At What Ironman Marathon Pace do Carbon Plated Shoes Become Beneficial?
Curious. Past 1/2 Irons were low to upper 6m pace and Irons were mid 7s to 8m pace. Older now, but want to go faster. Most of that wont be the shoes, but the training. Only used carbon plated in 5-10k. Would likely use them in an open 1/2 Mary (non-trI), Full Mary (non-tri), and 1/2 Iron. I just don’t know if I’d use them in an Iron….
Thoughts???
What is the reason not to use them? They make you faster and save your body from taking more of a beating.
Yeah you’re right, never use super shoes in a race my friend. I appreciate you saving the Kona slots for me.
IMHO really anything under 10:00 / mile pace. A lot of it is about just having more foam and a more efficient stride to beat your legs up less at the same pace.
Feel like the regular shoe a little more comfy which might equate to faster over the inevitable death march…. That said, I haven’t tried all carbon shoes. Maybe others would be just as comfortable….
This, with limited exceptions (e.g., there’s a couple of shoes that are brutally stiff running uphill and tend to slow me down). But unless the race were, say, Norseman…I’m wearing a plated shoe. I respond extremely well to plated footwear so it’s a no brainer for me.
Which ones have you tried? I’ve heard the Puma’s can be somewhat punishing, but haven’t heard that about many others. I’m a NB guy myself and I love the SuperComp shoes even though they probably aren’t the fastest.
No actual data to back this up- but it depends on the shoe. The more plush/softer shoes like Alphafly, Rocket x2, endorphin pro (3 and 4), feel great at almost any pace, even slower paces. The stiffer shoes (especially less stable/narrow ones) like the vaporfly 1/2, cielo, older metaspeed sky/edge (newer ones are supposedly softer, haven’t tried them) to me only feel good at fast paces, say under 7’ pace, and are quite uncomfortable over the course of a marathon.Theoretically all should offer a benefit over non-plated shoes as they offer more spring per step, and cushion for your legs. But give a try doing a jog at warm up/cool down pace (being realistic for how an IM marathon can turn out) to see how they feel at slower paces. The last thing you want is to feel like you’re almost tripping over yourself or worried about misstepping in those last few miles.
My personal choice, n=1, is the gen 1 alphafly which are super soft and feel good at any paces. They’re getting super hard to find, I have 2 pairs I got used but am putting more miles on them. I love how stable and comfortable they feel whether barely jogging (hello solid IM blowups) or running 6’ pace. They also have a really log lifespan and you can use in IMs especially for a long time, since they don’t need to be super stiff compared to say running a full gas 10k or half marathon, I’ve tried the alphafly 3 on and that would be decent. Endorphin pro 4 would probably be a bit slower but would also be a good option as I use various sauconys for most of my training runs.
Have one of the older metaspeeds. Not too bad over long distances. But, could use a little more comfort. The best way I can describe is that they feel ‘wonky’ when going slower….