I did all of my competitive racing before the super shoe era . . . I used to race in the original adidas zero pro and the original asics piranha. I even used a Puma H-street style spikeless track flat for a while.
I mainly raced 5k to half though, so can't really comment on the marathon.
After a few years of not road racing, I decided to try a road 10k with the vaporfly 2's . . . and holy crap did I bounce through that race much faster than I had ever imagined at that point in my running career.
Yes, they feel very weird to a minimalist, but I believe minimalist runners might benefit the most from super shoes, given the extra range of motion and muscular development our lower leg muscles already have.
If you are used to running on pavement in very minimal shoes, the super shoes will eliminate any residual pain you might have felt at faster paces in minimal racing flats.
This more than makes up for the weird feeling of the huge stack heighth. Most minimalist runners land on the ball of their feet (I do, but I know HRE has mentioned he doesn't), and this translates naturally to the super shoe, especially the stiffer VF2.
I agree with you. The first time I wore super shoes, I felt like I had been transported back to when I was running in minimalist shoes. Having very strong feet and lower legs gives you a huge efficiency advantage. Running in supershoes reminded me of that advantage... but with supershoes you don't feel completely destroyed after a long hard run. I was never able to recover well after a 10k race in traditional running shoes. With supershoes, a 10k feels much more like a 5k on the legs, a couple of days later.
This thread has me thinking about training more runs in minimalist shoes and continuing to race in supershoes.
I see story's like this a lot. Guys felt amazing running in the vaporfly or alphafly, whatever, ran huge prs, were way less sore after workouts - never looked back.
That's not me. I run slower in super shoes and my calves are destroyed after wearing them. After I few runs, I end up with calf pulls or strains. After like my 3rd attempt at forcing myself to get used to super shoes, my calf was so bad I couldn't run at all for 6 weeks. Even high stack non super shoes are bad for me, but not quite like that.
So despite all the stories of amazing new sets of prs, my running gets worse as my supply of flats that are not super minimal dwindles. I'm considering taking up kayaking or something when I no longer have shoes I can run in.
Topo ST. The best minimalist shoes out there nowadays. I use them as a training tool now, but in the past I use them as daily trainers. Less foam than a free 3.0, fairly durable.
Just bought a pair of the Topo ST and they are great!
They are very much like the old New Balance road minimus.
Perfect for the pavement.
You could race in these . . . not as light as the older minimal racing flats with a similar stack height, but not heavy.
These are 6.8 oz vs 4-5 oz of the minimal racing flats that are no longer made.