The deal with those fancy new Nike shoes.

ICYMI the ever-inquisitive Alex Hutchinson has left Competitor (RIP Competitor, which is *kind of* still Competitor but not really) and now writing for Outside Online. Most recently he tackled the issue of those fancy new Nike shoes, the Vaporfly, which purportedly improve efficiency by 4%. Now, for a while that was just Nike making claims, though the lack of actual scientific evidence did not stop many people from rushing out to drop hundreds (!) of dollars on them. But last week the results of an actual, rigorous randomized control trial run by a legit, reputable lab (the University of Colorado’s Locomotion Laboratory) were published in a for-real peer reviewed science journal (Sports Medicine), and it's official; the Vaporfly really does (or at least can) honestly and truly improve runners' efficiency by over 4%.

Yes, the study was funded by Nike because that's how research works, but given the reputation of the lab and the researchers involved and how the paper was published, you can be reasonably sure that the results are legit and not just more Nike propaganda. So, yeah, if someone is wearing them and seems to have an astonishingly good race, there is a nonzero change that the shoe really did have something to do with it. (As you probably already know, Eliud Kipchoge was wearing them when he clocked that just-barely-not a 2 hour marathon in Italy earlier this year, and Shalane Flanagan was wearing them when she destroyed the NYC marathon last month; see also Galen Rupp in Chicago and Camille Herron destroying the 100 mile record by over an hour.) To quote Hutchinson, "There’s something going on with these shoes."

Like Hutchinson, I'll be super interested to see where things go re: clean sport rules. Can you argue that they're "doping"? Or that they violate the spirit of clean sport if not the letter? Ehhhhhh. There is no question of whether or not they offer some kind of advantage, but since there are no rules against putting carbon fiber plates in your shoes, you can certainly argue that anyone who wants to (and is willing and able to pay) can use them just the same as anyone can hire a coach or sleep in an altitude tent. No one is hiding that they're running in Vaporflys, and up to a point people are allowed to do things that will enhance their performance (such as taking carbs & hydration whenever/however they want during a race, running in lighter shoes/less clothing, upping mileage, altitude training, etc.).

On the other hand, we do definitely draw lines regarding what people are and are not allowed to do. For example, we let people have all the carbs they want but not EPO or PPA other performance enhancing drugs. The Boston Marathon lets people wear a nice, light racing flat with "normal" running shoe technology but spring-loaded shoes are banned. USATF banned headphones for those actually competing for money or other open awards partly because music is known to give distance runners a competitive edge. So where do the Vaporflys fall? Are they more like altitude training or more like listening to motivating music? (Update: Interestingly enough, there is some evidence that the plate in the Vaporflys may actually function more like a spring than anything else.)

For my money, the debate around the Vaporflys reminds me a lot of all the discussion around the whole-body polyurethane swimsuits that were banned in the 2012 Olympics when record after record came crashing down like dominoes in Beijing. The high-tech features in these suits were ultimately determined to reduce the drag on a swimmer by up to 8%. So what's the issue? Yes, you can make the same argument that "anyone can use one" (again, always assuming you're willing and able to pay), but to quote one article, "The result of all of this was the erasure of outstanding world records by performances that were intrinsically inferior."

The other issue with the suits is that they created a kind of arms race between swimsuit manufacturers, each one slapping on more and more drag-reducing, buoyancy-increasing technology, and the fact is that in a world where elite athletes are sponsored by particular companies (if they're that lucky), everyone can't get the A-number-one best Suit of the Moment. If the current best suit is made by Company A but you're sponsored by Company B, you can't wear the most high-tech, efficacious suit, meaning that you can be a better swimmer or even just do the better swimming on a given day and still lose because your competitor is sponsored by the company making the Suit of the Moment.

The Vaporfly creates a similar issue. It's clear that the shoe provides a real advantage, meaning that if two runners are about even in terms of talent, training, preparation, etc. but one is sponsored by Nike (ie gets to wear the magic shoe) and the other isn't, it's no longer a fair contest and there's nothing the non-Nike runner can do about it.

So, yeah. Recreational athletes? Ehhhh, I kind of don't love it for people who are trying to achieve time qualifications like Boston or New York or whatever because all else being equal it tilts the odds in favor of those with bigger bucks to spend, but at least among age groupers anyone technically could buy and wear the shoe if they wanted. But I'm pretty sketched out by the inequity it could create among professionals due to their sponsorship contracts. (Remember, 99.9% of sponsored athletes are not living the life of luxury as a result of those contracts.) It'll be interesting to see where USATF ultimately comes down.