ok now we've got imbeciles going back and forth about how shoes made everyone so much faster today
well guess what, no they didn't. Nothing on the men's side 10,000m or shorter has advanced except Cheptegei's fastest outlier times. Marathon advanced because of a massive increase in east African participation, and the late careers of Kipchoge, Bekele and their few competitors. Half marathon advanced because it supplanted the marathon in popularity, being easier but still having the word "marathon" in it.
Nothing about running mechanics can be helped by shoes that are soft and/or bouncy. In fact the complete opposite is true. The less movement of your feet on the ground, the better; and if you think you run by somehow jumping forward, you need to review your basic mechanics. if you're going forward 10mph, all you have to do to keep going forward 10mph is not let anything slow you down.
to the usual inane responses: "why do all the elites wear super shoes then," because all the elites are paid by the companies selling them; "why weren't Rodgers and Shorter as fast," because they lived on prize money and raced more often, training was not as advanced, and east Africans weren't massively involved yet. There was also nobody to push them, they were already going as fast as they needed to win.
