The shoe talk needs to stop.

Schneider ran in Hoka’s new distance spikes not Dragonfly’s, but I completely agree all the talk is probably making athletes more focused on their shoes then their actual training. It’s a shame that people think people can’t improve their PR’s in their first actual season in almost 2 YEARS crediting everything to the spikes is the utmost disrespect to these athletes considering lots of them ran in them at World’s in 2019 and that season

Agreed. And there's no evidence they even help. If the shoes help as much as people say we should be seeing more records broken. We saw the world 5k/10k records on women's side get broken, but not American records, and not really a bunch of national records either. If the shoes make you faster across the board, we should see the women's NCAA records and American records broken. We saw NCAA 1500/mile records broken, but not an American or World record. The NCAA record people are legitimate contenders for the US title, that is not ever the case. These people are just running fast. Quit saying it's only the shoes. Records get broken every so often anyway, just because a record gets broken right now doesn't mean it's the shoes. If EVERY record gets blown out, then you could say something. But we aren't seeing anything we haven't seen before.

It’s a narrative that kills the sport. I’d rather hear about the Shelby ban than the shoes. The shoe drama is not what our sport needs. If an athlete is convinced the shoes will help them doesn’t that go against the whole point of being mentally tough? Ryun ran 1:44 and great miles in trash shoes. Races have been won without shoes! Why are we so focused on this?

Either way Nike is killing it and they have a great product clearly. I just don’t get how other brands were “blindsided” by these shoes.

Exactly I thought we were going to give the shoe talk a break after kiplimos 10k in the mambas

I'm curious, do these shoes require some kind of adaptation to running them effectively? When a runner puts the shoes on are they immediately faster, or is there new technique to exploit the advantages? I wonder because if the latter is true we might end up with people who can only run effectively in these shoes and are slow and get injured when they don't wear them.

Apparently most of bowerman stopped running in the victories because they were causing weird unnatural mechanics. I’ve tried them on and they are very unnatural… they almost make you reach.

We need a force plate test with a variety of runners to see what the true benefits are. I’m pretty sure there’s not much to be gained.

Anyone talking about shoes as the reason they’re getting beat or other people are running fast are just looking for an excuse. It’s soft thinking to allow someone that edge over you. As my grandpappy always said “don’t make excuses, just get f’ing good”

+1

Soft athletes breed a soft sport.

It is very very very simple ...

1) Not sure about the spikes but for the CFP tests have shown responsiveness is different per athlete so the benefit could be 1-4%

2) If the truth is anywhere near that then you want EVERY advantage you can have at that level as everything helps. 1% is what you train a whole year to achieve for progress so if you can adapt to a shoe and get it for free obviously you take it even if you could potentially win without it

3) ON/Brooks/Hoka etc realise this and obviously believe the effect and if your athletes fail to qualify due to that 1-4% you are going to lose all your credibility and future athletes.

So rather lose this battle and win the war ...

That all said, the above is obviously dependent on if you believe that advantage or not which if you made up your opinion at this point then no message board is going to change that ...

So, we need to stop talking about the shoes, but then you finish by saying Nike is 4 years ahead in development than the other companies who have "dropped the ball"? You can argue the shoes don't matter, or you can argue that other companies need to catch up with Nike, it those two positions are exclusive.

I'll stop thinking about the shoes when pro athletes will turn up and wear whatever their companies provide. They don't use another brand without reason and their sponsors don't let them do that without good reason. A bunch of amateurs can scream "the shoes don't matter" all they like, when the pros and the brands are telling us different, I'll listen to the people actually involved in elite level distance running

Shut up about the damn shoes!!!

Dragonflies might or might not have an advantage on 5000 and above but are just a placebo effect for anything shorter. You run fast times because you have done the work, or doped or whatever. Period. Kessler ran yesterday in the revamped Adidas Ambition which dont have a carbon plate, just a pretty healthy slab of Lightstrike Pro, which has incresead its weight to almost to a running flat and had people heads explode because they think they are too heavy now.... And yet here they are... Marco Arop posted a 3x400 sub 49" in those shoes. The bottom line spikes are not that relevant if you run middle distance. But just wait when the new Adidas Avanti hits the market later on this year, with foam, carbon rods and the work. Testers say is even better than the Dragonfly....

bfef wrote:

I'm curious, do these shoes require some kind of adaptation to running them effectively? When a runner puts the shoes on are they immediately faster, or is there new technique to exploit the advantages? I wonder because if the latter is true we might end up with people who can only run effectively in these shoes and are slow and get injured when they don't wear them.

Don't know about the spikes but with the road shoes research suggests the improvement is immediate. But if you only run in super shoes I'd imagine the feet will get a bit weaker since the stiff plate is doing some of the work for them, and the soft foam is very forgiving. If you then jumped into flats your feet would be in trouble until they become adapted again. Also something similar could happen to the calf muscles. The mental side could be the bigger problem though, "i don't have my super shoes now!"

Lol 4%. Stop it. The shoes make you 0% faster.

4% means a 3:40 runner can now be a 3:31 dude.

Some of you are far too gullible to be functioning adults.

Yeah, it's frankly a bit worrying seeing so many people that I've regarded as smart, levelheaded people fall headfirst into these beliefs. It's like they don't understand basic math. No shoe that doesn't alter gravity or something, is gonna provide that kind of benefit.

I will admit that more cushioning will probably help in the 5k and 10k, by reducing strain on the calf-muscle but it's not actually gonna propel them forward like the road shoes do.

In the 1500 and 800 it's of no importance.

runderrun wrote:

So, we need to stop talking about the shoes, but then you finish by saying Nike is 4 years ahead in development than the other companies who have "dropped the ball"? You can argue the shoes don't matter, or you can argue that other companies need to catch up with Nike, it those two positions are exclusive.

I'll stop thinking about the shoes when pro athletes will turn up and wear whatever their companies provide. They don't use another brand without reason and their sponsors don't let them do that without good reason. A bunch of amateurs can scream "the shoes don't matter" all they like, when the pros and the brands are telling us different, I'll listen to the people actually involved in elite level distance running

I’m simply stating you won’t beat Nike at their own game. You have to do something different or just say hey we’re going to beat these guys no matter what our athletes are wearing OF OURS. It’s pathetic to watch a bunch of brooks athletes run in dragonflies.

Nike has always been ahead in whatever they want. We have multiple brands because everyone has their own twist on the same type of product. Adidas and NB are the only two companies that seem to care about answering their athletes concerns with spikes that are comparable. They work for their athletes.

At the end of the day we have failed as athletes and coaches if we think a shoe is the difference between making a team or not. Maybe you shouldn’t have drank at New Years and got more sleep. Maybe cutting bad food out of your diet could help. You could have logged 5 more miles every week. Theirs a million variables and the shoes aren’t one.

Can’t believe I used the wrong there😪 anyway, my point still stands.

Wasn’t Rachel Schneider wearing HOKAs?

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQbbNVTnzys/

She was yeah but it oddly looks like a pair of dragonfly’s that just have a hoka logo on it