Why am I faster in Peg Turbos than in my racing flats?

Sometimes the lighter weight of traditional flats is not worth thrashing your legs. That's why shoes like VF can be heavier, but still effective, or at least that's my theory. Your legs just feel fresher at the end of hard efforts, so you're more "fresh" and not going into the ground. Different for every person obviously, but I'm a pretty light guy and still prefer a bit more cushion as opposed to too little.

Look at the VF. Common sense is out the window.

If you want to be ahead of the curve, train in lighter flats, and race in bulkier stuff. You'll be faster.

On War wrote:

Sometimes the lighter weight of traditional flats is not worth thrashing your legs. That's why shoes like VF can be heavier, but still effective, or at least that's my theory. Your legs just feel fresher at the end of hard efforts, so you're more "fresh" and not going into the ground. Different for every person obviously, but I'm a pretty light guy and still prefer a bit more cushion as opposed to too little.

This has been posted many times in similar threads, and is totally true. The Nike Next% is the best example - Stewart McSweyn is using it in 10k races, and achieved his PR's in them (27 low as 160 lbs guy).

Especially taller, heavier runners benefit more from the "feeling fresh", since they hit the ground with more force. Also, feet don't get proportionally stronger with size. A small track runner with 130 lbs will probably still be better with spikes in a 10k, but imagine what Solinsky or Mottram with their massive, muscular legs could have achieved in the Next% on a 10k on the track.

I saw somewhere that the peg turbo was the vf without the carbon plate. Basically it was saying that the plate magic is a lever, not a spring, but a lot of the magic is in the foam.

The amount of protection that the foam provides at a light weight combined with the energy return is the big thing.

The plate is necessary to stabilize and direct the soft, high, bouncy stacks of foam. Otherwise your muscles would be working hard to stabilize. The plate is not some magic spring. The reason carbon fiber is used is because of the high amount of stiffness that can be provided at a light weight.

The VF was tested against spikes and has proven to be more efficient as well. Now in a last lap sprint are spikes better in a distance race? I don't know. I'd say not in a 10k for any athlete regardless of size as their legs will be fresher at the end of a race. Last year I met Scott Gravas, Nikes head of run specialty in the US and he said that he believed VF type shoes would do away with traditional distance spikes and insinuated that athletes are only really wearing them because that's what they know and they are set in their ways. This was right after Clayton Young won the national title in a pair of stock VF bought at a local store. Since then they have been fooling around with Zoom X in distance spikes but at that time he 100% was aware of these prototypes also.

I was at Zatopek 10, Stewy didn't have on vaporfly, he used the new zoomx matumbo prototype for that race as well as the 5k championship.

You can see it clearly in tempojournal.com's coverage.

zeropluszero wrote:

I was at Zatopek 10, Stewy didn't have on vaporfly, he used the new zoomx matumbo prototype for that race as well as the 5k championship.

You can see it clearly in tempojournal.com's coverage.

He used them on Zatopek 9 and some other races around that time (5k's). Seems like he switched to the new Zoomx Matumbo Prototype recently. But he always said back then the VF% was better than anything he had before.

It's just that the new Matumbo Prototype % is even better. You should have seen performances by Koko etc last year who all were aided by this spike.

‘virtual’

Hahaha

In the Seventies a physiologist at Penn State, I think N.C . Frederick was his name but am not swearing to it, researched this question. What he found was that people ran faster in lighter shoes up to a point but at some point they got slower as shoes got lighter. The explanation he found was that while there is energy expenditure in moving the weight of a shoe there is also energy expended in reducing shock and when a shoe reduces weight by removing too much cushioning energy expenditure starts to increase.

Must be a placebo effect.

The standard pegasus are better - more responsive / snapper. However zooms cushion is more gentle on the joints and improves recovery.

zoomx*

Ah yeh ok, 2018 he had on 4%, Rayner had 4% that he'd had modded to have matumbo spike plate put into, not sure if Stewy had the same thing that night.

I think the foam really is superior. They feel weird at first, but I always feel better at the end of workouts in them.

That being said, I would still take a Streak LT 2 over them if they still made those.

Ned Fredericks also was in charge of the NSRL for some time.

Yeah man turbos are where its at. I knocked off 10 x 800 @ 2:30 in them. They're the best all-rounder. Flats hurt my feet now. And my pair with 500 miles feels the same as my new pair with 50.

Turbo vs flat. I think it’s obvious..