Wearing Nike 4% shoes is no different from using EPO

Listen kids wrote:

I look down on hobby joggers who wear these cheater shoes. As a pro, I understand. But as hobby jogger, it's just pathetic.

Gotta love when people pretend to be pros on letsrun message boards and call people pathetic.

innovation, my dear. wrote:

It's called innovation, just like when pole vault poles, tennis rackets, football helmets, and golf clubs innovated. Other shoe companies are welcome to innovate too.

There should be two classes of WRs - barefoot and shoe aided. That would solve the problem.

I have no problem with technical evolution. I'm no longer using a landline phone, but I still have phone. I'm no longer reading paper news, but I still follow the news. I no longer care about fixed time table TV, but I still follow some series. I no longer have my medical records on paper down at my doctors, but they're still able to describe me flu medicine when needed it seems.

Looking forward to the Nike Vapourfly 8% coming in a few years too! :-)

PrZ wrote:

Listen kids wrote:

I look down on hobby joggers who wear these cheater shoes. As a pro, I understand. But as hobby jogger, it's just pathetic.

Gotta love when people pretend to be pros on letsrun message boards and call people pathetic.

kind of.

we're all pathetic here at letsrun.

or at least temporarily pathetic.

every once in a while we need to be pathetic.

and do something entirely pathetic.

glad it got that out.

i'm off to do something less pathetic.

It's even worse...the "pros" have themselves convinced they are fast, but are totally irrelevant in international competition. As if there is any American at any distance that the Africans would even slightly worry about. Even Galen Rupp, our very best marathoner, gets the honor of losing to Kipchoge by 4 or 5 minutes and that's best case scenario. Any other "pro" out there can't even get out of OTs with 2:11:30 outside of possibly 2 or 3 dudes and that's just to get to 2:11 or so....losing to Kipchoge by like 10 minutes, but hey, you're still a "pro." It's just that on your very best day you still have no chance of winning a competitive international marathon.

Five is the magic number wrote:

There should be two classes of WRs - barefoot and shoe aided. That would solve the problem.

How about one WR for running shoes and one for clearly distinct foot devices with any additional hardened springs added?

Again, you really don't require a massive IQ to understand that a foot device containing a hardened, pivoted spring mechanism is worlds apart from a shoe featuring an improved foam. It's pretty disingenuous for anyone to be claiming otherwise.

If you put a push bike alongside a motorbike only an idiot would go "well you know they're just the same. Only difference is that one's chain is driven by your feet on pedals spinning cogs whereas the other has pistons spinning cogs. It's just a technical innovation like er my mobile phone. I genuinely can't see the difference"!

The Worst Defence wrote:

Five is the magic number wrote:

There should be two classes of WRs - barefoot and shoe aided. That would solve the problem.

How about one WR for running shoes and one for clearly distinct foot devices with any additional hardened springs added?

Again, you really don't require a massive IQ to understand that a foot device containing a hardened, pivoted spring mechanism is worlds apart from a shoe featuring an improved foam. It's pretty disingenuous for anyone to be claiming otherwise.

If you put a push bike alongside a motorbike only an idiot would go "well you know they're just the same. Only difference is that one's chain is driven by your feet on pedals spinning cogs whereas the other has pistons spinning cogs. It's just a technical innovation like er my mobile phone. I genuinely can't see the difference"!

Then why, O Numbest of Nuts, have they not been banned from competition?

The Worst Defence wrote:

How about one WR for running shoes and one for clearly distinct foot devices with any additional hardened springs added?

Actually that would be great but don't limit to springs, basically any non running footwear. You could have the proper race preceded by a kind of Whacky Races!

People bouncing along in Vaporfly 20%, roller bladers, people in actual pogo stick shoes, maybe these roller skills! Can you imagine the crowds? They lap it up! Sounds a bit like the sort of innovative Rojo'd love seeing given his world xc excitement.

* roller skiis ?

Vaporfly Asterisk wrote:

People bouncing along in Vaporfly 20%, roller bladers, people in actual pogo stick shoes, maybe these roller skills! Can you imagine the crowds? They lap it up! Sounds a bit like the sort of innovative Rojo'd love seeing given his world xc excitement.

Agree. I don't follow the top races any more because of the doping but if top distance races became a running version of the Wacky Races I would definitely start following them again. I think roller blades should be allowed in road races if you are going to allow spring-loaded shoes. They are powered by the user and not motorized so they should be seen as a legit shoe for competition.

Bikes used at the Tour de France should be 1 speed bikes.

Tennis rackets used at Wimbledon should be made from only wood.

Triumph wrote:

Tennis rackets used at Wimbledon should be made from only wood.

Wimbledon insists on players wearing all white tennis gear and playing on grass where balls bounce all over the place. To be consistent they should indeed insist on players using wooden rackets too which would add some more variety to the Grand Slam tournaments.

This is more the equivalent of those super suits they used to have in swimming. As long as the item is legal no reason for athletes not to use it. If IAAF decides to ban them like swimming did that's another story.

Those suits were insanely expensive and really not available to anyone below world class. I don't think it is equivalent.

Good comparisant. And I think that in the coming years the technology used in the Vaporfly will become the standard in competitive running shoes and the price will drop.

Triumph wrote:

Tennis rackets used at Wimbledon should be made from only wood.

This provides a quality example of why Vaporflys do not represent innovation.

Comparing a modern tennis racket with a wooden racket you fundamentally have the same thing, i.e. a frame with strings. Yes, the materials for both have substantially improved meaning the equipment is better but it's clear to anyone that the components are the same. This is analogous to running shoes. The have an upper, they have a cushioned sole.

Vaporflys are not the same the tennis racket analogy because in addition to that cushioned sole they also have inserted a foreign, stiffened element which helps provide propulsion. This would be like if the strings in your wooden racket were replaced by a ball capturing device which subsequently fired the ball back out at 200+ mph every time.

Thank you for providing such a clear illustration of innovation vs replacement technology. Perhaps it is because the spring is hidden behind the foam "curtain" that people fail to grasp this.

No one wants to read your $hitty book.

Certain performance enhancing drugs are made illegal because the use of them can be harmful in the long term. Many things are performance enhancers, including training, good sleep, training at altitude, taking vitamin C, making the correct nutritional choices, caffeine in appropriate amounts ect. The difference is those things haven't been made illegal so they are not cheating while methods of improving performance that have been made illegal because of health concerns are cheating. Not saying you couldn't make an argument for the 4%s being unethical but they are in no way comparable to using EPO.

josh35 wrote:

No one wants to read your $hitty book.

Your new PBs set in the 4% don't count.

Except that no energy is being added to the system. Nobody who actually understand physics thinks there's a fundamental difference between VFs and other shoes.

Incidentally, the delta between a modern racket and a wooden one absolutely dwarfs the difference between VFs and Boosts.

That's absolute nonsense because any physicist would tell you that a pivotet lever system is a form of spring. I think what you meant to write was "I PR'd in Vaporfly, like my new PR and therefore will write any nonsense to defend that PR", which is cool given that it appears to be the only defence I see from anyone on this thread.

The improvement in tennis rackets is irrelevant because as was pointed out a racket is still fundamentally the same thing - a strung frame. Vaporflys are NOT the same thing as running shoes. They have an added component. So I guess for some it is indeed a "challenge" getting that just because the component is hidden.