Pete Julian Post-Race Interview: "It's Not the Shoes"

Dipper doo wrote:

They don't destroy the calf and the achilles because they are doing the work for them! That's the point. That is not a more important factor; that is THE factor.

Now, let's see similar research on the DragonFly and other "super spikes."

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

Not every company has super spikes. The guidelines were unclear until recently about road and track shoes which were skirted by longtime Nike employee Seb Coe when they used a mens 8.5 shoe measurement to set guidelines when mens size 9 was used for years. Had they taken a size 9 shoe the Nike would have not qualified under the 40mm stack height restriction.

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING?!? Is it true the shoe size guidelines were changed for the purposes of skirting under the 40mm height restriction? I don't recall this being mentioned or discussed anywhere previously. Are the BroJo's aware of this point?

revolution runner wrote:

Dipper doo wrote:

They don't destroy the calf and the achilles because they are doing the work for them! That's the point. That is not a more important factor; that is THE factor.

https://twitter.com/SarahEKessler_/status/1155895156207341568

that tweet literally shows a 4% improvement

Whether the spike makes a difference would only affect your track sessions. The DragonFly’s foam might have some small benefits for the 10k (impact reduction) and maybe the 5k.

You could train in the Vaporfly and then use your sponsors spikes and still benefit.

Not saying the spike is doing nothing, but I feel we are seeing the secondary effect of the Vaporfly.

revolution fan wrote:

Whether the spike makes a difference would only affect your track sessions. The DragonFly’s foam might have some small benefits for the 10k (impact reduction) and maybe the 5k.

You could train in the Vaporfly and then use your sponsors spikes and still benefit.

Not saying the spike is doing nothing, but I feel we are seeing the secondary effect of the Vaporfly.

Good post. I do want to point out that Willis (and likely Ferlic) runs with Geoff Burns fairly regularly. As we all know, Geoff has spent a great deal of time doing research on this subject (using his PhD); and he is on record saying that he believes that the new super spikes will make a big difference. Willis and Ferlic's beliefs fall in line with Geoff's----I'm not saying that this is the reason that they have their opinion, but it certainly could be a contributor.

and then there's this wrote:

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

Not every company has super spikes. The guidelines were unclear until recently about road and track shoes which were skirted by longtime Nike employee Seb Coe when they used a mens 8.5 shoe measurement to set guidelines when mens size 9 was used for years. Had they taken a size 9 shoe the Nike would have not qualified under the 40mm stack height restriction.

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING?!? Is it true the shoe size guidelines were changed for the purposes of skirting under the 40mm height restriction? I don't recall this being mentioned or discussed anywhere previously. Are the BroJo's aware of this point?

Or you should consider that many of the East Africans are shorter than we think in America. Bekele is 5’5 for instance. You think he’s wearing size 9 or up shoes?

Dairyland wrote:

and then there's this wrote:

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING?!? Is it true the shoe size guidelines were changed for the purposes of skirting under the 40mm height restriction? I don't recall this being mentioned or discussed anywhere previously. Are the BroJo's aware of this point?

Or you should consider that many of the East Africans are shorter than we think in America. Bekele is 5’5 for instance. You think he’s wearing size 9 or up shoes?

What does your post have to do with the price of beans in China?

Selecting any standard, in this case, a particular shoe size category for which all models will be compared, has absolutely nothing to with what size of shoe a particular percentage of the population will be wearing. If, IF it was size 9 in the past, then that decision was probably statistically chosen for a reason, long ago.

On a worldwide basis sure, but World Athletics is not worried about a 6’0 American running 2:23. They’re worried about the very small population of elites running 2:01 with aid of cheating shoes.

That is why the standard is not measured. Elites are not standard, far from it in fact.

So World Athletics happened to just discover that about East African's heights, coincidentally when trying to shoehorn the already produced 40mm Next% under the new regulations???

The absolute best part to all of this, is that now there is this perception that Nike is/has bought the juice from the road product to the track - with the same effects...

All this talk of "lab validating and providing results" of the spikes - if it was me I wouldn't be saying a thing because why do I need to - posts like yours show exactly why.

Clearly nobody believes there is a difference between road and track running (otherwise why would a study on road shoe product be relevant to track running) and the best part of this, the BEST part - is that the biggest component behind the running economy benefits seen in the road product came from track product to begin with (stiff, curved plates).

Nike took what made track spikes good for performance running and put it in road product - you can't turn around and put it back into track product and think the benefits simply multiple - except this is exactly what people think. What Nike did do, was through simple advancement and innovation in cushioning foams, find a way to finally bring the performance benefits of cushioning to track product without compromising weight or force efficiency of the foot strike which has been the issue with putting cushioning in track spikes in the past.

Some of the things I read on these boards are wild - and people fight for them with such conviction. Things like "Nike has put stiff PLATES into track spikes". What do you think the bottom unit on a track spike was for the last 60 years? It was a stiff plate. Other things like "carbon fiber" and "spring loaded" which are just figments of the imagination (I've tried to explain this in so many other threads). The plates aren't carbon fiber they are nylon with carbon "additives" to make them stiff - but not elastic. The plates aren't "spring loaded" - the plate materials are designed to be so stiff they don't bend (a key requirement of anything "springing") and the curvature of the plate is completed counter to bending.

I guess back to the original point, while athletes and followers of the sport are making up their own minds on what these shoes do - fact based or not, why would you even bother to release any data or numbers yourself? There is simple no way the addition of foam, whilst being definitely being a performance enhancing factor, is even close to the 4-7% of running economy benefits seen in the 4/NXT% - if it was I promise you Nike would have communicated this just as loudly as they did with their road product.

Keep quiet and let it ride. Super shoes, springs loaded, carbon fiber, 4,6,10%, 3 seconds a mile - a mean ignorance is bliss right.

Mark McGwire: "It's not the steroids"

and then there's this wrote:

So World Athletics happened to just discover that about East African's heights, coincidentally when trying to shoehorn the already produced 40mm Next% under the new regulations???

They purposely chose the 40mm limit to keep Nike shoes legal. That is true and exactly what should have happened. WA is not going to come out and say “every result in Nike shoes the past 3 years will be wiped from the history books.” No, the results are accommodated because they already exist. This would happen regardless of the brand of the shoe.

World athletics could have simply based it off a size 9 and made it 42mm and you wouldn’t be complaining about it, but the recognize that many shorter runners have smaller feet!

Yalnago wrote:

tuccone wrote:

It’s either the shoes or they are all hardcore dopers. Pete isn’t that good of a coach.

When you're getting world junior medalists, national junior record holders, and NCAA champions do you really need to be "that good of a coach?" So often the coaches that get so much love on this site are in reality just getting the best runners. Lol when they end up with average, mediocre runners they still run average times. We've seen it recently... not to call anyone out. So no, a team of the best runners, running the best times isn't evidence of either an amazing coach, amazing shoes, or doping.

Did you ever think to wonder why the best athletes typically go to one of a very small number of coaches? I'll give you a hint - it's because the best athletes want to be with the best coaches.

revolution runner wrote:

Dipper doo wrote:

They don't destroy the calf and the achilles because they are doing the work for them! That's the point. That is not a more important factor; that is THE factor.

https://twitter.com/SarahEKessler_/status/1155895156207341568

I don't mean to sounds like a douche, but this tweet is useless unless we know what the control shoe is. Were they crocs? Were they wooden clogs? Were they no shoes at all? We also have to know how the super shoes compare to other racing shoes, because comparing them to general training shoes (like Pegs) is kinda silly. I would be interested know more about the experiment.

The control was the Peg 34. Going by the study, it would be beneficial to do all your quality in Vaporfly (and probably other ZoomX/Pebax shoes, so the Turbo 2? Invincible, AlphaFly, Rev 5, etc) Sounds like a good study to do across foams really Boost, Pebax, React, Lightstrike, etc.

The study involved 14 runners training for the 2017 Portland Marathon, who were divided into two roughly equal groups running in either the Vaporfly 4% or the conventional Zoom Pegasus 34. Immediately before and after the marathon, they gave blood samples and completed a soreness survey. Sure enough, the Vaporfly runners showed lower levels of three blood measures of muscle damage and inflammation (lactate dehydrogenase, white blood cell count, interleukin-6) after the race, by between 15 and 43 percent. They also reported significantly less leg soreness.

too soon? wrote: comparing them to general training shoes (like Pegs) is kinda silly.

Why? The whole point of the study is comparing the effects of using them for quality training sessions, which is something you'd use training shoes for.