zzzz wrote:
I watched the last minute, and she is getting a sensational bounce from those shoes. It's known that people are getting differential benefits from the Vaporfly Next%s, so it's possible she is one of the ones getting largest benefits from the shoe.
Here's a bit more on the variable benefit that runners are getting from Vaporflies. I looked for a summary of the initial CU Boulder tests that gave the Vaporfly 4% its name. They tested 18 runners with sub-31 minute 10K PRs, so all of these runners were fast already. No BS about faster runners not gaining as much please!
All of them were faster/more efficient with the Vaporflies, but the benefit for the individual runners ranged from 1.59% to 6.26% better than the Streak 6 (with similar range better than the Adios Boost). The average was 4%, so that's how they came up with the 4% in the name. The Next% is said to test substantially better, but not quite to where they could name it 5%. Adding a bit to 4%'s spread of efficiency gains, it's likely that that 6.26% gain in the Vaporfly 4% corresponds to 7% gain in the Next%.
I'd like to coin the phrase "high Vaporfly responder", akin to a high responder to PEDs. Some runners are getting 7% efficiency gains, maybe even more, since that 6.26% for the 4% was based on only 18 runners. Look at 100 runners and you're likely to find a few already fast runners that are exceptionally high Vaporfly responders getting 7% gains in the 4% shoe, and 8% gains in the Next% shoe.
Like I said, Gidey has a sensation bounce with those shoes. When someone has time, compare visually her bounce with those shoes vs. her running on the track in spikes and see how much different it is. I haven't done it yet.
https://www.wired.com/story/do-nikes-new-marathon-shoes-make-you-faster-a-nike-funded-study-says-yes/