colder and wiser wrote:
Look up any large marathon, HM, or road race on YouTube. Check out the shoes of 99% of the top 10, 90% of the top 30, and 85% of any serious runners. They're all VaporFlys or the equivalent. Reach your own conclusions.
Basically, the answer to your questions will be:
1. Yes. Nike 4%/Next%/AlphaFly (except for a few in Adidas, Saucony, Brooks or Hoka equivalents or near-equivalents).
2. 2:01:39 to 4+ hours
3. "Crap, these stupid shoes are expensive, but I would gladly pay $250 to instantly run 1-10 minutes faster in a race."
4. 1 to 10 minutes or more.
The main improvement in time advantage for the marathon is the level of cushioning and lightweightness if these shoes.
Think racing flat lightweight with daily trainer Cushioning. It’s the main reason the subelite runners are having such an improvement when they are not biomechanically able to handle racing flat for their pace that they had been wearing, think 2:20-2:30 group.
The efficiency gain is there mainly for the elites where they are eking out the 1% improvements on everything they do. But everyone is enjoying the efficiency of the plates shoes like we do in all spikes