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Comment by spenjovewkwhalo | Hacker News Reader

Posted to my in-laws, who asked how:

Super shoes. Most shoes have carbon plates in them now, they act as a spring, storing energy and propelling athletes forwards.

Better understanding of fuelling. Most athletes are taking between 100-120g carbs (sugar) per hour. Bicarbonate of soda has also been effective.

Better planning tools. Athletes look at elevation, headwind, tailwind and will plan a strategy around going harder into the hard stuff and knowing when they can back off and rest.

And to be honest, probably a metric tonne of PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) - unfortunately this is very common across all sports at the top level.

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> probably a metric tonne of PEDs (performance enhancing drugs)

Note that Sawe funded extra testing drug testing for himself for the 2 months before winning the Berlin marathon. The testing followed Athletics Integrity Unit protocols (so surprise testing etc):

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2026/04/how-sabastian-sawe-conv...

This is news to me and genuinely impressive. Putting extra work into ensuring your attempt at one of the few records that will last the duration of humanity is damn smart.

Drug testing has its loopholes: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetorch/2016/07/19/486595080/r...

Yes it does.

Pretty hard to use the in-competition avoidance strategy like that in this out of competition case though.

> Most shoes have carbon plates in them now, they act as a spring, storing energy and propelling athletes forwards.

This seems unlikely to be true, although it is repeated in every article I read about carbon plated shoes. The people that study them in a lab environment seem to disagree. See some of the papers here:

https://www.wouterhoogkamer.com/science2

However, I agree wholeheartedly with the overall points in your post!

Ooooh, interesting- I’ll take a read, thanks!

I’m guessing like most things of this nature, you’re likely to have super-responders, responders and non-responders?

Maybe even placebo effect?

So you think the Vaporfly prototypes Kipchoge wore in 2018 placebo'd him into crushing the world record by 78 seconds?

There's an almost inhuman amount of mind over matter psychology when it comes to endurance running. Unless you can duplicate reality multiple times and swap out the shoes without anyone knowing to do properly scientific testing, we can't know for sure what did it. (The shoes probably helped.)

Quite possible there's a psychological benefit from super shoes, they certainly feel fast. Though there are enough plausible mechanisms it's unlikely to be the major factor.

Yes, most of the studies show there is a very large individual variation. The original 4% figure and similar studies were an average of something like 1-7% across runners.

Also interestingly, the shoe in this record uses much less carbon than past shoes, both saving weight and allowing even more super foam where much of the energy return comes from. Though there so much variance in shoe design and materials there are only theories on how much comes from the plate vs foam vs stack height vs weight vs other factors.

I read somewhere that the carbon plate is more to stabilize the shoe, that with only the foam the shoe would be very unstable.

Yes, that's correct. There's a mistaken belief that it's the major source of performance improvements. It plays a role, but the bigger gains come from the stack height (limb lengthening effect) and the energy return of the foam. But that leads to very unstable shoes. The carbon gives rigidity to balance this out.

Well at least on the PED front, saw has been doing an extreme amount of testing to try to eliminate those doubts.

> going harder into the hard stuff and knowing when they can back off and rest.

Why is going harder in the hard stuff and easier in the easy stuff more efficient or faster than vice versa? I imagine arguments either way:

Going harder when it's easy gives you higher ROI. Or maybe going easier when it's hard is just too slow. And maybe that is too simplistic: Maybe it depends on how hard; that is, maybe there is a threshold.

Completely uninformed speculation:

Wind drag goes up with v squared, so power required goes up with v cubed.

If you run at 105% speed downhill,that requires almost 16% more power to overcome wind drag. You might be better off running at 100% speed downhill (and "saving" that 16% power), and pushing harder to run as close as you can to 100% speed on the uphill stretches that would otherwise have you running slower than 100%. The power used to increase your potential energy going uphill is "zero sum" because you get it back when you go back downhill -n there no pesky v squared or v cubed non linearity there (assuming the race starts and finishes at the same elevation).

A fun little effect is that average speed is time-averaged not distance-averaged. So when you go slower, you lose doubly - lower speed to average and over a longer time (higher weight). Hence one of the reasons why putting more energy into the harder bits is actually optimal.

> Super shoes. Most shoes have carbon plates in them now, they act as a spring, storing energy and propelling athletes forwards.

I wonder where that leaves the barefoot movement. Hype dust?

Was the barefoot movement ever about running faster? I always thought they sold injury prevention by strengthening tissues that running shoes tend to over support.

Yes, that was the claim but it was never really backed by evidence. Vibram settled a lawsuit over false claims that their minimalist shoes reduced the risk of injuries. (I still like those shoes myself and use them on some slow recovery runs.)

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-27335251

This topic deserves so much more nuance, but it's always reduced to "barefoot running doesn't work" in internet forums. In every articles about the harm caused by barefoot running I've read, those reported injuries all end up being overuse injuries. The article you linked is specifically about bone marrow edema, which is basically bone bruise. Other possible injuries include muscle and tendon soreness.

If this were a bodybuilding discussion, you would get advice on how to manage DOMS symptoms and how to plan your loading schedule, nobody would say that weightlifting "doesn't work" because a beginner got sore after lifting a 80kg barbell for the first time. But people has been conditioned to think that running is a purely cardio activity, so we don't talk about how the muscles and tendons in the foot need to be loaded up gradually just like your bicep.

Barefoot running is a weightlifting activity. Your calf muscle has to lift your entire bodyweight for the forefoot stride. "No pain no gain" applies. Proper posture and techniques are important. Proper workout schedule and loading plan with rest days are important. Sufficient protein intake are important.

Also letting chlidren run and play barefoot actaully helps develop the foot properly which I presonally think is benificial in the long run.

no no, in the long run carbon plates are beneficial ;)

When Vibrams were first popular, I took to training with them on my runs. People told me to "take it easy" or you might get injured. I thought what's the worst that can happen? Well let me tell you. About a month into wearing them, I was doing a hard run and the trail had a section of concrete. My foot felt a sudden sharp pain and "snap!" I broke my 3rd metatarsal bone in my foot. Took a month or so to heal, and I decided to stop using the Vibrams.

I only manage to do barefoot runs on soft forest ground. Anything concrete just instantly messes up my feet.

A month isn’t enough to adapt your ankles to high force hard running.

You have to take it easy.

Build low impact volume (walking and hiking), and then scale it (jogging then running), over time emphasizing recovery. Shoe adapted gaits are expecting materials to handle forces that simply aren’t there ‘barefoot’ (minimalist).

Flip side: adapt like you understand the intense forces generated in running and that the baseline level of chronic dysfunction is high, and proper foot function can help correct movement form and posture issues, both of which are major drivers of chronic pain.

Big thick shoes allow us to run like assholes. Shin splints, knee problems, chronic injuries, overuse injuries… Great for competition(!), great for sacrificing health to get speed (faster!). Unquestionably better for racing. But for people interested in longevity, evolution did one thing, Nike/Adidas another.

My understanding of the advantages from barefoot running is that it was more about helping you lock in stride and form while preventing injuries outside of race days.

No competitive distance runner since like Zola Budd ran barefoot or minimal shoes.

The carbon plate revolution is the main driver for drop in times over the last 5+ years

I’d consider the old models of Nike Waffle race flats pretty minimal, and those were ubiquitous 15-20 years ago.

As a 16 year wearer of mostly barefoot shoes, "barefoot" for me is about comfort in general day to day activity. It isn't a specialized tool and certainly isn't the obvious choice for extreme environments.

If I'm going bouldering I absolutely cram my toes into a tiny rock climbing shoe, because it allows me to stand on ledges I couldn't without the extra support from the shoe.

That being said, if barefoot generally feels good to you and you're not chasing the pinacle of performance it's probably a perfectly fine choice for your recreational runs.

I still prefer to run in minimalist shoes because I like to feel the ground. The new breed of running shoes seem comically thick to me. I tried a pair for a few weeks, they still feel wrong. If a company would make a low stack height shoe with one of the new super foams, I’d probably buy three.

Worth looking at the Adizero Adios 9. Uses full-length superfoam but with a 25 mm stack height, which is very low by modern standards.

If you have a neutral gait and prioritise tactility over cushioning, then they may well be a good fit for you. Not absurdly expensive, either!

https://runrepeat.com/adidas-adizero-adios-9

They never claimed it was faster, but healthier

> Better understanding of fuelling. … Better planning tools.

When I was young everyone acted like running was all about who could endure misery the longest. I think if I had known about these aspects it would’ve seemed more strategic and interesting (especially with smart phones to help). Alas, these days all my effort is in making sure my run doesn’t kill my knees :\

I thought those carbon plate shoes were barred from competition???

nope, nike vaporflys are super popular. There are usually limits on stack height for many marathons though.

Posted elsewhere, they have tightened regulations to clamp down on the "franken-shoes".

40mm stack height maximum One carbon plate only (some shoes were including a second). Must be on sale to the public for < 4 mths before the race in question

Puma makes a shoe that's non-compliant with the above (two plates, not sure about the stack height), for what it's worth.

As someone whose tallest shoes have a 10mm stack heigh, 40mm is crazy high!

Heat training does much of what EPO used to do. It's amazing how much science has caught up in this field.

the consensus seems to be that the foam itself is the spring (hence the successful adidas evo sl and dynafish xiaonian), and the carbon plate/rod/whatever is more to control/manage that "spring".

Can you not accuse people of cheating unless you have proof?

Yes, apologies.

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