Let's face it, Riley would've been fourth if hadn't decided to wear Alphaflys instead of Next% on the morning of the race. Just a 1% difference took more than a minute off his time.
Linden was beaten to third by one of the few women wearing Nike trampoline shoes. If she'd had a pair, she'd have made the team.
Top men wore Nike shoes but in women two best runners didn't. Molly Huddle says that carbon plate shoes don't help her. Maybe there isn't such a big difference between shoes in women because of their lower weight and power. Some female runners have won major marathons wearing adidas Takumi-sens.
I do agree that shoes make a major difference, but honestly, in women, it's likely for the lower weight and softer impact when running to not affect as much as it does in men. Don't know, not an expert, but I'm just assuming.
I was just watching some of the post-race press conference and the men were asked how much difference the shoes make. These sponsored athletes are in a tough spot with the question.
On one hand they are compensated sponsors with the goal of helping the manufacturers sell shoes so they want to tout the benefits and tell all of us amateurs how they will help us.
On the other hand they are athletes who train really hard to be the best they can and don’t want to think that their success is due to an unfair mechanical advantage.
Yes, unless you are in total denial, you know that the show would absolutely make up for this kind of small time difference. What a shame for Des! She deserved 3rd place and was held back by her sponsor. They should have let her wear Nikes. Her performance is obviously more impressive than Kipyego's. I don't feel bad for Korir, since he was in Alphaflys too.
Traggerät wrote:
you know that the show
the shoes*
Is that why she won Boston in a prototype? Did Seidel paint her Nike’s to look like a saucony?
PS: clean up the boards Brooks. The trolls have been awful.
ReggieK wrote:
I do agree that shoes make a major difference, but honestly, in women, it's likely for the lower weight and softer impact when running to not affect as much as it does in men. Don't know, not an expert, but I'm just assuming.
I agree with that analysis; these mechanical advantage shoes provide less advantage at lower bodyweights.
The shoes do work though, what was Kosgei wearing when she set the new WR? Vaporfly Next%, possibly prototypes using the Alphafly sole unit.
Nike have somewhat clouded the picture by throwing Alphaflys at the men at the trials but sponsoring only a handful of women. Only Hasay and Kipyego out of all the women who had any chance had Nike shoes.
There were other Nike women.
What about Shalane? Oh wait, never mind she had to retire after 2 surgeries from those miracle cheating shoes.
What about Amy Cragg? Oh wait she has been hurt for the last 2 years from training in those same shoes and then ran herself sick because of limited training time.
What about Gwen Jorgensen? Damn those same shoes hurt her too?
Jordan Hasay has never recovered from extensive time in those same shoes. Hasn’t been healthy for any extended period of time after doing long term damage.
Who else was part of the original group in those shoes?
Galen who is running well after surgery probably caused from the shoes.
Dathan who has not been healthy since.
Just because the shoes feel good and you run faster does not mean that there isn’t long term problems.
Iain wrote:
Let's face it, Riley would've been fourth if hadn't decided to wear Alphaflys instead of Next% on the morning of the race. Just a 1% difference took more than a minute off his time.
Linden was beaten to third by one of the few women wearing Nike trampoline shoes. If she'd had a pair, she'd have made the team.
Worth noting, Linden was wearing new Brooks prototypes which look (in pictures at least) significantly different than the Hyperion Elite they just started selling. So, it's hard to feel bad fro Linden, when we don't even know what she was using as it turns out.
Secondly--lame of Brooks to be like "this is the shoe! Feb 29th!!" and it's not even the current version Linden is using.
The question to ask is whether they were running on an even playing field. The obvious answer is no.
Nike's shoes have had a clear advantage over all other brands. Maybe Brooks made some magic shoes, but it's hard to know at this point. Either way, this race didn't select the top three runners. It selected the top three combinations of runner and sponsor. If we swapped shoes, we would almost certainly have a different top three women.
So are we fans of shoe companies or runner? I would prefer to cheer for the runners. Brooks should have let Des run in Nikes.
Iain wrote:
Let's face it, Riley would've been fourth if hadn't decided to wear Alphaflys instead of Next% on the morning of the race. Just a 1% difference took more than a minute off his time.
Linden was beaten to third by one of the few women wearing Nike trampoline shoes. If she'd had a pair, she'd have made the team.
Des had a brand new and never seen before Brooks prototype at the race. How is that fair? It certainly wasn’t available to all.
Juggernought wrote:
The question to ask is whether they were running on an even playing field. The obvious answer is no.
Nike's shoes have had a clear advantage over all other brands. Maybe Brooks made some magic shoes, but it's hard to know at this point. Either way, this race didn't select the top three runners. It selected the top three combinations of runner and sponsor. If we swapped shoes, we would almost certainly have a different top three women.
So are we fans of shoe companies or runner? I would prefer to cheer for the runners. Brooks should have let Des run in Nikes.
Huh? The top 2 women weren’t even wearing AlphaFly or Next%. Why would we “almost certainly have a different top three women”? As stated, Des had super secret prototypes on that no one else had access to. How is that fair?
JustGonna SayIt wrote:
Iain wrote:
Let's face it, Riley would've been fourth if hadn't decided to wear Alphaflys instead of Next% on the morning of the race. Just a 1% difference took more than a minute off his time.
Linden was beaten to third by one of the few women wearing Nike trampoline shoes. If she'd had a pair, she'd have made the team.
Worth noting, Linden was wearing new Brooks prototypes which look (in pictures at least) significantly different than the Hyperion Elite they just started selling. So, it's hard to feel bad fro Linden, when we don't even know what she was using as it turns out.
Secondly--lame of Brooks to be like "this is the shoe! Feb 29th!!" and it's not even the current version Linden is using.
+1
Already the next prototype iteration of the Hyperion Elite. HE already a dinosaur the same day of release. Compounding lameness was trying to disguise it as not being such.
Iain wrote:
Let's face it, Riley would've been fourth if hadn't decided to wear Alphaflys instead of Next% on the morning of the race. Just a 1% difference took more than a minute off his time.
Linden was beaten to third by one of the few women wearing Nike trampoline shoes. If she'd had a pair, she'd have made the team.
The concept kinda falls apart when you realize Kipyego was wearing Vaporfly Next% instead of Alphafly.
http://www.bta.bg/en/gallery/showImage/?image=6523390larger pool wrote:
There were other Nike women.
What about Shalane? Oh wait, never mind she had to retire after 2 surgeries from those miracle cheating shoes.
What about Amy Cragg? Oh wait she has been hurt for the last 2 years from training in those same shoes and then ran herself sick because of limited training time.
What about Gwen Jorgensen? Damn those same shoes hurt her too?
Jordan Hasay has never recovered from extensive time in those same shoes. Hasn’t been healthy for any extended period of time after doing long term damage.
Who else was part of the original group in those shoes?
Galen who is running well after surgery probably caused from the shoes.
Dathan who has not been healthy since.
Just because the shoes feel good and you run faster does not mean that there isn’t long term problems.
Nike has literally hundreds of people in the testing pool. Did those shoes give cragg Epstein Barr virus? Shalane and Rupp have had problems with their knees and achilles since around 2010/11. Dathan is just a chronically injured person, since even his time in Boulder. You’re attributing negative outcomes where they don’t fit or make sense because of your bias.
(Abdi was also wearing VF instead of AF)
Iain wrote:
Linden was beaten to third by one of the few women wearing Nike trampoline shoes. If she'd had a pair, she'd have made the team.
One's particular foot strike mechanics factors into how much a particular type of 'mechanical-assist' shoe actually benefits.
A simple analogy is when tennis rackets moved up from wood to higher strength-to-weight ratio materials. Then the over-sized rackets came along, and even a little longer handle would further benefit the strong over-hand servers over the athletes that previously just had better finesse game at the net.
prevarications wrote:
Nike has literally hundreds of people in the testing pool. Did those shoes give cragg Epstein Barr virus? Shalane and Rupp have had problems with their knees and achilles since around 2010/11. Dathan is just a chronically injured person, since even his time in Boulder. You’re attributing negative outcomes where they don’t fit or make sense because of your bias.
Shoes can definitely factor into injuries. That is one of the reason the pendulum had swung heavily over into minimalism 10 years ago.
I’m gonna leave this here.