post race update ;-) i did it and won my m50 agegroup (austria, nationals) quite a cool feeling. was very hot today, high 20s C towards the end, still 2:45:03, not bad for an old guy ;-) not a pb but my best race so far, every km on the point few seconds only between the halfs.
you can discuss about nikes product policy, but you have to admit that the product is a masterpiece. i still want to try something different, the asics sky paris is on my list. but for my running style the af3 delivers... i trained a lot this time, so just part of the success was the shoe
Congrats!
Have you raced with the AF3s straight out of the box? I managed to purchase a pair of the protos at my local running store. I've a half coming up in a month and I've run a few halfs and marathons with the AF1 and AF2.
i did 3 tests before the race in the af3, in europe they were around a few weeks earlier than in the us. first about 10k, then 18k race pace and the final 38k run with 15k race pace at the end. so i tried to find out if i was ok with the changed shoe before using them in a race. since the feeling was good at all 3 runs i used them.
but as said above... there were other factors as well. i trained the use of gels this time and managed to eat 4 during the race. i think this also had a good effect. plus 3000km training over the last 5 months in 3 stages, i think i found the type of modulation of long, fast, slow that works for me. and in the heat there is one very important thing: a shirt that works if it is wet. if you can pour water over it at every 5k water station you keep a bit chilled. and above all the luck of doing allthis with 0 health or injury issues ;-)
According to the LR millennial crowd cheat…, er, supershoes are a gimmick and don’t really help improve times so you should be good not shelling out $200 on a pair of spikes.