Who cares? 2:10 is the new 2:15. 2:05 is the new 2:10. Old times aren't as comparable. It literally doesn't matter. When 90% or your posts belong on the whine like a little biatch thread, it gets tiresome.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

So true and well said....

Also, I’m pretty sure anyone who does a 2:10 does not consider it meaningless.

I love the new technology, bring it on! Hell, I was born in the 50s and the OP acts like the troglodytes in their 80s who we’re crying about new fangled stuff when I was a young lad....

What is meaningless is anything that comes out of the OP’s brain....

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Randy Christofferson(http://www.rcmioga.blogspot.com

Insert Doubt. Erase Hope. Crush Dreams.

People also had a year to put in a quality build and have a peak performance. It’s happening at all levels.

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USAT Level II- Ironman U Certified Coach

I'm pretty certain that no amount of shoe tech (well, anything less than a hoofing big rocket on each ankle) is going to get me to 2:10 for a marathon.
It really isn't all about the shoes !

Lake Biwa isn't a normal marathon. You need to be a sub 2:30 runner to qualify for it. The first cutoff at 15k is 52-minutes! Also, Japan has incredible depth over the marathon. Shoe's can help, but Lake Biwa isn't a normal race.

I love it when triathletes with superbikes, bitch about shoe tech.

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Athlinks / Strava

So are you saying there should be records before 'spring shoes' and after?
Like with those swimsuits.

I could go with that.

For now I will just subtract 5 minutes from my previous marathon times in 'non-spring' shoes.
Cool. I am a sub 3 hr marathoner by courtesy of new technology!
.
.

This isn't just a random marathon; you have to be a hitter to even get in.

That said, maybe we should restrict everyone to those Vibram toe shoes?

Saying a 2:10 marathon is meaningless is fucking stupid. The obvious troll is trolling once again.

Clearly everyone should have to run barefoot like nature intended

In terms of the OP's stance on the subject...yeah it's gotten "old" now.

I think it matters in a few terms....Advantage these shoes are offering...are you going to wear them or not, and if not, how are you going to overcome an *obvious* advantage for your competitors...Obviously I think there are degrees of advantage etc and some shoes fit better for different athletes.

2nd- I think in just simply "PR" terms it certainly changes what you then have to do in terms of evaluating your ability. Like if you set a PR in them, I think you then change the line in the sand. As an athlete that's very important to note because many value the "PR" etc and so it simply changes the goal posts.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I’ll give it some time.
It took FINA a little while to ban the supersuits.
Not sure if IAAF will come around.
But if those shoes offer a significant advantage, there‘ll soon be enough data.

Regarding Triathlon:
Nobody really cares what Triathletes do.
Pretty much accepted that there are no unifying distance and equipment rules in most races.

You could show up with bouncy blades mounted to your shoes and almost nobody (other than the guy who thinks he’s owed some sort of trophy because of his super bike) would give you a hard time.

Yes, it’s funny that Triathletes complain.

I dont think they will come around. I mean wouldn't that mean it's banned for ALL runners, and there's just no way in hell that'll happen with what I think is the biggest advantage of the shoes....EVERYONE is PR'ing in them. This isn't an elite thing, this is an every runner thing.

I dont see them putting that cat back in the bag.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I've read a lot of your posts criticizing new shoe tech.

Just out of curiosity, where would you suggest they draw the line? Go to back to pre-Nike 4% shoes? I'm genuinely curios, not trying to pick or start up anything.

Also, if that were the case, how long before shoe companies would evolve and start producing some new technology that creates an advantage?

Should athletes be allowed to train in these shoes even if they can't (hypothetically) race in them? One of the biggest advantages to these shoes is the noted improvement in recovery time after harder workouts.

Cycling constrained technology by mandating double diamond frames, tube ratios, and positions.

Golf regulated driver and putter technology so that the courses did not become obsolete immediately.

Swimming constrained technology by banning the supersuits, and asterisked those records.

Individual sports are about creating rules that level the playing field so that the best athlete wins, not the guy with the best tech.

But whatever, it's not like a $200-$300 pair of shoes for an Olympic-level athlete is a showstopper like a custom bike frame or swim suit is going to be. It stinks for MOPs and FOP age groupers, but really, MOPs and FOP age groupers generally need to get over themselves and just enjoy the sport. If they want to complain, race elite.

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Do you think people would take your position more seriously if you didn’t also think everyone should ride airless tires?

Is your position that Thomas Burke’s 12 seconds is the true 100m Olympic record? No one since 1896 has run that race in those conditions. The track and footwear have both consistently improved since those games.

Every elite athlete has the chance to use this new technology though. Every major shoe brand has a plated shoe with their own special midsole foam. Nike got a head start and paved the way, but other brands have quickly caught up. You even have small start up shoe companies like Atreyu that offer a carbon plated, marathon racing shoe.

I think we all know that these shoes are in the category of rubberized speed suits. The difference here is we have to follow the money. The volume of buyers for rubberized swim race suits is literally maybe 500-1000 swimmers. The volume of runners who can buy this shoes is hundreds of thousands.

I know you are trying to be sensational, but I kind of agree with you. 2:10 is a very very rarified mark that countless athletes tried to break and failed at.

https://www.alltime-athletics.com/mmaraok.htm


If you go to the above list you will see of the 3000 humans all time under 2:10 how many came in 2017 onwards. It is borderline ridiculous.


Unlike cycling, realistically running has been a timed sport (even though marathon records are always world bests). The shoes have allowed a lot of lesser athletes to jump past superior athletes from just 5-10 years ago just off different equipment.


From the link I posted there were 4000 times under 2:10.29 of which ~1000 were 2016 or after. I don't believe runners have advanced that much in 5 years over "all time". Of course not eveyone of them was wearing spingy shoes, but it gives you a sampling of what has happened in the 2:10.29 and below club since those shoes showed up on the scene.


And I get that you won't get a ton of sympathy for your position on this forum. It is a gear centric group of people that congregates here so they view advancement as a combo of man and equipment vs the human machine only

You clearly don't come from a pure running background with those statements you made. No wonder single sport athletes make fun of us triathletes. 2:05 is a compeletely different stratosphere from 2:10. Putting a 2:10 athlete into a club with 2:05 is like a 9 hrs vs 8 hrs Ironman capability.

Carlos Lopez ran 2:09.21 to win the Olympic marathon in 84. At the time Rob DeCastella had the 2:08 world record. When Lopes ran 2:07.12 in Rotterdam the next year, that was the best all time. Saying the new 2:10 is 2:05 is kind of ridiculous. I mean, Mo Farah double gold in the 5000m and 10000m has a marathon PB of 2:05.11 (so three decades after Carlos Lopes he is only 2 min faster)

Mo's 10k pb is 26:46
Carlos 10k 27:17

So Carlos was 31 seconds slower on 10K and 2 min slower on the marathon. I am giving these examples to just show that it is kind of meaningful at least in track and field circles to compare times across years. Here is something interesting about Carlos...he ran his second 5000m in his silver medal at the Montreal Olympics in 13:36....do you want to know Mo Farah's London Olmpics 5000m gold medal time ? 13:41 (granted it was jogging for 3400m and then he ran a 3:53 mile to close it).

I did not know till a while ago when I was looking up Lopes and comparing what he did compared to Farah. Too bad Lopes lost the Moscow Olympics.

The point being, the times and consistency kind of matters.

What triathletes want to do with springy shoes is another story.

I care.

I do. And don't get me wrong I would 100% prefer that running stay's "pure". But that's the problem. Pure literally can't be defined. I could say I want 2013 technology to be the best allowed because that was the peak of my running only career. Other people will half jokingly say barefoot records only. There's literally nothing that can be done to stop it now. So maybe I was wrong to say "Who cares?" and I should have just said "Tough shit. Nothing we can do about it." In a few years, people's perceptions of what times are good and what are mediocre will have shifted and we'll be past this phase where people whine incessantly.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

In theory that sounds great, but it's just not possible. Then the 1990s runners get upset about the technology of new tracks and fancy spikes from the 2000's. Your attitude about it is great. Recognize there's a difference, but take the new times as they come.

On the pro level, sure, it creates some chaos with records, but running a world record doesn't win a gold medal in the olympics; beating everyone else in the same race on the same day with the same technology available does.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

Just out of curiosity, where would you suggest they draw the line?

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That's a good question, and I'm not certainly one to say we need to scrape technology, etc. I guess to me it's kinda like the cost of living....it's consistent right every year, or in theory it is right? So that's my rate of techno advances....so anytime we see a big *jump* it sorta makes you have to completely redefine the base line. That to me is my line in the sand....when the technology is *too advanced* that it causes lots of records to fall that normally don't fall in a similiar time period. I posted in another thread I think there were something from the 3k to marathon like over half a dozen new WR's since 2018......when in the same distances they havent had even close to that number of records broken.


I know the shoe technology however won't go back to less, etc. So my 2nd thing is to have an acceptance of the shoes actually making a big difference. It doesn't take away from your PR, but just be honest about the situation.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

There is almost no difference between spikes and fancy tracks from Mexico City to now. Keep in mind that Tommie Smith ran 19.83 to win the 200m. Guess what time Usein Bolt ran in 2016. That was 19.78. Second place, Andre De Grasse 20.02. Michael Johnon's fastest was 19:32, but he only had 3 other seasons where he ran 19.7x and beat Tommie Smith. So its hard to say the track and spike made much of a delta since 1968.

A 2:10:XX marathon was already pretty irrelevant even before the new shoe tech. Nobody with a PR this slow was going to medal in the Olympics, WCs or a World Major, barring some bizarre circumstances (Boston 2018 when it was a freezing monsoon).