Does anyone seriously want vaporflys banned?

Lofty Goals wrote:

rojo wrote:

You take Kipchoge in a regular pair of shoes. I get Bekele in the Vaporflys. It's not even close. Bekele is going to win. The shoes are probably worth 1-2 minutes.

I agree that the shoes should be banned, but I doubt the current models are worth 1-2 minutes. The new alphaflys might get close to that though.

Most people thought Kipchoge was the GOAT marathoner before vaporflys even existed, so I think he probably could have smashed Kimetto’s record in traditional shoes.

I think he goes 2:02:25 in traditional shoes vs 2:01:39 in vaporflys.

It's less of an effect than that. Kipchoge went 2:03:05 in 2016, before vaporflys, the olympics and sub2. 3 years later, he runs 2:02:37 on the same course, with similar pacing (61:24 at the half versus 61:37 at the half) and weather. So if Kipchoge was at the exact same fitness level in 2016 and 2019, the shoes only provided a 28s improvement, which is only a 0.38% improvement.

Based on that, if Kipchoge runs in the perfect conditions of Berlin again without the shoe, he likely goes 2:02:07. And if he runs 1:59:40 with the shoes, that would be 2:00:07 without the shoes.

I love it, calling out Rupp when he simply wears the shoes given to him by his sponsor. Not even trying to hide the AlSal/NOP bias. Should there be an asterisk by Shalane's NYC victory? I guess so - Ketany was wearing Adidas.

hmmmj wrote:

rojo wrote:

I put a huge asterisk next to Rupp's medal in 2016.

...Should there be an asterisk by Shalane's NYC victory? I guess so - Ketany was wearing Adidas.

BURN. love the double standard.

There has to be a line drawn somewhere unless you think it's okay for people to run in roller-blades or on pogo-stilts. Where the line should be drawn is going to largely be a matter of personal opinion. Whether the VF's cross the line or don't cross the line or exist in a gray area is a matter of personal opinion. There is no definitive right or wrong answer here.

For me personally, what I love about running is the simplicity and minimalism and relative purity of it. Anyone can just put on a pair of shorts and shoes and go run. No expensive or maintenance-intensive equipment or preparations required. While small variations in pre-VF shoes exist, everyone is more or less on a relatively level playing no matter what shoes they can afford.

Obviously there's a lot of debate about exactly how much performance advantage the VF's have over other shoes, so I won't bother to make any arguments tied to that specific point. But for me personally, I think the 4%'s may be in a gray area as far as what I personally am okay with. However, the Next%'s and Pink%'s and Kipchoge%'s do cross a line to the point where it clearly seems to violate the spirit of what running means to me (simplicity, equality, etc.). The stack height is absurd and seems more like running on pogo-stilts than anything I would recognize as running shoes. Obviously this is just my personal opinion. There is no absolutely objective right or wrong answer here, but I personally don't want to see running continue in this direction. I don't want running to be all about what kind of shoes you can afford or about wearing ridiculously absurd-looking, highly specialized "shoes."

And for everyone who dismisses every criticism with the retort, "I bet you're just upset cuz you can't afford them," I assure you, I could afford to buy a new pair of VF's every week if I wanted to, but I am currently choosing not to buy any Nike products at all because I personally do not like the direction they are taking running. I would prefer to keep running simple and minimal and egalitarian.

I kind of like the idea elites can use prototypes of what technology their employers plan to release on the market soon.

And I am saying that with no intention myself of buying into high end racers. I am a firm believer in the concept of the prefered movement and so far my prefered movement have been in 30 dollars trainers.

That being said, the way i believe the vaporfly could be more efficient than the rest would be for it to compress on foot landing and decompress on propulsion, releasing some energy in the bounce. If that's how they work then it's not exactly rocket science, but it is critical that the shoe be tuned to the time of contact of the foot on ground and the weight of the runner. I suspect there also should be some merit in differencing the tuned rebound frequency of the heel vs fore foot.

Which means there are two possible way they work for you:

1) you happen to have a gait/morphology that works well with the commercially available model, which is probably true if you're elite/sub elite with a typical elite/sub elite build.

2) Nike is custom making them for you.

Yes, because they are against the nature of the sport, and the rules afaik? Surely springs aren’t allowed, which some Vaporflys essentially has?

Yes, because I can't afford them.

JohnnyS wrote:

Yes, because they are against the nature of the sport, and the rules afaik? Surely springs aren’t allowed, which some Vaporflys essentially has?

"afaik" is doing a lot of lifting here. They're not against the (current) rules, springs are allowed.

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

No don’t ban them. I’d rather other companies innovate so everyone is on an even playing field

Good point

For years the shoe companies pushed the same old same old - cushioning and and comfort - and that's what we have had to work with.

Nike are to be applauded for pushing propulsion as a USP

The other shoes will need to step up and develop similarly inspired shoes.

The cat is out the bag and the genie is out the bottle, you can't stop tech rolling on, and that's an issue the IAAF has to answer.

Cycling shoes used to have a wooden soles and now carbon soles are found even on cheap shoes

Mizuno should go back and perhaps have another look at their 'Wave' shoe, and see what can be done with in now..

I am sure I was wearing shoes with ' Wave ' way back in 1997

Abdoujaparov wrote:

JohnnyS wrote:

Yes, because they are against the nature of the sport, and the rules afaik? Surely springs aren’t allowed, which some Vaporflys essentially has?

"afaik" is doing a lot of lifting here. They're not against the (current) rules, springs are allowed.

Rules are subject to interpretation. The rules do in fact say something to the effect that shoes are supposed to be designed to protect the foot and provide grip and that they aren't supposed to be designed to give any kind of unfair advantage. What constitutes an unfair advantage is a matter of interpretation. So far no one in a position of power has deemed the VF's to be illegal, but that doesn't mean that there aren't many people who do believe that the VF's do violate their interpretation of the rules.

I recognize that practically it may be too late the shut the barn door, and Nike may have too much influence and too many supporters. But if I were emperor of the world and could dictate whatever I wanted, I would definitely ban the VF's from competition and invalidate any WR's set in them.

Be consistent please wrote:

Why are track fans so against technological improvement?

1. Because if technology improves too much, then we can no longer compare the people. It then becomes impossible to compare athletes between different generations.

2. The simplicity of running is one of its most powerful qualities. High tech $250 trampoline shoes take that simplicity and elegance away from us.

Technology is fine in Formula 1 racing. But not in running.

However I am pessimistic about the chances of the IAAF banning these monstrosities because Nike is the main sponsor of the running sport. This is the only difference with the supersonic swimsuits from the noughties. If I remember correctly the latter were made by Arena, which was a small company compared to the dominant player, Speedo. That's why FINA banned the swimsuits whilst the IAAF won't do the same thing with the Vaporflys. Lots of money will be made by big corporations but our beautiful sport will be stained forever.

Yes, I want them banned, and I don't care about four years of performances when the tech fix being allowed is like opening up a Pandora's box where there is no end to the consequences because technology is constantly improving. The IAAF needs to set some rules that preserve the status quo ante. This is becoming ridiculous. Once Letsrun.com would fulminate against the illegal Spira spring shoes and now Nike's shoes are shredding all of the records and there's no end in sight.

i think a big issue we have is there is no objective way to say if a shoe should be banned or not. the IAAF rule read something like "cannot give unfair advantage" or something like that which means nothing since every running shoe gives you an "unfair advantage" if you compare it to barefoot running. in my opinion, we should use more objective way of defining what is legal or not. imo, every shoe should have a maximum heel/toe height of being 2 inches off the ground and that the shoe cannot use any electricity. i am in favor of things like springs because the argument can be made that springs will protect your feet while running on concrete which is the main purpose of shoes anyway.

To measure 2:03:05 to 2:02:37 to prove that the shoes only meant 28 seconds is cherry picking. When he ran 2:02:37, he had already run a world record of 2:01:39 and was just trying to win on a harder course than Berlin. So, the improvement was close to 90 seconds, and the new shoes probably amount to an even bigger improvement. He didn't look that close to his max in this race with the pacers and trampoline shoes.

The odds of this happening are extremely slim. Because ultimately the concept cushioning is detrimental to performance in a lab environment ( in a purest sense reduces force transfer which is what you need to run fast). Nike counter this in the new "xxxxxFLY" that Kipchoge was wearing with a complex system of plates to create the necessary bending stiffness etc (we have all seen the exploded views of the parts right?) and to offset the extra weight this creates (we know that 100g of weight is equal to 1% economy/efficiency benefit) they have to an overly minimalist upper which probably isn't that comfortable for the majority of us.

So I'm pretty confident we are getting close to the limits of stack heights for a number of reasons - 1) more foam/plate layers are going to push the overall shoe weight to a point where any economy benefit is offset by the added weight and 2) the inherent instability of a running shoe that has stack heights anywhere close to what you are suggesting.

So I probably would say it's fine if it was even close to plausible or made sense. Which unfortunately it doesn't really. But nice try.

As for spring stilts? Well this would be banned immediately under IAAF rules as spring loaded appendages/components are only allowed in Paralympic sport. To reiterate the Nike Vaporfly shoes from V1 to current do not have springs or spring loading in them (they would be banned if they did) The fact that the public perception is that they do is purely marketing genius and/or figment of imagination.

This is the text (with my annotations in brackets):

Athletes may compete barefoot or with footwear on one or both feet. The purpose of shoes for competition is to give protection and stability to the feet and a firm grip on the ground. [The preceding sentence is bad drafting (and I say that as someone who drafts for a living). If it's not clear what purpose language serves it shouldn't be there. Nowhere in the rules is the specified "purpose" of shoes given any meaning. Deviating from that purpose doesn't mean they're illegitimate, Hewing to that purpose doesn't make shoes automatically legitimate. Bad bad bad.] Such shoes, however, must not be constructed so as to give athletes any unfair assistance or advantage. [There's no way to say $110 shoes that return X% of energy are fair and don't convey an advantage over a barefoot runner but $250 shoes that return X+10% don't. People want to see wiggle room here but there isn't any. Nike wins any litigation on this point. If you want to regulate their shoes you need tighter rules] Any type of shoe used must be reasonably available to all in the spirit of the universality of athletics. [This is the new bit but again you won't win a price based argument here if the delta is $100-$150 (and no-one's claiming that if Kosgei won in the Alpha%s that would have been ok).]

Good reading which echoes one of my ideas further up the thread - let's start with stack height, like high-jumping already does:

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Geb saw it coming, I mean if Kipchoge, a guy that Geb consistently beat in his old years on the track suddenly runs 2:01-2:03 every single race I would question too if that's really just the training.

You could make the argument, however, that Kipchoge didn't suddenly start running 2:01s. Sure, he ran 2:03, but so did Wilson Kipsang and others. Most people have a gradual progression, starting with the status quo.

What I think made the biggest difference, and is largely responsible for his 2:01.39 was the Breaking2 event. Once he saw it could be done, that was motivation to try it in a real race. No one else has really had this advantage before.

If the WR was 2:02.57, logic would tell you is a dumb idea to go out at 2:00 or some arbitrary pace and see what happens. We don't do that in our own running.. it's always aiming for gradual improvements. If Kipchoge was told that car in Vienna was going to pace at 1:59 marathon pace, but actually went out and maintained 1:57~1:58 pace without telling him, I bet he could have run faster than what he did.

What's unfortunate, is if Kipchoge was running in the New Balance 1400 or Adios Boost, there would be endless threads about training, pacing and nutrition, and not shoes. Which I think would be more beneficial to the running public.

As for spring stilts? Well this would be banned immediately under IAAF rules as spring loaded appendages/components are only allowed in Paralympic sport. To reiterate the Nike Vaporfly shoes from V1 to current do not have springs or spring loading in them (they would be banned if they did) The fact that the public perception is that they do is purely marketing genius and/or figment of imagination.

Can you point me to the current IAAF rule that specifically bans springs? There was one introduced in 2007 but I don't believe it's there anymore.

lol.... wrote:

hmmmj wrote:

...Should there be an asterisk by Shalane's NYC victory? I guess so - Ketany was wearing Adidas.

BURN. love the double standard.

Except Shalane ran in them when they were available to the public, in the case of NYC. Unlike Linden's Boston win, in Brooks that are not available to consumers.

People want to ban Vaporflys which you can buy all day long at Dick's Sporting Goods. Yet, it's ok for Saucony, Skechers, New Balance, Brooks and Asics to have prototypes out there in elite fields, just because they aren't winning? Uh huh.. that makes sense.