NYTimes research suggests that Nike Vaporfly may actually be 4% faster based on Strava data

A lot of people on this thread commenting who haven't worn the Vaporfly's.

You cherry-picked one of the scenarios for which it's well-known that GPS devices are not very accurate. P.S. Have you heard that Strava uses your data without telling you?

Saywhat2 wrote:

I don't buy anything strava says their wildly inaccurate. I cant tell you how many times I ran on a track and could do 1 mile in 6:00 flat, my watch says 6 minutes, the native app says 6 minutes but when I upload to Strava it will say 6:15 or something crazy.

Strava is garbage.

I was pretty impressed with the rigor of this study, although I'm still a little skeptical of the results. (Maybe because I don't want to buy $250 shoes.)

What I don't understand is how the Nike Streak did so well. Is it just the most common flat to which people are switching (wider availability, affordable, etc.)? Why is it crushing other Nike shoes and other company's flats? Is it really that different from the New Balance 1400? It's slightly lighter, but it's hard to imagine it would make that much of a difference. Anyone notice any difference between it and other marathon flats?

Didn't read the study, but my main concern is lack of accurate 'I wore shoe X' in Strava.

I'd suspect that there is a significant failure rate - of people not entering the shoe they ran in that day.

Probably there is some correlation between hyper careful people about entering what shoe they wore in their running log...and those who buy $250 shoes..

not sure exactly what I'm saying, but probably there is some significant error in self reporting what shoe was worn.

did the piece talk about that?

It did. It's definitely worth reading.

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

You cherry-picked one of the scenarios for which it's well-known that GPS devices are not very accurate.

P.S. Have you heard that Strava uses your data without telling you?

Saywhat2 wrote:

I don't buy anything strava says their wildly inaccurate. I cant tell you how many times I ran on a track and could do 1 mile in 6:00 flat, my watch says 6 minutes, the native app says 6 minutes but when I upload to Strava it will say 6:15 or something crazy.

Strava is garbage.

Your main purpose is to record exercise activity like running and cycling and they fail at their main purpose. Why should I give a sh!t?

Ive already praised the VF, I'm not going to slob stravas knob cause Strava and I agree on a shoe.

Saywhat2 wrote:

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

You cherry-picked one of the scenarios for which it's well-known that GPS devices are not very accurate.

P.S. Have you heard that Strava uses your data without telling you?

Your main purpose is to record exercise activity like running and cycling and they fail at their main purpose. Why should I give a sh!t?

Ive already praised the VF, I'm not going to slob stravas knob cause Strava and I agree on a shoe.

Did someone steal your KOM?

agip wrote:

Didn't read the study, but my main concern is lack of accurate 'I wore shoe X' in Strava...

did the piece talk about that?

Read the article you lazy mutt.

Yarly wrote:

Are you kidding? 4 percent isnt even that much, only a good runner would be able to justify spending 250 instead of increasing mileage 10 percent. I am sure its a fast shoe. The fastest? Maybe not.

Lets say you run 50 mpw. Increasing by 10% would add 30 minutes per week for the typical letsrunner. Say that 30 min is worth $25 (low for the typical letsrunner). You would recoup the cost of the shoe in 2.5 months.

Shoud We All Be Wearing Streaks? wrote:

I was pretty impressed with the rigor of this study, although I'm still a little skeptical of the results. (Maybe because I don't want to buy $250 shoes.)

What I don't understand is how the Nike Streak did so well. Is it just the most common flat to which people are switching (wider availability, affordable, etc.)? Why is it crushing other Nike shoes and other company's flats? Is it really that different from the New Balance 1400? It's slightly lighter, but it's hard to imagine it would make that much of a difference. Anyone notice any difference between it and other marathon flats?

The streak has a full-length pebax shank in it to stiffen it up a bit, just like the VF4% has a carbon fiber plate. Ban them both. We want our racing shoes to make us fast, but not that fast!!

I still don't see anyone talking about the OTHER shoe in this study that also stands out.

Anyone run in the Streak? And why this one and not one of the other more standard racing shoes? I feel like the study is still missing something.

Saywhat2 wrote:

I don't buy anything strava says their wildly inaccurate. I cant tell you how many times I ran on a track and could do 1 mile in 6:00 flat, my watch says 6 minutes, the native app says 6 minutes but when I upload to Strava it will say 6:15 or something crazy.

Strava is garbage.

I have a feeling you ran 4 laps all out, then staggered around covering 9 meters in the next 15 seconds.

Urban B wrote:

I still don't see anyone talking about the OTHER shoe in this study that also stands out.

Anyone run in the Streak? And why this one and not one of the other more standard racing shoes? I feel like the study is still missing something.

Exactly. To be clear for the 99% if you who didn’t read the full article, the VF is 4% than shoes like the mizuno wave rider, NB Zante, adidas ultra boost, Nike free, something called a noosa. It’s only about 1% faster than streak and 2% faster than the ASICS ds racer, adidas boost Boston and adios. All of these estimates have fairly wide confidence intervals however because of the inherently noisy data as the astute LR readership noted “what about .... weather, training, missing data, course difficulty? how could anyone possibly control for that.... only if there was some set of methods....oh well this analysis is impossible....”

I was surprised at how poorly the NB 1400 and 1500 did compared to the Streak.

Like I said it's mostly about weight. Of course it's better than clunky heavy shoes. These weigh about 6.5oz.

Compared to other lightweight marathon flats it's not that revolutionary and compared to true racing flats, things you might run a 5k or 10k in, I'd bet it's slower.

Like I said the New Balance RC5000v1 (3.2oz) is half the weight of these Nike shoes. The V2s are heavier but still weigh under 4oz and some people run the marathon in them.

agip wrote:

Didn't read the study, but my main concern is lack of accurate 'I wore shoe X' in Strava.

I'd suspect that there is a significant failure rate - of people not entering the shoe they ran in that day.

Probably there is some correlation between hyper careful people about entering what shoe they wore in their running log...and those who buy $250 shoes..

not sure exactly what I'm saying, but probably there is some significant error in self reporting what shoe was worn.

did the piece talk about that?

Can people please stop posting on this thread if they haven't read the article.

Agreed. The VF provides good cushioning at low weight. I don’t think the NB rc5000 provides the same cushioning and it would not be good for a full thon.

I'm still suspicious of a selection bias, where runners spend $250 or $400 on ebay for a shoe because they decided to get really focused for their next race or, conversely, having invested in such an expensive racing shoe, people may feel a bit of pressure to perform. And while the Strava data can show the total weekly mileage that runners are doing, it doesn't show all the other things that athletes might be doing (by far the most important being watching one's diet).

Saywhat2 wrote:

I don't buy anything strava says their wildly inaccurate. I cant tell you how many times I ran on a track and could do 1 mile in 6:00 flat, my watch says 6 minutes, the native app says 6 minutes but when I upload to Strava it will say 6:15 or something crazy.

Strava is garbage.

The only way this happens is if you don't know how to use the split button/functions on your GPS watch. This is your fault, not Strava's...

800 dude wrote:

I'm still suspicious of a selection bias, where runners spend $250 or $400 on ebay for a shoe because they decided to get really focused for their next race or, conversely, having invested in such an expensive racing shoe, people may feel a bit of pressure to perform. And while the Strava data can show the total weekly mileage that runners are doing, it doesn't show all the other things that athletes might be doing (by far the most important being watching one's diet).

Me too. Selection bias is big here. I've only run slower myself with the Vaporfly in the marathon. Adios worked better for me.