Two pairs of new shoes are shining in my hallway. The ON Cloudsurfer 2 and the Craft Nordlite Speed, a pair of Super Shoes. One of those will be my Rotterdam Marathon racing shoes, but which one?
If it’s up to Brendan Lombard, Sports Scientist and (my) Running Coach at Flat Rock Endurance, the answer is simple: the ON. Not that Lombard doesn’t believe in super shoes. On the contrary, he runs in an Asics trail prototype himself. But Lombard knows what every runner should know: our bodies need time to adapt to super shoes. “If you want to run a marathon in super shoes, you have to start running in those shoes at least 12 weeks before your race. Super shoes are awesome, but it’s not natural to run on a carbon plate. It’s a new stimulus for our body, so our body needs time to adapt.”
Those 12 weeks are a period for experienced runners. “Super shoes are not for everybody. A newbie athlete shouldn’t run in them. An experienced athlete can. But even with experienced athletes, I prefer to look at it from person to person. What is somebody’s training history? Which type of injuries has a person had? How old is that person? If a runner has had a lot of Achilles and calf problems, super shoes might not be the best option.”
Super shoes change a runner’s gait (running style). Lombard: “Especially for people who heel strike. With super shoes, we land more on the middle or front of our feet. If an athlete is not used to that, and starts doing all his runs in super shoes, he will get overuse injuries.”
Foot injuries are the most common injuries that scientists see at this moment. Especially stress fractures of the metatarsal bones. Lombard: “Other problems athletes are getting are gluteal muscle injuries and hamstring problems. This is because of the rocker mechanics. In super shoes, you roll more onto your forefoot to compensate for the hard carbon plate. Because an athlete runs faster, their muscles have to contract faster. That puts more demand on the muscles and can cause problems.”
The adaptation period can prevent these problems. “You have to phase super shoes in”, emphasises Lombard. “You can’t buy a pair of super shoes and directly do three sessions a week in them. I would even recommend starting with a short session in which you run one minute, followed by a minute of walking.”
If it’s up to the South African Sport Scientist, those sessions only take place during the specification period. “I don’t see the benefit of running in super shoes in your base period. It’s too hard on the legs. Only when you start working on speed should you use super shoes. An elite runner can do two sessions per week in them. Non-elites can do one. Those sessions should be the speed sessions. Not the easy runs.”
Lombard even goes one step further: “Because of the impact super shoes have on our legs, a runner should do strength training. The focus should be on the strength of the feet and the calves. Plyometrics are a good option as well, but only after an athlete has done strength training for a while. Strength is step one; plyometrics step 2.”
The Flat Rock coach, an elite runner himself, is currently testing out a new pair of Asics trail running shoes. While the super shoes are now common in the road racing world, they are still a novelty in the trail world. “The benefits of super shoes depend on the type of trail. You gain speed, but lose stability. If there is a lot of hiking on technical terrain, you’re better off wearing a shoe in which your ankle doesn’t roll. In fast races, like Chianti or Western States, super shoes definitely have their place. Changing shoes during a race can become an interesting aspect.”
For now, it looks like super trail running shoes are more for elite runners. Whereas in road running more and more non-elite runners are using them. Lombard: “In marathon running, even non-elite runners are more focused on a fast time. On a personal best. Marginal gains are more important. A super shoe can make you a few percent faster. That percentage becomes smaller as you run slower. But even if a super shoe has a placebo effect on a slow runner, it has an effect.”
The development of super shoes is still in its infancy. Nike started it off with their Breaking2 project. The goal was to break the 2-hour barrier in the marathon. A time that was long seen as impossible. To achieve a sub-two-hour marathon, Nike teamed up with experts from various fields. They focused on training, nutrition, environment, and, of course, running shoes.
In those days, a running shoe had to be as flat and as minimalistic as possible. The idea was that if an athlete had less weight to carry, he or she could run faster. Nike questioned this idea. Instead of less is more, the scientists at Nike asked themselves: could more be more? How can limited cushioning maximise energy return?
The answer to these questions was the Nike Zoom Vaporfly. A shoe that features a lighter, softer foam in the midsole and a carbon fibre plate. This design helps the runner get more energy return. In other words, more bounce. “We know stiffer shoes have a big benefit on running economy,” said Bret Schoolmeester, Senior Director of Global Running Footwear, about the Vaporfly.
The simple idea was that if an athlete could save energy with every step he took, he could use that energy to run faster. Human movement scientist Wouter Hoogkamer tested the shoes. Eighteen high-calibre runners ran six 5-minute trials in the Vaporfly prototype shoe and in two regular marathon shoes. Hoogkamer concluded that the Vaporfly lowered the energetic cost of running by 4 per cent on average.
On May 6, 2017, Eliud Kipchoge, Lelisa Desisa, and Zersenay Tadese, together with six pacers, took off at 5:45 am at the Formula One track in Monza, Italy. All were running in a tailor-made Vaporfly. The goal was to break the 2 hour barrier.
Desisa was the first one to drop from the pack, around kilometre 16. Tadese fell back at the 20k mark. Kipchoge kept going strong. At the 25 kilometre point, he was still on pace. At 30 kilometres, he was one second behind. At the finish, despite a final sprint, Kipchoge came 26 seconds short: 2:00:25. Yet, he was more than 2.5 minutes faster than the world record at that time: 2:02:57.
Two years later, at the Ineos 1:59 challenge in Vienna, Austria, Kipchoge broke the barrier. He finished in 1:59:41. Again on a pair of Nike super shoes.
Super shoes are now commercially available for everyone. However scientists are starting to doubt their use. More and more runners are struggling with injuries. The problem is that the correlation between injuries and super shoes is not always clear. Sports injuries can happen for many reasons: a change in training, nutrition, terrain, weather, and more. So, more research is needed.
What is clear is that our running style changes when we wear super shoes (see above). So our body needs time to adapt. Just like when a runner swaps his conventional running shoes for barefoot shoes.
As super shoes are super expensive and don’t have a long lifespan, not a lot of runners give themselves the time to adapt to their new shoes. They prefer to ‘save’ them for the races. That partly explains the injuries. As the development of super shoes is still in its infancy, so is the scientific research. So only time can tell if super shoes are indeed super.
