I saw a poster for this Spira Challenge in the Boston Marathon that if anyone wears a pair of Spira shoes and wins they get $1 Million bucks. Do you think anyone will go for it?
I saw a poster for this Spira Challenge in the Boston Marathon that if anyone wears a pair of Spira shoes and wins they get $1 Million bucks. Do you think anyone will go for it?
They've gotten a couple of top Kenyans to give it a try. You can't buy that kind of publicity. Hope the shoe holds together for the whole race. There's a pretty solid field expected in Boston this year so I'm sure it will be hotly contested. Ideally, I would think that Spira would love for their guy to finish second or third. Doubt they can actually afford the bonus if he actually wins.
My understanding of this, and I may be wrong, is that the shoe is banned from competition at the Boston marathon. If someone actually won wearing this shoe, they would be disqualified, thus not an official winner and Spira wouldn't have to pay them. Pretty sleazy if you ask me.
they use a funny little thing called 'insurance'. same as any company.
Here's the link to their website.
Say What wrote:
My understanding of this, and I may be wrong, is that the shoe is banned from competition at the Boston marathon. If someone actually won wearing this shoe, they would be disqualified, thus not an official winner and Spira wouldn't have to pay them. Pretty sleazy if you ask me.
Why is the shoe banned from competition at the Boston Marathon?
Prof. Rob M.
The shoe was banned b/c apparently the USATF rulebook specifies that shoes with springs in them may not be worn for competition. Don't ask me why they thought to specify that back in the 1940s when these rules were written.
The SPIRA people think it is ridiculous that the Boston Marathon committee banned the shoes based on this rule that they view to be obscure. The banned in Boston campaign is their way of staging a protest.
To answer the other poster, the SPIRA people are aware that anybody who runs the race in their shoes will be disqualified later. The idea is that they will make up for the occurrence of the disqualification by offering the winning athlete more money than he could have made if he had run in legal shoes and received prize money.
The idea behind the design of Spira's is that the springs provide energy return that greatly reduces impact force. Also they should supposedly last for 1000's of miles rather than breaking down like EVA.
It will be interesting to see whether the springs provide athletes who wear them at Boston with a competitive advantage. I would think that the energy return would definitely give them a boost.
I would never train in Spira's because I think the energy return provided by the springs would compromise the effect of training mileage on the strength of my leg muscles. Then again, I feel the same way about cushioned training shoes in general; that is why I am trying to transition into training in racing flats.
LouSiffer wrote:
they use a funny little thing called 'insurance'. same as any company.
The rules section of the website says the obligation is uninsured.
This is in the rules.
"Runner understands that wheelchair participants in the Marathon are not eligible to participate in the contest"
Have you ever seen those contraptions you can strap on to your feet that are similar to what people who have prosthetic legs race with? You can go significantly faster with something like that which is why "springs" are banned.