Ben True 27:14 at age 35 (26+ second pb). What were the shoes?

Rojo, I agree the shoes add something.

But I think that True would have run just barely sub 27:25 in Matumbos. The cushioning factor does increase as distance goes up, yes, but then should Shelby's 14:23 have been a 14:18 or faster? Does Tsegay gain time as well?

I respect True, a guy who has run sub-13:13 for SEVEN straight years, and I'm willing to bet that he would credit a large portion of this time to the long uninterrupted healthy training bloc that corona allowed for.

That being said... yes, Rojo, you are right TO AN EXTENT and I will not be a luddite with these as I was with the Vapes.

OldRunners wrote:

Ben True running sub-28 at age 35 after 10+ years as a pro.

Give him props for still grinding at 35.

Give him props for showing up to the start line with no sponsor when his mid-30s counterparts have retired and moved on to other things.

Give him props for doing all this solo, not at altitude, without a youtube channel, unlike all of the other groups out there (Team Boss, BTC, Tinman Elite, etc..).

He is the guy that comes out of the boonies from somewhere in New England forest and kicks your ass in a race. At age 35. Give some respect to this dude instead of devaluing his accomplishments. He would have run sub 28 even with normal spikes.

Great post as well except for the last part. I am giving him respect. I'm not saying he wouldnt' have run sub 28. Of course he would have.

Dude deserves BIG props. When I was coaching at Cornell, True annoyed the hell out of me. He didn't even run year round and was a Foot Locker STUD. Didn't run year round and dominated the ivy league. It just wasn't 'fair'.

But he's more than made up for it now. I love to see him GRINDING away.

But that doesnt' mean the shoes aren't big.

jabouko wrote:

The cushioning factor does increase as distance goes up, yes, but then should Shelby's 14:23 have been a 14:18 or faster?

.

Yes for Shelby. That's my gut. I was thinking about that this morning.

Although I'd like to know the following to be sure.

1) When Karissa and Shelby were working out before that 5000 last year, what spikes were they wearing in practice? Was Shelby also working out in the old spikes? Because I saw Shelby say recentlly she knew she was in sub 1430 shape but also knew that Karissa was as well. I'd feel a lot stronger in my "yes" answer if Shelby wasn't working out in the super spikes. I say that because it's clear that Karissa was close to Shelby in practice. So I'd like to know what spikes they were wearing in practice wearing before that 5000. Does anyone know?

2) Also, what about during the 3000 when the Shelby lost to Karissa. Does anyone know what spikes they both wore?

1. I honestly don't know how much work they do in the spikes. Most of these groups seem to work out in the Nike Spike-Flat. However, they all do some portions of their longer workouts in the Vaporfly Next %s, alongside the usual smattering of Pegasuses, Vomeros, and Streaks. BTC doesnt release much footage, but per Shelbys IG she seems to work out in the VICTORY ELITE 2s well.

2. from this video:

it appears that Karissa is in the air-bubbled Air Zoom Victory here and Shelby is still wearing the old Nike Victory 2 / Victory Elite 2s. Quigley behind is in the Mamba 5s.

From this video, where the trio broke 8:30 for the 3000, they seem to be wearing the same spikes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-bieAODjSA

Timestamp: 8:48

Shelby - old Victories

Quigley - Mamba 5s

Karissa - Air Zoom Victories

OldRunners wrote:

Ben True running sub-28 at age 35 after 10+ years as a pro.

Give him props for still grinding at 35.

Give him props for showing up to the start line with no sponsor when his mid-30s counterparts have retired and moved on to other things.

Give him props for doing all this solo, not at altitude, without a youtube channel, unlike all of the other groups out there (Team Boss, BTC, Tinman Elite, etc..).

He is the guy that comes out of the boonies from somewhere in New England forest and kicks your ass in a race. At age 35. Give some respect to this dude instead of devaluing his accomplishments. He would have run sub 28 even with normal spikes.

Amen.

rojo wrote:

PS. Now I"m a little worried True will have a hard time being totally honest on the podcast. If I was him, I'd want to believe, "I've just been training really well. I'm healthy. I've never really hit the 10k before. Plus it's not going to help his agent if he comes on says, "I'm in the same shape I was 4 years ago."

You can find what spikes they were wprking out in on instagram rojo

If your saying the spikes makes over 5+ second difference , do you not think the athletes who've been testing these spikes out for 2+ years and are more intimately familiar with it than anyone else in the world would not notice this massive difference?

Colleen Quickley, Shelby Houlihan and Frierichs who've all been competing in inferior spikes are either ignorant to what is obvious to everyone else or choosing to compete at a disadvantage.

As recently as the Arizona 3k you can see Quickley wearing Old BTC Mamba spikes and beating both Cranny and Schweizer wearing dragonflys.

Look I agree the spikes makes a marginal difference but the benefit they confer is being wholly exaggerated here.

SPRING'steen wrote:

If your saying the spikes makes over 5+ second difference , do you not think the athletes who've been testing these spikes out for 2+ years and are more intimately familiar with it than anyone else in the world would not notice this massive difference?

Athletes do see that difference, I personally even know a national level Adidas sponsored athlete in Italy that bought Dragonflies and embroided the spikes to use them in this indoor season.

I just started a small research in which I'd like to assess the contribution on performance of these spikes. I just started my data collection and I have limited exposition to certified data yet but I am observing, on my dataset, improvements in the range of 1-4 seconds per km which is far from irrelevant.

I emailed @rojo yesterday, but anyone willing to help me in collecting data in different countries would be helpful in developing an interesting analysis.

Anyone interested in helping out and seeing the data can email me at

!

it can be true, and likely is true, that the new shoes both make you go faster in races but also allow you to train longer and harder and recover faster. (there is some similarity with some types of PEDs here as well....). However, from the perspective of the athlete, they feel they are logging harder mileage and more intensive workouts than they ever have done before, and putting in more miles then their competitors, etc. etc. So - psychologically - it is easy for them (for us??) to make the attribution error to link newfound success to hard(er) work. I feel the error is to link any kind of mechanical aid or super-shoes to a belief that "it makes things easier for the athlete, they don't have to push themselves as hard". It is the opposite -> it allows you to make things harder and push yourself harder (during training, during races) and not collapse.

Some of the claims on this thread about the potential gaining of time from the spikes is laughable. If they're worth 1 second per 400 then do people GENUINELY think the following would have happened in these spikes:

Daniel Komen - solo 7.12 for 3k

Kenenisa Bekele - basically solo 25.52 for 5k

Jonny Gregorek - 3.45 mile

Said Shaheen - new steeple WR of 7.45

Gudaf Tsegay - 3.49 indoor 1500

It's laughable to think that any of these would have happened with a different shoe on. Some people have ran well over the past year (True, Cheptegei, Giles, Wale etc.), some people haven't gotten close to their previous times (Engels, Centro) just like what happens every other year. Except this season we have a culmination of every single good run that would have happened over the last 12 months, all rolled into the past 3 months or so.

Get over the bloody shoes.

OldRunners wrote:

Ben True running sub-28 at age 35 after 10+ years as a pro.

Give him props for still grinding at 35.

Give him props for showing up to the start line with no sponsor when his mid-30s counterparts have retired and moved on to other things.

Give him props for doing all this solo, not at altitude, without a youtube channel, unlike all of the other groups out there (Team Boss, BTC, Tinman Elite, etc..).

He is the guy that comes out of the boonies from somewhere in New England forest and kicks your ass in a race. At age 35. Give some respect to this dude instead of devaluing his accomplishments. He would have run sub 28 even with normal spikes.

This.

Similar questions and doubt (more alluding to doping vs shoes) were raised after Lomong resurfaced in 2019 to run 13:00 and then 27:04. 2016/2017/2018 had been sub-par seasons for him, running 3:55y and 13:20 type bests. The reality is that he, like True, has been in the game a long time, has massive talent and still has potential.

True found his groove and popped a big 10,000m PB, just like Lomong. I hope they both keep it up and continue to push the young guys at all levels.

rojo wrote:

The runners are still great but let's don't act like 2715 is what it used to be. These times are kind of like back in the day when the non super studs would run 2725 to 2735 at Stanford. Fast but not, OMG fast.

Blatant strawman. Nobody's on here saying that True is a lock for gold with his time like he would have been against Clarke and Mills, who were racing on cinders in leather spikes and training in gazelles. Of course we all look at True's time in context with recent WRs and world lists of performances turned in wearing these same damn shoes in the past year. Don't be daft.

Just give it a rest, you are building this up in your head and failing to actually listen to others who don't think exactly as you do.

Hicham III wrote:

Some of the claims on this thread about the potential gaining of time from the spikes is laughable. If they're worth 1 second per 400 then do people GENUINELY think the following would have happened in these spikes:

Daniel Komen - solo 7.12 for 3k

Kenenisa Bekele - basically solo 25.52 for 5k

Jonny Gregorek - 3.45 mile

Said Shaheen - new steeple WR of 7.45

Gudaf Tsegay - 3.49 indoor 1500

It's laughable to think that any of these would have happened with a different shoe on. Some people have ran well over the past year (True, Cheptegei, Giles, Wale etc.), some people haven't gotten close to their previous times (Engels, Centro) just like what happens every other year. Except this season we have a culmination of every single good run that would have happened over the last 12 months, all rolled into the past 3 months or so.

Get over the bloody shoes.

+1

Dairyland wrote:

Hicham III wrote:

Some of the claims on this thread about the potential gaining of time from the spikes is laughable. If they're worth 1 second per 400 then do people GENUINELY think the following would have happened in these spikes:

Daniel Komen - solo 7.12 for 3k

Kenenisa Bekele - basically solo 25.52 for 5k

Jonny Gregorek - 3.45 mile

Said Shaheen - new steeple WR of 7.45

Gudaf Tsegay - 3.49 indoor 1500

It's laughable to think that any of these would have happened with a different shoe on. Some people have ran well over the past year (True, Cheptegei, Giles, Wale etc.), some people haven't gotten close to their previous times (Engels, Centro) just like what happens every other year. Except this season we have a culmination of every single good run that would have happened over the last 12 months, all rolled into the past 3 months or so.

Get over the bloody shoes.

+1

+1

Hicham III wrote:

Some of the claims on this thread about the potential gaining of time from the spikes is laughable. If they're worth 1 second per 400 then do people GENUINELY think the following would have happened in these spikes:

Daniel Komen - solo 7.12 for 3k

Kenenisa Bekele - basically solo 25.52 for 5k

Jonny Gregorek - 3.45 mile

Said Shaheen - new steeple WR of 7.45

Gudaf Tsegay - 3.49 indoor 1500

It's laughable to think that any of these would have happened with a different shoe on. Some people have ran well over the past year (True, Cheptegei, Giles, Wale etc.), some people haven't gotten close to their previous times (Engels, Centro) just like what happens every other year. Except this season we have a culmination of every single good run that would have happened over the last 12 months, all rolled into the past 3 months or so.

Get over the bloody shoes.

That's a claim that may have been made but come on. What if the gain is assessed between 0,x and 4 seconds per km. Bekele could have ran 26'07 which doesn't look unreasonable to me.

Remember that years ago the idea of a human being running below two hours on the Marathon distance looked crazy and has now been done.

fRUNcois wrote:

I just started a small research in which I'd like to assess the contribution on performance of these spikes.

It's really weird how 2016-2017 is repeating itself years later with super-shoe deniers and then people who try to test/compare inconsistently.

Different athletes will see different gains but all should see some gain. Bigger/heavier athletes where mass was once a problem actually see more benefit. The "secret" is not a secret at all, it's taking energy given that was once lost otherwise, translating it into applicable force forward.

If an athlete was very efficient previously, they will see less gain. If an athlete was so large they were bottoming out a shoe, they will see more gain. It's just easier to say 1-second per lap but it will range.

The elites with prototypes know the difference, if they don't it's easy to prove. You put on a Stryd or other accelerometer that tracks force. You run straight line, not a track with curves which just cause too much data confusion. Treadmills also cause data confusion because they are not like hard surfaces. You do a half/mile at the same pace in conventional vs regular shoes. As long as the Stryd is worn exactly the same location on the foot, you will see watt difference. It might only be 2-5 watts but that's enough for a second per lap. Or minutes in a marathon.

When sports-scientists test (legal) supplements even 0.1 watts per athlete kg is enough to get them very excited. The shoes can do that too.

Now, you can argue if it's just using lost energy the athlete provided in the first place it's all good. But is it? The athlete made no effort otherwise in skill or sacrifice for that improvement, it was literally handed to them.

In any case the shoes aren't going away. So all we can do is stop comparing before and after the shoes. There is pre-2016 and post-2016

Most people would agree that better shoes lead to better performances. Just like better tracks, better training, and better nutrition.

The development of better shoes and spikes has long been part of the culture of running. The problem, as I see it currently, is two fold:

1. It is hard to determine what effect the pandemic, non interrupted training, and "time trial" races has had compared to the performance benefit of better spikes.

2. Rojo uses very little subtlety/tact when broaching the subject.

My take: The Dragonfly is a shoe I've thought should exist for years...a comfortable spike. There's a chance it offers little/no performance benefit for some (the lightest of the light), and a significant amount for "denser" runners. Either way, it's not nearly as big of a performance enhancer than wavelight.

Finally, the advancement in times should not be surprising. Distance records have stood for over 20 years.

Bdubs wrote:

2. Rojo uses very little subtlety/tact when broaching the subject.

+1