Tigist Assefa's performance was absolutely bonkers crazy today! To put this in perspective, I'm old enough that I was alive, when the men's record was not sub 2:12 - then Derek Clayton had a huge breakthrough I believe in 1969 to drop the record to 2:09 - although I read something recently that there is some suspicions about the Course length that Clayton raced that record on. Anyway - any of Assefa's her 10K splits, could be the 10K Women's Road Records in many countries! She obliterated the standing women's marathon record by over 2 minutes - 2:11:53. She become the first woman to run under, 2:14, 2:13 and 2:12!

Not much is known about here. She was a notable 800m runner (1:59) up until 2016 - 2017 (2016 Olympian in that event for Ethiopia) but then made a switch to the roads and longer races sometime after that. She did run 2:15 last year at Berlin for the win kind of coming out of no where - and that was a shocker! Today was her third marathon - her first was early in 2022 - 2:34. So she's run 2:34, 2:15, 2:11!!! Her half marathon splits today were well under her own half marathon PB (1:07)!!

Already this is being lauded by many as the running performance of the year - man or woman! Maybe all time to date for women!! It's truly otherworldly! She was well over a minute up on the record pace at the half way mark and then - picked it up substantially from there. Her final 300m to the line this morning, looked like she was an 800m runner on the track!

Now I risk running afoul of the Forum's somewhat new unwritten rules, and Ryan's wrath when it comes to this - but the obvious 900 lb gorilla in the room is, is this really legit, or has Assefa had some chemical assistance? All the red flags are here. A somewhat unknown athlete. Makes absolutely startling off the charts gains, in a relatively short period of time. There have been a high number of positives from Kenyan and Ethiopian runners in the last few years. WE KNOW the Out-Of-Competition (OOC) testing in those countries is NOT what it is in other more developed countries - in some cases non-existent. I know athletes on National Teams in Canada in various sports - their doors are getting knocked on regularly for OOC testing! There will be testing done in Berlin today, but it's the OOC testing that is really key to catching athletes. You, and your handlers would have to be complete idiots to get caught in a a REALLY big event where you KNOW there will be testing! There I said it!

It's unfortunate that we cannot watch these performances with the awe and amazement that may have years ago - in the back of the mind, particularly when the Record Breaking is of this magnitude, how can our minds NOT go to what I said in the previous paragraph?

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

If it was legit this was the sub 2 marathon for a female.

What kind of shoes was she wearing?

Her 2nd half marathon today would have been the open half marathon world record as recently as 2014.

Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1

Adidas shoes

If it was legit this was the sub 2 marathon for a female.


Kipchoge's Sub-2(1:59:04) is not recognized by World Athletics and this does not have a WA Score. But FWIW his legit Marathon World Record of 2:01:09 yields' a WA score of 1312

Assefa's 2:11:53 from today yields a WA Score of 1318 - so possibly the equivalent or equal of Kipchoge's sub-2 time?

Now women in mixed races like this do often run with a phalanx of other men around them, and have male pacers so for them, it's not unlike Kipchoge's set-up sub-2 time - where he had a pace car, and a rotating group of fresh pacers coming in and out of the attempt, all running in a predesignated pattern just ahead of him that had proven to cut down on wind resistance notably!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Things that suck in sports right now.

People compare to old technology, courses and performance vs different variables.

If someone does something we all assume is just better drug cocktails.

If one your favourites has an excuse it shouldn’t count as a lose but if their competitors does that win counts.

We are more impressed with a time split on an easier course ( shorter course) than a win over better competition on a hard course.

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

If someone does something we all assume is just better drug cocktails.


Trust me. I DON"T want it to be this way!

I want it to be this way: When I was 7 years old I had my first recollection of watching the Olympic Games in Mexico in 1968. My Dad and I happened to be watching Live on TV, when Bob Beamon absolutely destroyed the Men's Long Jump World Record by a ridiculous amount. Afterwards we went out our the backyard and my Dad got a tape measure out and measured out 29 ft. He stood at one end of the tape and I at another. I was in absolute awe and astonishment that a human could jump that far. (I suspect that Beamon was clean). That's what I want! That feeling!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Montreal Olympics 76 - Frank Shorter came second to east German that later was implicated in state-doping scheme (though not actually caught for this specific race). So this is nothing new, I think its just since Lance it is so much more on everyone's mind.

But this is all just distracting us away from synthetic's normal troll/rant about carbon shoes (or any other technology for that matter).

How long is test and return policy? 😀

 

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Once, I was fast. But I got over it.

I can't believe how little media coverage there has been about this achievement.

Like the previous poster said, this is on par with Kipchoge's achievement. He has been lauded non-stop by the newspapers. Where is the coverage of this athlete? As is my habit, I read through several newspapers this morning before moving on to Letsrun - and I didn't even know this had happened before reading Letsrun.

Those of us in Canada use Ben Johnson's 9:79 at Seoul 1988 when our bs meters went up and that field had Linford Christie and Carl Lewis the 1984 and 1992 Olympic 100m champs also busted at one time or another. If I recall everyone in that field other than Calvin Smith and Robson Da Silva were busted at one time or another. Ben, Desai Williams, Dennis Mitchell, Carl Lewis, Linford Christie all stained with busts of some kind (either above the table or swept under)

Doesn't the 1:59 800m time convert to a 2:20 marathon? Looks like she could go a bit faster in the 800m. If I work backwards from the 2:11.5x, that is more like a 1:50 800m runner if you are to believe any of these calculators (generally I find that once you drop to 1 mile and below, the scaling may be off, but if you enter a 5000m time, you get a solid proxy for marathon or if you enter your marathon you get an excellent proxy for the 5000m (because you already have the durability....often entering the short race time you don't have the durability to hit your calculator predicted marathon time).

Could be she is a very high slow twitch fiber athlete, and does not have enough fast twitch to really get to the absolute front for the 800m

26.1 miles

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

yes and no - i mean, she presumably also had supershoes for her previous marathon attempts.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Her first marathon she did injured. second marathon 2:15 was in super shoes. I guess kipchoge getting more press since he has been known to be clean, while we need to await results for her.

I guess the question is, how much do people know about that shoes design before we dive into the 'other area'. We're at the very start of super shoe development, not at the end.

Like the previous poster said, this is on par with Kipchoge's achievement. He has been lauded non-stop by the newspapers. Where is the coverage of this athlete? As is my habit, I read through several newspapers this morning before moving on to Letsrun - and I didn't even know this had happened before reading Letsrun.


I agree - an anecdotal scan of my own Social Media feeds and there is more talk of Kichoge's 5x Wins than Aseefa's World Record! Not sure if that is because of a still existing bias in the media for Men's Sports Stories or wise Sports Media Editors and others, being somewhat skeptical of it all!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I think the media and fans of athletics are being very skeptical about this result. The Ethiopians have been popped recently for doping violations (as recently as June of this year) which casts even more shade on Assefa's achievement yesterday in Berlin. As a fan of the sport I just could not get excited about this yesterday because it just seems way too fantastic. Usually where there is smoke there is fire and there is plenty of smoke in an Ethiopian completely destroying the world record like Assefa did yesterday. Sorry, I don't buy it.

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http://dontletitdefeatyou.blogspot.com

I think ~2:12 aligns more with 14:00/29:00, which is where women are getting to at 5k/10k now. The women's marathon record has seen a lot of progression lately & it's needed it to keep up with the improvements at half marathon & below. Was just a matter of time. Now throw in a new pair of super shoes & anyone's guess on supplements & it's not that surprising. You see plenty of men run a similar marathon time off of ~14min 5k. This checks out to me on paper.

This one will never get old:

“The last thing I’ll say for the people that don’t believe in [running], the cynics and the sceptics, I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry you can’t dream big and I’m sorry you don’t believe in miracles...”
-Lance “Lance” Armstrong

Nope. If it followed that trajectory (women starting to get close to 14:00/29:00) you should have seen a few women hitting the range between sub 2:14 and 2:12 and you just haven't. It just magically jumped to 2:11:54. I don't buy it.

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http://dontletitdefeatyou.blogspot.com

not her specifically, not to many people nail their first marathon attempt.

Just sport evolves and courses change. We need to stop being shocked but times.

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

We are talking from the context of relatively rich North Americans who do this for hobby.

Think about the poor high school kid who can take steroids and get a Div one football or basketball free ride in the NCAA or not dope and get nothing.

Do we really expect good athletes from poorer tiers in society to not dope and not win and go back to the farm ? What else do we expect. Ideally she is clean. But if she is not clean and is gambling on big time wins vs none at all, then it's not surprising.

Or she has just matured as a runner since 2016 going from 800m to distance and if she stayed on 800m she would have gotten closer to 1:50 by now .

.good point this was the mixed race world record
I guess for sub 2 it would have to be a female only wave .

The sub-2 had the v-shaped draft pack thing. It's an interesting accomplishment, but is not a marathon race, like the Berlin Marathon. It should be treated totally separately. While marathon racers can get a draft off competitors or organized rabbits, at some point to break a WR you're going to be all alone, hitting the wind (men, at least). Possibly Assefa could have drafted off men for the entirety?

Do we really expect good athletes from poorer tiers in society to not dope and not win and go back to the farm ? What else do we expect. Ideally she is clean. But if she is not clean and is gambling on big time wins vs none at all, then it's not surprising.


Yup!

Average yearly income in Ethiopia = just over $1000/year. Kenya just over $2000/year!

I've traveled in Kenya. You have to spend some time in these 3rd world and developing countries to really understand the situation.

FWIW Assefa won about $50,000US for winning and I think the WR Bonus was another $50,000 - so that's at least $100,000 US and I am sure there was more bonus $ from Adidas! For someone from Ethiopia that's an insane amount of money!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Well the IAAF rules are a female marathon record has be in a female only race. So y day was not an IAAF world record. Or has the rule been changed ?

It was such a beautiful run and I'll look at it as only that until proven otherwise. That's how I view it all these days. Have to. Her stride from the gates to the finish was an absolute vision to behold. As far as the shoes, I am a HUGE fan of my Adios Pro 2s and may be just the sucker they're looking for with this new version. Once discounted a touch.

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cock-up before conspiracy

I am not directly accusing this person, but to me there is clearly some new cocktail out there. Every single endurance sport has seen crazy performances the last few years.

14:00 was just set a week before this, down from previous of 14:06. Lets not forget too long ago triathlete beth potter had the 5k world record. Pretty fast progression

Anyone have any insight to how many miles or uses these shoes have? I know many say “don’t race with over 100 miles in your vaporflys” (not looking to debate this point).

I just saw the shoes might be one time use? Sounds like a fake claim but what’s the life we are looking at?

Don't you think we'd have heard about it by now? If it's helping multiple people in multiple sports there's just a lot of folks that would be in the know and even the smallest whispers are shared online now with how connected we all are.

I’m not 100% sure of the internal composition of the sole yet but the upper is literally paper thin and the liquid polymer outer face of the sole is not very hard wearing. Even if the rubber components keep their energy return response for a while, I can’t see the construction being able to last long. As a result, I don’t think the ‘one and done’ description is that wide of the mark.
These make Nike Vaporfly’s look pretty agricultural in comparison.

Yeah, it looks like essentially a "painted on" layer of rubber. Everyone's different, but the given out how I have certain heavy wear spots on my running shoes, I find it likely on these I'd be running on raw cushion material in a few spots by the finish line.

I'm not interested to talk about the performance, but I am very interested in the shoe.

Remember the racing flats days? It was really not that long ago. I still have a pair of Asics Blazingfast I cherish.

This is the start of the next race for shoe design. Extra weight in a race shoe adds nothing insofar as energy return is maximized and minimal comfort threshold for the target distance is met.

Every 50 grams increase in shoe weight leads to an around 3 to 2% decrease in running economy between LT1 and LT2, and an around 10% decrease in TTE at VO2max.

The VF and AF are way overbuilt for racing.

Haha. Context. I get the weight thing. I literally ran some races in HS track barefoot way before "barefoot" running was a thing. But these the VF and AF are just fine for lots of racing purposes. Maybe not scorched earth pro or middle-aged "profamateur" one-and-done racing. But fine for pretty serious recreational types.

Turns out the weight weenies (like me) were wrong about weight being the be-all, end-all, and the achilles (and related physiological systems) being the perfect energy return and shock absorbtion mechanism. Turns out a couple 100-200 grams of shoe can be *way* faster than 0 grams of shoe.

Oh no, the foam is fine. But I have ha pair of VF1 with 500 miles and still a good 2mm of rubber on them.

I find that the VF lose a lot of the bounciness of the foam after 100-200 miles (though I had a pair I ran to 400) and I went through the rubber at the forefoot after 200 or so.
AF feels much more durable, my theory is the air cushion that doesn't get compressed over time. But just as likely its all placebo

Did any other elite women run in the new adidas? If so did they have a comparable PR improvement?

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Let food be thy medicine...

more on the shoe you all will be buying:

So, I'm not planning to buy it but I'd definitely keep my eye on it for sales over the next year.

The price of $500 is interesting. It's so high that their volume will be very low. They must have significant tooling cost on this shoe, so if they don't have enough sales volume, their tooling isn't paid for. That suggests to me.... they will introduce a cheaper version in the same format down the line? Maybe with a full carbon plate instead of tubes? Maybe with a different upper sewn to it? Maybe I'm all wrong....

The other thought is, when you factor how much time you spend training for saving a few minutes, I can see some people rationalizing this being worth it.

It's probably a better or at least as good a value then a Deboer wetsuit right? If the shoe is all its cracked up to be, non sponsored pros should race in them. Nike hasn't been keen to sponsor pro triathletes, which I assume means they are buying shoes if they use Nike or like Sanders with Adidas. Why not buy this if it buys them a minute? That can easily pay for itself in prize money if it moves Sanders from 2nd to 1st in Michigan, right?

Thanks for the laugh, needed it today

Wow someone wants to buy them…a lot of someone’s. Just saw there is a lottery to be able to get a pair. Not my screenshot. This is from Ben Parkes’ Strava run today

They’re only releasing 521 pairs, so they will be extremely hard to get.

i think part of this is down to a sexist bias of coverage in sport, for sure. but i also think part of it is about the general sports-fan public being a bit lazy about this stuff, and liking round numbers. the 2-hour marathon is a nice marketing jingle and is easy to 'package' in the same way that the 4-minute mile is. "the sub-2:15 marathon" just doesn't fit on a t-shirt as well, and sadly when you're putting together the highlight clips for sportsdesk, that's a big factor.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Just a tought on the carbon tubes. I assume this allows the shoe to have lateral torsion like our feet normally have, vs a carbon plate that forces all the metatarsels and foot to work together because the entire plate only bends together, which is not what the foot naturally does. The tubes actually seem like a biomechanically good thing allowing the shoe to work more naturally with the foot roll from the outside of foot to inside to push off

Does anyone know, there must have been some men running in these shoes as well, and apparently none of them did that amazing?

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

Also, and possibly more importantly, carbon rods instead of a plate avoid a patent infringement claim from Adidas' biggest rival.

I have the alphafly, vaporfly, invincible, supercomp, fresh foam more v4, bondi, and the adizero. I have some osteoarthritis in my right knee so I’m trying different shoes with outrageous cushioning to see what gives me the ability to keep running. The adidas adizero is the strangest shoe ever. The upper material sucks, and I’ve actually ‘fallen’ off the shoe twice! However it is an extremely comfortable and responsive shoe once you get going (don’t drive with them on, too difficult to determine where the brake and accelerator are). For road feel and speed it directly compares to the alphafly. It is not the shoe to do a track workout in!

Kipchoge is also a superstar with an unparalleled resume and massive following. He's probably the only distance runner that normal people can name. Assefa is a amazing runner, of course, but it's not even close to the same. Prior to this race her biggest result (per wikipedia) is 3rd in the 800m at African Junior Championships.

I'm not sure I would ascribe sexism to outsized coverage of a superstar going for a round number vs. a relative unknown breaking a WR. Furthermore, the Breaking 2 thing was a media event drummed up for coverage and money more so than it was a race. It shouldn't be surprising that an event designed for mass media coverage gets more media coverage than a race designed to be a race.

synthetic wrote:

So who is buying them immediately? The whole tables are messed up for running,, as this indicates she is 13:19 5k runner.

Available Today, September 26th at 10:00 am CDT

https://www.adidas.com/us/adizero-adios-pro-evo-1/IH5564.html?af_ad=MainStoryCTA1&af_adset=&af_channel=Static_Newsletter&af_reengagement_window=30d&c=adidas-US-eCom-Email-SNL-running-None-US-Static_Newsletter-Other-2309&cm_mmc=AdiEmail_SNL-_-Other-_-20230925_ReactiveBerlinMarathon17320_September_1-_-Marketing-_-MainStoryCTA1-_-dv%3AeCom-_-cn%3AStatic_Newsletter-_-pc%3Arunning&cm_mmc1=US&cm_mmc2=adidas-US-eCom-Email-SNL-running-None-US-Static_Newsletter-Other-2309&cm_mmca3=FDL0SH2APKMUMQQ0&cm_mmca4=2880060&is_retargeting=true&pid=sfmc

They have a cheaper version already. So if anything the price of this shoe will go up due to rarity. Now all of you know my hate for carbon spring shoes, but more so my gripe is the expense here. This greatly will deter athletes knowing there is a piece of equipment they cannot afford that can help them be better, just like with bikes in tri world.

Supposedly 7th place male had the shoes, 2min slower than his PR. But betting on a single male is bad, as they may have other issues in their performance

https://www.runningshoesguru.com/...erlin-2023-marathon/

Now all of you know my hate for carbon spring shoes, but more so my gripe is the expense here. This greatly will deter athletes knowing there is a piece of equipment they cannot afford that can help them be better, just like with bikes in tri world.

You are being a bit dramatic about this matter as usual. My last pair of old school racing flats costed me about $150 here in Canada. I can get super shoes for $250. Since I only use them on race day and a couple of key workouts, they last just as much as the old school racing flats which were not very durable if you recall.

So an extra $100-150 per season is not a big deal. How much do you think an average sub-elite runner spends every year on training shoes alone?

Back to topic, I think the 2:11 gets one mention for about five-six mentions of Kipchoge's win.

Racing in Tijuana, were they collect used running shoes for people running 4 min faster than your 5k, in junk shoes.. changed my perspective. Also I have worked with some highschool kids who are low income.

To summarize: The price of the item is what the market will pay for it. There's already a waiting list to buy these.

Go listen to the latest triathlon mockery podcast as to reasons why you haven’t heard about it. It’s complicated to talk about.

What specific episode?

https://m.youtube.com/...RobG9uIG1vY2tlcnk%3D

Skip to 15:45

Cheers.

 
"£400 Adidas 'super-shoe' going for £2,000 as first batch sells out in hours"

In case anyone was still wondering if they would sell


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/...a-world-record-ebay/

i wonder... who in kona will rock these shoes?