To all of you who have been saying the super spikes don't work, did you see that? 10 guys just broke the NCAA meet record. LOL.

General Impressionist wrote:

In the fast-from-the-start women's 10K, zero runners beat the NCAA record, or even got within 57 seconds of it.

Do these spikes work on ladies?

It was not fast from the start, it had a fast first lap then it slowed down immediately. But 15 of the athletes still ran personal best times.

None of this stuff you’re talking about isn’t anything new that hundreds of runners haven’t done in the past. Everyone wanted data and you got it. More guys broke 28 this year than in the last 10 years combined! I remember a few years in the 90s when Williams was the only American to do it. And it’s been pretty consistently low until this year. Hey, what has changed in the last year and a half?

Dever is a 28:28 runner in regular shoes. Mantz is a 28:07 runner in regular shoes. Yes Nur was in adidas’ latest super shoe (adizero avanti - look it up). I would bet that every single runner in that final had on some type of super shoe. Rerun the race in spikes from 10 years ago and not a single person breaks 28.

I would say the shoes have the same effect as racing at 5,000 ft. and then going to sea-level to race which is about 15-20 seconds in a 5k and probably around 30-50 seconds in a 10k depending on the type of runner. How else to explain Denver’s 47 second pr in two months on the same track since switching to dragonfly’s? Let me guess, covid training?

I predict that within the next 6 - 12 months (after a bunch more records are decimated) that the shoe situation is treated more differently.

So kiplimo is going to run 25:50 if he wears a dragonfly.

C'mon no.

They definitely help, but 30/50 seconds over a 10 k is definitely too much.

Are you suggesting mo Farah actually ran 28'40 at the European 10000 m Cup?

Are you really convinced that Jakob ingebrigtsen wouldn't have broken 13'00 in DL without those shoes?

So kiplimo is going to run 25:50 if he wears a dragonfly and diminishing returns.

C'mon no. (No, refer to "spring mass system theory")

They definitely help, but 30/50 seconds over a 10 k is definitely too much. (Yes even upto a minute *dependent on the athlete and their spring mass system)

Are you suggesting mo Farah actually ran 28'40 at the European 10000 m Cup? (No, Farah already has a highly developed and efficient spring mass system. The spikes provide diminishing returns for him)

Are you really convinced that Jakob ingebrigtsen wouldn't have broken 13'00 in DL without those shoes? (Likely only just - Examine Jacob's biomechanics and spring mass system - He is definite responder to the supershoe technology)

Of course its the shoes.

Watch all these people try to twist things around in their heads to "prove" there is another reason.

i agree these spikes have no effect on performance, btw - anyone know where i can get a pair of these nike spikes? Sold out everywhere, I can only find size 13s, need 10.5s.

What intrigues me about the "shoe effect" is its specific way of affecting runners' times, and also what event ranges seem to actually be affected most. A very informal glance at the data suggests that the effect is greatest on longer rather than shorter distances, and my gut tells me that this may be result of a reduction in fatigue that then translates into sustained speeds among runners capable of running at those kinds of speeds for distance. But if the effect is mainly about reducing fatigue, then there should be some effects on runners even in shorter events in terms of their ability to withstand training and maybe perform at high levels multiple times in a meet. Just spitballing here, but the HOW seems to me more interesting to discuss than the WHETHER.

There are some other interesting factors at play too: The repeat 600s come in, where you're going to do 5 to 8 of them, and in that first 400 you might run mile pace and in that last 200 you're going to cut it down. It's workouts like that, or it's workouts like 4x1000 or 4x1200 with 90 seconds in between so you get into that "my legs are BURNING, my heart is GOING" and you're at that threshold. The old school way of doing 80 billion miles a week? OVER. Now everybody's going into these lower volume, higher intensity workouts. And look what happens to these fields -- they continue to get faster and FASTER.

Hmm. Interesting. But I have a few questions about the change in training technique. First, I'm not sure what people are doing now is all that different from what good training methods of the past were like. The workout you describe sounds a lot like workouts we used to do before training science (I'm sort of joking about that, but not really). Maybe nuances of the rest length and execution of the workouts might exist, but I'm not convinced what people are doing now is all that radical. And I think people are overstating the overdistance training model...both in terms of its volumes and in terms of its prevalence.

But apart from that, I wonder what the longer term effects on running careers will be of this arguably NEW approach. In theory, lots of miles would be hard on the body, but not if they're done with some wisdom. And the mental challenge of frequent threshold running might be something to consider. Maybe only a certain kind of runner will be drawn to that approach to the sport...maybe a better kind of runner or maybe not. I guess I'm just not fully convinced that "the answer" has been found in terms of an ideal approach to training. I mean, hey, back in the day, Shorter, Rogers, and others had some pretty good resumés of times and relative performances.

You raise an interesting point about the possible effects of training technique...maybe that in combination with shoes that reduce fatigue at threshold levels of training are a particularly valuable combination.

For those threshold workouts and pushing that VO2 max, there's a little bit more VALUE in those workouts that are right around 1000 meters or 1200 meters with short rest in between, because that starts playing into the mental aspect at practice. When you do those workouts and burning those thresholds, you mentally start going in practice, "Okay man, this is hard, this is where I'm at". And those are mental triggers that will come up in the race and help you get through it.

Rojo this is the dumbest post I've ever seen you make.

"You'll still be saying it was the Covid-19 training changes that made the difference. LOL"

Yes, we will. Base level training is extremely important to your performances during racing season, and the pandemic gave people an extra year of base level training on top of what they were already doing. The spikes help only marginally, and there is literally zero statistically significant evidence to say otherwise.

Plus, this race was paced much faster. Rarely in championship races does the field go out fast. Wesley Kiptoo went out fast and an entire field of guys with unprecedented fitness went with him, and the result was a lot of fast times. How profound. Please Rojo, get a life.

"Yes, the meet record was a little soft and yet normally people don't go for a fast one and yes the weather is normally hotter. So what."

So what? Are you trying to sound stupid? You just answered the "so what" yourself. The championship was perfect 10k conditions. It's normally over 20 degrees hotter. Like I said, get a life.

You sir are an IDIOT. Wow base training...I bet these highly successful NCAA coaches never heard of that before and then when the pandemic hit they said f**k it it's worth a try.

All the pros still ran at the world championships in 2019 despite the Olympics being less than a year away. If your theory were true, they all would have skipped it to base train for the Olympics.

tccrochunis wrote:

What intrigues me about the "shoe effect" is its specific way of affecting runners' times, and also what event ranges seem to actually be affected most. A very informal glance at the data suggests that the effect is greatest on longer rather than shorter distances, and my gut tells me that this may be result of a reduction in fatigue that then translates into sustained speeds among runners capable of running at those kinds of speeds for distance. But if the effect is mainly about reducing fatigue, then there should be some effects on runners even in shorter events in terms of their ability to withstand training and maybe perform at high levels multiple times in a meet. Just spitballing here, but the HOW seems to me more interesting to discuss than the WHETHER.

I think there is something in that. One thing I find curious (if you accept that the shoes are beneficial in the first place) is that there seems to be almost a "hanging on" benefit going on. You're getting these races where the winner runs fast, but maybe not unbelievably fast, but then it seems like everybody behind them is able to hang pretty close. Nobody gets dropped. Like in the NCAA 10K, 27:41 won it, and 27:53 was what, like 12th? Or that ACC 10K a few weeks ago: 29:11 was the winning time I believe, and there were like close to 30 guys in 29:54 or under.

It’s the shoes

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fkY7W6kCRY4

Guys here a few numbers taken from iaaf lists.

I'm looking at the 10000m because it's the discipline with (probably) less races left over this year.

10th 50th. 100th 200th

2021 (6/12) 27'11/27'47/28'04/28'33

2019 26'59/27'48/28'09/28'28

2018. 27'30/27'56/28'18/28'36

2017. 27'08/27'48/28'12/28'36

2016. 27'05/27'43/28'06/28'35

Note that 2018 was an year without a world championship /Olympics.

Of course the 2021 is probably going to be better than previous years, but I don't think it is going to be an year with a HUGE difference, maybe a 10-seconds avg of time shift.

I found also that the 50th, 100th, 200th of the 2021 in 1500 m is already better than his corresponding in previous years, and there are many races left.

The way you describe this is very interesting and gives me a further thought: Maybe if the shoes lead to a bigger group of runners "hanging around" off a fast pace, that just increases the odds of who might actually get past the mental barriers of the third quarter of the race and find themselves suddenly able to finish a race begun at a faster pace than they might normally run. It's sort of an odds thing, then. Combine that with some of the fortunate conditions of a race like the 2021 NCAA 10K and you get the result you get...but for reasons that are a little more nuanced than "the shoes make people fast."

tccrochunis wrote:

What intrigues me about the "shoe effect" is its specific way of affecting runners' times, and also what event ranges seem to actually be affected most. A very informal glance at the data suggests that the effect is greatest on longer rather than shorter distances, and my gut tells me that this may be result of a reduction in fatigue that then translates into sustained speeds among runners capable of running at those kinds of speeds for distance. But if the effect is mainly about reducing fatigue, then there should be some effects on runners even in shorter events in terms of their ability to withstand training and maybe perform at high levels multiple times in a meet. Just spitballing here, but the HOW seems to me more interesting to discuss than the WHETHER.

The original cheater shoe was invented specifically for two bouncy runners (Rupp and Mo Farah) as they morphed into the 'thon. Cheater shoes work great for Rupp, Farah, and Martin Hehir, but far less so for Viren, Carlos Lopes, Mariano Haro.

Dave Bedford would have run sub 27 in Dragonfly; Dave Black.....umm not so much.

Ian Stewart sub 13:10 in Dragonfly; Nick Rose also. Brendan Foster.....umm maybe.

Conclusion - it depends on your running form the extent cheater shoes help you. A mudlark like John Treacy it wouldn't help near as much as Nick Rose. Watch videos to compare.

Just sad.

Your argument seemingly only applies to performances you don’t deem worthy.

Kessler: it was the shoes

Hockey (same shoes, runs slower): he’s a once in a generation athlete

Sounding like fox or cnn Buddy… just making it fit your narrative

I like the idea you're putting out there...it seems to make a lot of sense. There's going to be a different advantage to the mechanics of the shoes depending on the mechanics of the runner.

Building on what you're saying...and pulling in some of what others have said regarding the shoes helping people "hang around" when fatigued...maybe there's also a particular kind of runner mentally who may benefit from these shoes. A runner who might have previously been prone to come unglued in the part of the race where fatigue can crush form suddenly has that little bit of help that gets them over the hump and finds themselves still on the pace at the end when in the past they might have fallen off by then when racing at the next level of speed.

Just spitballing in search of the HOW the shoes might affect performance.