Can we settle on a time conversion for super shoes?

It's not the super shoes making them faster, it's the lighter less clunky shoes they are wearing making them faster. Being super has little to do with it.

No, sorry, we can not settle.

There is absolutely a lot of truth in what you are saying. IIRC correctly (someone can correct me; Burnsy out there?), every 1oz savings in shoe weight translates to a ~1% improvement in running economy/efficiency. It is a HUGE factor into whether a shoe is ‘fast’ or not.

Edit: delete the extra ‘correctly’ after the IIRC.

Besides overall shoe weight, which is an absolutely HUGE factor into determining running economy, another factor is how much the shoe reduces impact forces without sapping push-off and rebound energy in the process.

These two HUGE factors, (1) overall WEIGHT and (2) ‘EFFICIENT’ SHOCK LOAD ABSORPTION are balanced against each other in determining a ‘fast’ shoe.

Obviously, both are important, for if only (1) was solely important, then running barefoot would be the most efficient in resultant running economy.

If you want to really want to compare, and your splits are as consistent as you say, ask the supershoe wearers to run in non-supershoes for a workout and see what the difference is. Or pony up for a pair of supershoes (I see people bragging on reddit about the deals they find at outlet stores, often well under $100) and see if you end up right with them.

@labratrundown on instagram has a lot of interesting lab testing and summaries on lab tests done by others. You'll learn that the benefit is different for everyone, and every shoe or supershoe. Some super shoes are much more super than others. There are non-responders and even some negative responders at slow paces (10:00 pace), as well as super-responders. Sure, I'm sure an average benefit (for different shoes, different distances, different paces, different runner weight, etc.) can probably be determined, but remember there is a spread in actual benefit, not a single number.

Do the comparison yourself and run in trainers and supershoes.

btw, as you will be aware, Speedgoats are not trainers and definitely not suitable for the track.

Not really scientific but interesting nevertheless

From my personal experiment of one, the Vaporfly is considerably faster than the AlphaFly. The latter is clunky for me. Too bad he did not include the Vaporfly in his testing.

At the end of that video, he points to another of his videos where he does a comparison between the AlfaFly and Vaporfly.

The easy math is that wearing the shoes gives you a non-negligible advantage over those that don't. It isn't 100% quantifiable because you have guys like Kipchoge that are "superresponders" to the shoe tech that are benefitting possibly into the 10% range whereas others are around 2%.

If you aren't wearing them, you're at a disadvantage. However it's impossible to say that a super shoe ALWAYS equals 4% faster

First off why would you do reps in a speedgoat? Are you insane? Second it’s probably their mentality and attitude that allows them to drop you in practice.

This math isn’t that easy for me. What, then, do you imagine Kipchoge runing for a marathon in non-super shoes if he’s benefitting nearly 10% ?

There's more than an argument that supershoes are not really that great for track sessions. So there you have your answer.....

On the roads 7s/mile, so 1:30 for a half / 3:00 for a full.

On the track 3s/mile, so 10 seconds for a 5K, 20 seconds for a 10K.

This is based on my experience along with what I've seen of the studies and heard from others.

Very good chance that in the 2015 London Marathon Eliud goes under 2:00 with super shoes. If you'll remember, his insoles were flying out during this race and he still ran 2:03 so I'd guess 2:02 ish with no shoe issues and no plate.

Really depends on your running technique and distance. Out of the box I thought the AF was strange, but after a few runs learning to use the air pod most efficiently, I prefer the AF over the VF for anything over 5k. I’m a solid forefoot striker.

if you’re not already a forefoot striker you’re probably wasting money on the AF as the sweet spot of the shoe is a forefoot strike in the middle of the air pod.

yes - here they are for elite level runner US runners (top 100). The numbers are different for US and world - not sure why but they are different.

US men 5000m

8-10 seconds

US men 10000m

20-30 seconds

US women 5000m

15-20 seconds

US women 10000m

30-40 seconds

This is all backed up by how much average improvement of top 100 times during the 2021/22 seasons. US women's 5000m times, for example, are average 17 seconds faster than average for years 2012-2019 (15:32 and 15:49). US men's 10000m times are almost 30 seconds faster than years 2012-2019.

Ok. So where are you getting ~ 10%, please?