What did runners wear in marathons before vaporflys

I know Abebe Bikila raced barefoot in the 70s and 80s. I assume most others did the same.

nturner2467 wrote:

I know this is kind of stupid but I never paid attention to running before the whole super shoe movement. What where the fastest marathoners wearing before that? Was it more of a racing flat or just different technology?

There was this company known as Adidas that came out with Boost midsoles. Its athletes dominated in the marathon for 4-5 years. No one wanted to watch marathons where it all came down to mechanical doping. It damaged the sport terribly, just like Speedo suits in swimming, can't compare times, oh no, pearl clutch.

Adizeros adios boost, streaks, nb1400

Some of the NIke heavy hitters back in the day were these. I owned and I raced in all of them.

Nike Elites

Nike Mariah

Nike Air Streaks

The adios existed before boost people. There is also a reason that it still exists virtually in the same form it did a decade ago because it’s a damn good shoe. Haile had a WR version (green and yellow) of the shoe out that had his time printed on the forefoot upper around 2011. I actually prefer the older versions to the more current boost versions myself. I comment to my wife often that when I wear my adios that they are such a good shoe. All this fuss about carbon plates and what not, while certainly valid, people act like running marathons didn’t exist before theses shoes existed these days. What people fail to realize that the torsion system is nothing more than a nylon plate that connects the heel and the forefoot of the shoe. I remember when the torsion system first came out. It has been in adidas shoes for every bit of 30 years. The first time I saw it was in a basketball shoe in 1990.

The streak 6 and 7 and latest adios boost. Until the streak 6 came out, everyone was wearing the boost. The streak 3 was a big one too, but the 4 and 5 were seen as duds. Some kenyans were racing marathons in streak lts because the 4 and 5 were so bad. Before that there was the katana racer and some adidas adizero flats, like the adizero rocket.

There did not used to be a lot of technology or cushioning. The earlier Addidas Adios was Geb’s shoe. I remember running marathons in the early 1980s in Nike Mariah shoes and before that the yellow and green Nike waffle racer. I’ve not raced in or own super shoes yet but my guess is that a big benefit is not destroying your legs with 42k of running on concrete or asphalt. We didn’t really talk about stack height but older racing shoes probably were less than 20mm. I am curious how much of the benefit is minimizing wear and tear and how much is better energy return of today’s super shoes

I was racing marathons the most (2:16-2:20) from 2010 to 2016, and it seemed like most of us were just wearing whatever road flat a brand made. A lot of guys in that time range then had some kind of gear deal, so if you had Brooks, you wore the T7 (which seems insane now), Nike was the Streak, NB was 1400. But it seemed like most guys, if they weren't getting shoes for free, wore the Adidas Adios, and it seemed like most of them preferred the original one. I wore it for a couple marathons. Looking back, it was hard, had a high heel, and the upper wasn't particularly breathable or nice, but it just felt fast.

I've done a couple marathons in the super shoes, and there is a noticeable difference in how terrible my feet feel at the end, but I haven't had any major performance improvements (but I'm older now)

I guess to actually answer the question - most people wore very light racing shoes

I wonder if anyone ever ran a marathon in the Mayfly or Piranha? Those were about as light as anything today, but got there by way of no cushioning. I used to use the Streak LT, and my quads were usually noticeably sore by ~20 miles.

Slower (2:50+) runners would mostly wear whatever they trained in, which means heavy trainers (lots of ASICS). That's still common for sure, but I see lots of Vaporfly etc. further back now.

I wore Kinvaras, that was like my go-to race shoe. Man I loved the Kinvara 7 & 8. 9 was okay, I still say 8 is the best. I'm sure the ones before that were great too, unfortunately I was still an overweight chainsmoker.

Kinvara 5-8 are amazing shoestring. So comfy

When I ran at the 2012 Trials for Hansons-Brooks most of us wore the T7.

Before that stuff like the Nike Streaks (I went to a Nike sponsored college) and pretty much any "light weight road flat". Almost nobody raced a 10km on the track in anything other than distance spikes unless they were worried about getting injured.

Probably my road best marathon so far (16th place at Boston in 2015) was done in the HOKA Clifton 1s. I also got 8th at the 2015 USATF Champs (12th overall at LA Marathon) in shaved down HOKA Huakas.

Tiger Jayhawks - that's what a lot of us wore.

Lord Baltimore Hotel wrote:Tiger Jayhawks - that's what a lot of us wore.

I forgot about those. I had a pair of Jayhawks and also the Nike Waffle Racer. The Nike Waffle Racer was used more for XC where the course wasn't suitable for spikes. Those Jayhawks were good shoes.