Times for NYC marathon were not that impressive. How come?
Times for NYC marathon were not that impressive. How come?
The course is hilly and times are secondary for this marathon. It's more of a competitive race and not a time trial.
It's all about getting on the podium just like the Olympics.
There was a 50k bonus for breaking the CR. Seems worth it. Maybe the field just wasn’t that good.
ken bekele wrote:
Times for NYC marathon were not that impressive. How come?
Super shoes are rigid and inflexible. They don't allow ankle flex necessary to DRIVE up hills. Simple physics, really.
Ask yourself this, has a super shoe ever won Mount Washington?
So why didn't they work in theNYC marathon?
lab rat rundown wrote:
They still work.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095254621001113?via%3Dihub
+/- 3% is negligible for most people. There is a certain threshold at which everyone snaps from flat running form to hill running form. For really bad hill runners, it might be around 3%. For excellent hill runners, they might be able to hold out at normal pace/form until 12%.
You would want to test how do different shoes affect running economy when people are using hill form. This would necessarily entail tiring the test subjects out ahead of time to ensure they don't try and run with good form. And using a ~10% grade such that everyone is significantly affected by the hill.
Just to clarify, in that new study, we examined 3 DEGREE incline and 3 DEGREE decline and found that the VF4% shoes provided about a 3% energy savings on both vs.. Streak 6.
It's easy to confuse, but a 3 DEGREE slope is about a 5% incline.
We chose 3 degrees because it's a pretty good average for the hilliest sections of the hilliest Marathon Major, Boston.
Indeed, it would be fun to know how the shoes perform on steeper inclines/declines, relevant to trail racers.
But we can only do one study at a time and we felt lucky to get these data before COVID hit.
ken bekele wrote:
There was a 50k bonus for breaking the CR. Seems worth it. Maybe the field just wasn’t that good.
The olympic silver medalist was in the race, Bekele was in the race, Kibiwott Kandie (half marathon world record holder of 57:32) was in the race. And many other quite good runners who have run under 2:10. It was a pretty good field, the course just doesn't lend itself to incredibly fast times. The women's race looked fast, but then again you had the olympic gold medalist, the olympic bronze medalist and a few other stars yet they still missed the course record and were 8 minutes off the women's world record, men were 7 minutes off the men's world record. New York has never seen more than 4 guys run sub 2:10... This weekend we saw 3 guys run under 2:10. Only a handful of times has the winner run faster than 2:08... So really this was a pretty typical result for New York. It's pretty insane that Mutai ran 2:05 roughly 2 decades ago at NY, it's one of the greatest marathons ever run.
Rodger Kram wrote:
Just to clarify, in that new study, we examined 3 DEGREE incline and 3 DEGREE decline and found that the VF4% shoes provided about a 3% energy savings on both vs.. Streak 6.
It's easy to confuse, but a 3 DEGREE slope is about a 5% incline.
We chose 3 degrees because it's a pretty good average for the hilliest sections of the hilliest Marathon Major, Boston.
Indeed, it would be fun to know how the shoes perform on steeper inclines/declines, relevant to trail racers.
But we can only do one study at a time and we felt lucky to get these data before COVID hit.
Interesting. Could rocker technology like Saucony's speed roll in the Endorphin Pro and Speed be more effective for running uphill?
stay tuned, Iain Hunter's group at BYU (including Jared Ward) should have a study out soon on that exact topic.
Just anecdotally, I don't think they help much if it all on hilly courses.
Rodger Kram wrote:
stay tuned, Iain Hunter's group at BYU (including Jared Ward) should have a study out soon on that exact topic.
Oh nice!
I started to wonder this after 3 workouts in the Pro and Speed with a strong headwind where my pace didn't seem to be affected as much as usual. But maybe it's all in my head.
Hey Dr. Kram, amazing surprise to see you in the wild like this. Huge fan of your work. Thanks for clarifying!
prickly pete wrote:
ken bekele wrote:
Times for NYC marathon were not that impressive. How come?
Super shoes are rigid and inflexible. They don't allow ankle flex necessary to DRIVE up hills. Simple physics, really.
Ask yourself this, has a super shoe ever won Mount Washington?
You can't flex carbon plate shoes by hand easily, but they definitely flex underfoot otherwise they wouldn't return energy. Of course you can flex your ankle while running in carbon-plated shoes, it's not like your ankle is locked down like in high top mountain boots. Instead the carbon plate substitutes for foot flex via the Plantar Facia and toes. Rocker on the other hand reduces the need for both foot and ankle flex during the stride. I found carbon-plated shoes work pretty well uphill as your Achilles and calves don't have to work as hard to keep you on your toes. You can transfer power to the tip of your foot without collapsing due to foot flex. Downhills on the other hand feel horrible as the rocker profile makes you accelerate too much. (I'm talking about 5-10% grades here.)
I'm looking forward to the results of hill running with this type of shoe. My next triathlon has a modest elevation gain of 1200' over the first 21 miles but the last 5 miles has gains 3800' but nothing over 12 percent. Really curious if a shoe like this would be an advantage or disadvantage.