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