50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

When talking about shoe cushioning, I think it's important to recognize a few things right off the bat:

1) Any connection between initial collision force--when your foot touches down--and injury is anecdotal. There's no solid evidence that collision force causes injury.

2) The greatest force you experience isn't when your foot touches down, it's at midstance--when your foot is directly under your center of mass. Newton's Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. You put force into the ground, both during initial landing (e.g., via gravity) and by pushing against the ground using your muscles. No matter when the force is applied, enough has to be applied to get you back into the air for long enough to complete your next stride.

3) Up to 50% of the energy you use for each stride comes from elastic recoil--elastic energy stored in your tendons and other connective tissue, much of it absorbed upon impact, then released as your foot passes beneath you during midstance. You want that stored energy!

4) Too much cushioning--cushioning that smushes out the landing but doesn't return all that energy--forces you to work harder with your muscles to provide the force that elastic recoil isn't anymore.

5) Running speed is mostly determined by how long your foot stays on the ground. That's why leg stiffness (resistance of your ankles, knees, and hips to bending while your foot is on the ground) is so important. A shoe that doesn't quickly allow the return of the ground force reaction will significantly slow your running ... which leads a lot of us (my hand is raised) to trying to make up for that by working too hard.

Personally, I hate a smushy shoe. And I've gotten more niggles from having to work harder in a smushy shoe than I have from lighter, more responsive shoes. But if you're going to use the more responsive shoes, you also have to do injury-prevention exercises aimed at strengthening CT (e.g., heel drops to create stiffer Achilles tendons, Nordic curls to strengthen the muscle-tendon junction for your hammies, etc.). And that takes a long time and consistent training.

All that said, I also believe there are no absolutes. So I always include some smush in my shoe rotation, and I cross my fingers a lot. A LOT! LOL!

Don't run in anything heavier than Kinvara 10s. Have never liked a shoe with a lot of bulk, which made me hesitate before trying the Vaporflys. Never had concussion related injuries, and had a very injury free run from late 40s to 56, when I twisted/wrenched and ankle, then had a hamstring problem, which has been followed by a cascade of imbalance related problems. If I get through the following month OK - which will be the first time in four years that I haven't been off from September/October to the New Year - I'll be sounder than I have been for four or five years.

mauritis - I get what you're saying, but I don't think it's a fair comparison. First, I absolutely DO NOT think there's anything wrong with training and racing (or one or the other) in the new Nike 4% shoes. They are legal. And they work--it's no longer viable to argue that it's a placebo effect, as it's been documented in numerous studies (here's one:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30374945

).

But it isn't just a matter of adjusting your stride to run more efficiently in the specific shoe. No matter how you adjust your stride in a lightweight racing flat, all propulsion comes from you--by virtue of being lighter, the shoe is just getting out of your way. With the 4%, the idea is to take advantage of a form of propulsion provided by the shoe itself--propulsion that is unavailable without the shoe. Yes, equipment is part of sport. I get that. And again, I don't care if runners embrace it! It's legal. Use it! But as someone who's set records in three consecutive masters age groups now, I can tell you that the thrill of a fast time (even a record) passes quickly. For me, it's the journey to get to that time, what that time means in comparison to times I've run before, etc. I'm trying to explore the limits of what I can continue to get out of my body as I age. That's my thing.

I think it's important when we have these debates to understand that we're not all on the exact same journey, steering toward the exact same destination ... even if we're all using similar training methods to fuel that journey. ;-)

Oh give me a shoe that looks really cool and keeps the injuries at bay. Where seldom the discouraging word.

Sorry but shoes might help prevent injuries by just a tad or not at all. However wearing the wrong shoe can cause injuries.

Sand soft sand barefooted without fighting the slowness / loss of power all by effort after a year of this I am 100 percent convinced that soft sand works. Works in so many ways no aches or pains iow NO chronic low grade systemic inflammation that I always wondered about. No plantar fascitius or calf problems which were always just a workout away. Age 63 and have found the solution at least for me.

Did my annual break 6 this morning felt hard probably the lack of hard stuff but my lt seemed pretty good: 5:53.27 83+2,89,91,88 splits are all over the place which is also indicative of my lack of hard stuff.

Remaining goals for age 63 are break 19 in a 5k and a 5000.

Since the mile is a time trial I am gonna keep documenting using video:

https://youtu.be/YlBAuXl-Qig

Pete...very well said. The existence of these shoes really forces you to ask why you are in the sport at all. And as you said...the answer to that question is extremely individual. It's kind of cool that you can quantify the advantage the shoes give you...along with the fact that everyone can see you are wearing them. So there is nothing covert. People can do what they want.

Great job Charlie. I think you might have felt a little more "gassed" than you usually do simply because your pacing was a little shaky. You were out quite hard. As I recall, you've done this sub-6 1 mi test with much more even pacing and you didn't suffer nearly as much. Had you gone out in 87-88, you'd have had an entirely different experience.

Thanks for the video.

I think we're talking past each other a bit. I was trying to make 2 points:

1. Even if one doesn't want to race in them, VFs might serve a valuable training purpose, by recruiting and thus strengthening different muscle fibers. This can be true regardless of whether one finds them acceptable as a race shoe.

2. Stride adjustment does not happen only with VFs. Indeed, are we sure about makes the VF so different? My understanding (which might be wrong) was that there was a study (at Boulder maybe?) that suggested the carbon plate lends stability but does not serve the spring/lever function that many people subjectively "feel" when they run in them. So, hypothetically, what if a study were to show convincingly that all the demonstrated running economy benefit comes from the foam rather than the carbon plate? That would not change how different the shoe feels. But it does change the argument against the shoe that many people (Pete included) are making, which is against the perceived propulsion effect of the carbon plate, if I understand it correctly. If the perceived propulsion is, instead, shown to be due to the foam, rejecting the shoe becomes a matter of degree: how much foam is too much foam? And at that point, some may argue that only barefoot running is free from an external source of propulsion.

By the way, I predict that if the improvement in economy is indeed shown to be due to the foam, we will shortly see a shoe with 2 spaced carbon fiber plates, allowing a shoe with even greater stack height to remain relatively stable. After that, maybe even more: platform racing flats anyone? :-)

Maurits

P.S. my personal cushioning preferences run towards the comparatively minimalist -- I've always preferred lightweight trainers. At the moment I do most of my running in the Free Flyknit 4.0 (alas, it's discontinued).

Nice job. That is a diabolical track with it's two or three strides on the gravel base every lap where they took the rubber out, as well as multiple dips. It's next too impossible to sprint on.

About four years ago - before the round of injuries - I could do about 25 minutes LT starting in the track parking lot, and then finish with 3200m in 12:00 mins. Don't think I could break 6:00 to save my life now.

Very frustrating for someone who has been a speed-oriented runner to not be able to do speed-work!

Allen1959 wrote:

CM -- I don't think anyone here has called for a ban on the 4% shoes, but there have been other LRC threads where folks have called them "cheater shoes" and the like.

About 90% of other letsrun thread are not to be taken seriously! Maybe 95%?

Hey can we talk about 2020? I got my USATF newsletter, nice job again CM and whoever else's name is on there that I don't recognize because we're all nom de plumeing, but I see Indoors are at Baton Rouge in March and then the big Toronto thing in the summer.

What plans do y'all have for big time or even not-so-big-time (regional) competitions next year? I only have a dim idea of what lurks out there, and I'm getting tired of noncompetitive races here in KC. (Definition of noncompetitive: six kids half your age who are way ahead of you, and everyone else way behind you.)

I'll still be 54 in March but otherwise I too will be crossing the AG threshold when I compete in 2020. So I'm looking to, you know, take advantage.

maurits wrote:

P.S. my personal cushioning preferences run towards the comparatively minimalist -- I've always preferred lightweight trainers. At the moment I do most of my running in the Free Flyknit 4.0 (alas, it's discontinued).

Maurits, if you're a size 12 you're in luck...

At the moment I cannot handle my age group locally. I do have dreams of attaining 80s age grading again. I am sure that it is possible, probability is questionable, however. I am a long way from that level fitness currently. If I can get there I will certainly compete in national level events.

I couldn't touch those shoes with a 10 foot pole. I'm a heavier middle-aged runner with osteoarthritis in 2 joints and also have flat fleet (at the masters running club I belong to they call me old flat foot. Lol). So, it's cushioned, heavy, thick shoes and nothing but dirt roads & trails for this old cat. My racing flats & spikes were retired several years ago (I do miss racing in them though).

A couple of interesting studies on this topic:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24149399

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12840638

2020 is gonna be great - just like all Olympic Years. Unfortunately for me re Toronto, I turn 60 during this meet therefore likely having to register in the 55-59 class.

Anyone up for some flat xc on San Diego grass. and hip-hip-hooray only 5k? Oct 12, 2019 USATF XC Nats. Will be grat to see y'all there.

KP

Mauritis, sorry if I didn't specifically address your points. You know us old guys--we start talking about what we want to talk about, and no one can steer us toward a different topic, LOL! So ...

1) I get what you're saying about developing fitness that lies outside the normal demands of running. Good point! A big benefit of limited cross training is that it develops muscle fibers not usually recruited during running, which can result in a slew of beneficial fitness adaptations--heck, it's why resistance training is so effective for runners! That said, I personally like to limit that type of training to non-running exercises. I work hard at developing efficient nervous system control of the specific muscle fibers involved in generating my stride to create better running economy and improved performance (the "specificity of training" principle). Training with an altered stride risks hard-wiring neural messaging for a less-efficient stride, plus I'd be spending valuable running-training energy working muscle fibers (strengthening them, developing capillaries and mitochondria specific to those fibers, etc.) that won't be recruited during actual races (or most workouts). So I do applaud your instinct to train outside the normal stride and wholeheartedly agree with it, but I think there might be more efficient and effective ways to do that than potentially sabotaging current form and running economy. Your thoughts?

2) I don't think there's any question (and studies support this) that the 4% shoes add a propulsive element to your stride that doesn't exist in most shoes. Studies show a very predictable improvement pattern in race times based upon decreasing weight of race shoes. A shoe as heavy as the 4% flat would normally produce a very mediocre time at distances less than half marathon. Instead, runners are logging faster times at 5000 meters on the track than with spikes! ... spikes that weigh half as much as the 4%ers! I was careful to suggest this effect was generated by some interplay of the plate and foam, as you're right that there's confusion about why the shoe works so well. Again, I'm not against the shoe or the idea of footwear that improves performance. Spikes certainly improve track performance. But as for debating where the line lies between acceptable and unacceptable performance enhancement, these shoes cross the line for me personally--but I promise to keep my mouth shut when I get beat by someone(s) wearing them ... really, I promise! LOL!!!

I'll probably be at the SE regional indoor meet and will certainly be at LSU if I'm healthy. I'm not planning on Toronto due to a conflict with my tri schedule but I'd like to do the XC and road races there. My husband is just getting back into running so he's all excited about iClub XC and indoor and outdoor season. His goal is to break 20:00 at age 65.

Not sure where this reply belongs but I have been fighting Achilles pain since doing a 20k trail race since last December in 4mm drop trail shoes. It seemed like every time I felt better I would put on racing flats or trail shoes with little drop and the pain would return. In may I got a pair of Pegasus Turbos and they felt great, but I was still switching out to the other shoes and my problems would return. Last month I quit wearing everything but the Peg Turbos since that's when I felt the best running. I seemed to have less and less pain. I even wore the peg Turbos on trail runs. When the COC XC finals rolled around I looked through my shoes and found a pair of Nike Zoom Flys which had a 10mm drop and are fairly light. I ran the xc race in those and my pain wasn't too bad after the race. Now it's 3 weeks later, still running in only Peg Turbos and my pain has completely disappeared. Now I'm afraid to try the other shoes again.

I will gladly give up a little weight to run pain-free. The Zoom Fly shoes were OK but they did slip on the grass and uphill dirt sections. I have a pair of the 4% shoes that I haven't tried yet but since they have the 10mm drop I'm thinking they may come out soon to test.

Back in the 80's I used to send my Asics road shoes in and have the waffle sole put on the bottom since there weren't any decent trail shoes available. I may be back to doing something similar to leep my ever-tightening tendons and muscles happy.

"Oh give me a shoe, that looks really cool, and keeps the injuries at bay...

Where seldom is heard, the discouraging word..."

If only Tori Amos would sing these lines - ethereal.

PTF yeah I always go out too fast call it Charlie Brown Syndrome on the positive side 83 /400 felt easy . My taper was 3 days off. My warmup was walk 800 , jog 800 do 3x100 . Reason I cut the warmup short was my first 100 going easy was 20.67 omg for me that is a good sign. Bad sign was how tired I felt at the end, but recovered well. I am going to add a bit more to some of my tempos probably involving hills got until february for the 5k.

KP & KC If Sand Diego was within a days drive I would race this one . Fear of flying ironic as I have flown a plane by myself of course it was just a little tomahawk them big old heavy ones do not have the best glide pattern.

Cavorty too bad we can't use the new(er) facility or can we? I have never asked but that nice track is locked down like Oregon State and I am not talking about the university. The one good thing is I usually have it to myself . I bet you could break six.

And the strange world of oral bacteria mouth wash , running and blood pressure:

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-strange-thing-happens-if-you-use-mouthwash-after-you-exercise

Finally I would buy a pair of these and wear them at the local 5ks just to piss off the fast guys

https://youtu.be/B5V356k-9a8?t=53