worth. Mile - 1 second, 3000m, 5-8 seconds, 5000m, 8-10 seconds, 10000m, 10-15 seconds.
There are no direct, published studies on elites for obvious reasons. Studies on sub-elites give larger improvements though. See below for some expert opinions based on their various experiences. In short, they say about 30 seconds over 5,000 m, 45 seconds to over 60 seconds over 10,000 m, and two minutes in the marathon.
“There’s no way you can compete without them,” Salazar said of performance-enhancing drugs. “It’s worth 45 seconds in the 10 kilometers and two minutes in the marathon.
From the summarized literature, it can be estimated that elite athletes may improve performance by up to 3% with blood doping, regardless of method [29–31].
Dr. Olaf Schumacher, who serves on the lAAF Expert Panel for ABP cases, during the Karamasheva CAS hearing (paragraph 77):
"Moreover, EPO is typically taken as a course of many weeks, not as a single injection. Professor Schumacher explained that it can increase oxygen supply by 6% and take as much as one minute off the time taken to run 10,000 metres, and proportionately more over lesser distances."
Experts say blood doping can improve the performance of a 5,000m runner by about 30 seconds – the difference between first place and last in the men’s final at London 2012. In the 10,000m the advantage could be more than a minute.
Those are articles. 2/3 of which are people just claiming this to be true. Let’s see the actual studies.
According to Rojo and others, super spikes are worth about 4 seconds a mile.
By my math that means Daniel Komen's 3k (which was run at about 3:56 mile pace), would be run at near 3:52 pace, giving Daniel Komen in modern day super spikes a staggering 3k WR time of 7:12.
EL G, doped to the gills in with EPO, and wearing the incredible super spikes, strolls in the mile in an incredible time of 3:39.
Why I would give to mix the EPO era with super spikes.
I think 3:25 or possibly as low as 3:24.8 is possible for El G, and something like 7:18 for Komen, but faster that is difficult to conceive. That being said, it can't be coincidence that so many records have fallen since the advent of super shoes. There's no doubt they have some effect. It's just difficult to say exactly how much of an effect, especially when the size of the effect likely varies some runner to runner. It would be interesting to have a study of 100 pro runners and have them run a time trial or something one week apart, one in super shoes and one in conventional racing spikes.
It depends on the length of the race. For the mile they are worth around 1 second for elite world class. So El G would be around 3:42 for the mile on the day he ran his WR. For the 3k they are worth around 5 seconds for elite world class. Komen would have run around 7:15 on the day he ran 7:20.
2021 & 22 are the fastest and second fastest years ever for all distances 3k - 10k men and women on the world-class level except ‘22 was the third fastest for either men’s 5 or 10 - can’t remember (‘21 was the fastest). Based off all the numbers this is probably what they are worth. Mile - 1 second, 3000m, 5-8 seconds, 5000m, 8-10 seconds, 10000m, 10-15 seconds.
It depends on the length of the race. For the mile they are worth around 1 second for elite world class. So El G would be around 3:42 for the mile on the day he ran his WR. For the 3k they are worth around 5 seconds for elite world class. Komen would have run around 7:15 on the day he ran 7:20.
2021 & 22 are the fastest and second fastest years ever for all distances 3k - 10k men and women on the world-class level except ‘22 was the third fastest for either men’s 5 or 10 - can’t remember (‘21 was the fastest). Based off all the numbers this is probably what they are worth. Mile - 1 second, 3000m, 5-8 seconds, 5000m, 8-10 seconds, 10000m, 10-15 seconds.
Mile -1
3000 -8
seems plausible
Believe it or not, for men’s US distance times in the 3000m times for ‘21 and ‘22 are average 10 seconds faster than they have ever been. For indoor times they are even faster. For world times the two years are 5 seconds faster. For the mile there is hardly any different. Yes, it is plausible backed up by data from the past 10 years.
Which data do you use for that? Average of the top 50, or the 50th best or something?
Looking at the very top, I don't see that at all.
World records pre and post carbon shoes (road: 2016; track: 2019) Marathon 2:02:57 (’14) – 2:01:09 (’22) – 2.6 s/km in 8 years Half marathon 58:23 (’10) – 57:31 (’21) – 2.5 s/km in 11 years 10000 m 26:17.53 (’05) – 26:11.00 (‘20) – 0.7 s/km in 15 years 5000 m 12:37.35 (’04) – 12:35.36 (’20) – 0.4 s/km in 16 years 3000 m 7:20.67 (’96) – unchanged 1500 m 3:26.00 (’98) – unchanged 800 m 1:40.91 (’12) – unchanged 400 m 43.03 (’16) – unchanged 200 m 19.19 (’09) – unchanged 100 m 9.58 (’09) – unchanged
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