ADIDAS $500 RACE SHOE

Wetcoast wrote:

Yep,Triggered... wrote:

Okay sonny, you got me. You win.

Look, I worked darn hard for over three decades to get where I am in life. Lots of Sundays, overtime, and ALL the holidays. There was a great deal of deferred/denied gratification in those years to be able to retire 'early'.

I still ran and raced throughout that entire period, but now that I retired and am in my sunset years, I have realized I can't take 'it with me'. We do our part to be responsible decent and charitable senior citizens, but if I want to go out and spend whatever I want to spend on a pair of shoe, it should be none of your business or concern. Period-Full Stop.

I train hard for an old guy; 50mpw with decent speed works 2-3X a week and race on regular basis. So if my <21:00 5ks (which age grades to low to mid 15:00s btw) in whatever top of the line shoes I chose to wear bothers you, that is your problem, not mine.

Lastly in my neck of the woods, a 22:00 5k isn't making any age category podium until you are at least 70).

Old man advice: Set your priorities, work hard, and run hard, but enjoy life. None of us are getting out of this alive.

Ha ha, you tell them.

I tell you what, the arrogance of someone who is young and uses ageism is funny. Going to be sorry if they live long enough to get a chance to enjoy themselves, before they become demented or drop from a stroke. You only live once, "yolo" as they say. So buy a stupid pair of shoes, who cares? You earned it after working all of your life. The kid is just jelly.

I had a hip replacement and two Haglund's Deformity surgeries that forced me into the better part of a decade off. I came out the other side dead slow and needing to rebuild fitness.

I could care less about a 4:00 per km water-bottle holding, ipad-wearing, $500 watch-wearing kid with muffin tops. Good. Run. But shutup. The more I talk to sub-40-age runners the more I feel like I was in a coma for 10 years and came out to visit the stupid.

Not directing this at elites, or sub-elite or the top of the age-groupers, they get it. And for the most part, it seems, the faster the runner, the more humble they are....but back to the stupids....

No, the segment-stealing notifications are not important. No, you don't need to drink potable water on a one-hour run unless it is blasting hot. No, you don't benefit from listening to beat oriented music while running or podcasts. No, the Norwegian threshold workouts or the Salazar post-race workouts are not going to help you as a stand alone idea that you just adopt because a world-class runner looked good doing it.

Some people need to learn physiology and the wholeism of running. Or just get humble.

Meanwhile once per week I take out a minimalist shoe that I have removed the sole from and activate the very powerful muscles and tissues in the feet and ankle and lower leg, because they are pretty much flacid in a supershoe.....and yes, this old bod runs in $300 shoes of varying kinds, because I have earned it.

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Here is my struggle. Adidas promotes itself as an industry "pioneer" in sustainability/ethical practice. Here is their corporate guidance on that very topic.

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Link:www.adidas-group.com/en/sustainability...

Yet this shoe has been made to last what, 40 miles? A "breaking in" period followed by one marathon and then what? Well you toss it in a landfill because the midsole foam has totally compressed and/or sheared off the bottom and adidas pat themselves on the back after making 150+ margin points on a $50-$55 landed shoe.

Hey - I'm not some sanctimonious zealot that lives a perfectly circular life of minimalism and perfect environmental circularity but I try my best. Big difference is I'm not out here claiming I do and then profiting off the complete opposite.

As for the actual shoe? Understand what $500 is buying you. Carbon-infused rods aren't special. Almost every nylon/plastics supplier have options with carbon fiber content which make their different grades of material stiffer. Really the difference between this and their other adizero offerings is simply a less dense foam - hence the disclaimer of the "familiarization period and marathon" because what simply happens is that the more open (less dense) foam cell structure will just burst or break down faster and shear away on the pavement. So the foam is a different variant of the current lightstrike foam - how this commands another $250-$300 is beyond me.

From the performance side, okay there is a weight saving which improves running economy, but conversely the foam is much softer and compliant so don't forget Newtons third law here because these shoes are only going to dampen/reduce the force a runner can put into the ground, which is in turn less efficient. So I would guess that at best the net outcome for these product in terms of performance benefit is zero.

The "one race shoe" from a marketing standpoint was done by Nike 20 years ago. Big meh. Honestly I wouldn't even really care because people get sucked in to buying far too expensive, stupid stuff they don't need and won't help them all the time (perfect example old white men and road bikes) - except for how blatantly hypocritical and contradictory this is of the brands "pioneers in sustainability" "pledge" which is just straight bullsh-t.

boingboingboingboing wrote:

yawn 23430 wrote:

Dumb question, perhaps, but what's up with the fact that there are no carbon rods in these shoes?

Is Adidas saying that carbon plates/rods aren't the bees knees anymore? If you're looking to break a world record, are you better off simply having a slightly lighter shoe? Is Adidas saying the real advantage is in the foam? Or the thick sole?

There are rods in them. Look at the photos of all the components in the RTR article.

Link:www.roadtrailrun.com/2023/09/adidas-ad...

Look at the 3rd comment too. Shoe companies are making the sport an arms race with the blessing of World Athletics.

Tom wrote:

I tested them during a lactate threshold/shoe tech study in a lab... awesome / was going 1km/h faster vs another mystery shoe for the same amount of lactate build-up .... wouldn't pay more than £150 for any shoe though ... and they wouldn't let me keep them 😂

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Grassrunner wrote:

TBH, I don't see how those skimpy little "Energy Rods" can have the same functional effectiveness as the carbon fiber plate, which covers a much larger surface area of the foam.

They don't. The primary benefit of the curved plates in these shoes is 1) providing a minor biomechanical advantage with respect to the athletes center of gravity (as you begin to move forward you "fall" forwards as the forefoot foam compresses quickly) and 2) (as you alluded to) we can't forget that all foam is fundamentally a cushioning material and therefore reduces the force the runner puts into the ground which in turn dictates what the ground returns to the runner. A fully "uninterrupted" plate acts as a great intermediary because it's presence stiffens the midsole which reduces this force loss/allows it to be better directed (aka straight down into the ground) as the athlete loads it during the gair cycle. The rod idea isn't a great one because you completely lose this effect. In essence the "gaps" or "voids" mean the rods basically act independent of each other and move around in any direction they want. That's inefficient. In order for those rods to load correctly and provide that benefit the force would have be applied perfectly on top of each rod but obviously given the soft foam they are contained in and the reality of running (forces are never perfectly perpendicular to the ground), it's simply impossible. Put it this way, the show would function exactly the same without them. It's just marketing.

Why did they do it? Well Nike was smart and patented the curvature of the plate. Not only that they patented a range of curvature which meant if you wanted to stick a single surface curved plate in a supershoe, you can to have it curved at a radius (it was actually a point to point angle and Nike protected all angles from 12-35 degrees). So if adidas wanted to have something curved in there (the biggest benefit), it couldn't be a single surfaced plate. Hence "rods".