PERHAPS THE HEADLINE for this column should be “Stepping In It.” Having by now exchanged views over the last 3 years on the “super-shoes” with a wide range of friends, athletes and coaches, statisticians, footwear industry insiders and idly curious folks who’ve read about the shoe-ha, let’s just say opinions are stratified. At times strident.
In the March ’21 issue, my esteemed colleague, now Editor Emeritus, E. Garry Hill offered a history-aware take that’s still on my recommended reading list.
Sixteen months on, among those of us who are head-over-heels for the sport there would seem to be three camps.
WHAT-ABOUTERS: Shoes don’t run fast or jump far, athletes do. Look to improvements in training, recovery modalities, nutrition, tracks and knowledge dissemination via the internet before you point at those carbon-plated not-your-grandparents’-clodhoppers. Two years ago a go-to argument was the pandemic disruption included a vast training-only block, athletes had nothing else to do but get better, and they seized the opportunity.
NOTHING NEW TO SEE HERE: Call this group the onward and upward contingent. Change is the only constant, technology advances, chin-wagging these facts to death is a tedious distraction.
Recently On AC coach Dathan Ritzenhein told me that before super-shoes, “I don’t want to say footwear didn’t matter, because it definitely did, but it was fairly level, and then there was a seismic shift in the 2016 time, and I was part of that with the development of the [early Nike models]. So it started to change the way things are.” Roll with it, don’t look back, enjoy the ride.
A prep coach with whom I’ve been a compadre in track & field and distance running from the moment I caught the bug in high school, raced in an NCAA final, an Olympic Trials and turned a sub-4 equivalent for 1500 — 4 decades ago. What we knew then about training and racing can fit in a thimble-full of his current deep reservoir of understanding. Two seasons ago he told me he’d pay out of his own pocket for super-spikes for his talented athletes rather than countenance them going without.
The only sub-group in this camp with whom I’d quibble are those fans who react as though there’s a turd in the punchbowl if one dares mention any of this. See my “stepping in it” quip above.
HISTORY IS OFFENDED: Here I refer to a crowd near and dear to the way I’ve reveled in the sport for longer than I care to mention, statisticians and their fellow travelers. How, they wonder, can we wrap our heads with any pleasure around a rash of performances in a numbers sense that make greats from the era when I cut my fan’s teeth look insultingly average? Think John Walker, Seb Coe, Steve Ovett, Steve Cram, Steve Scott, Saïd Aouita. (just a few examples and yeah, my interest as a newly-hooked track fan was mile/distance-centric; the profusion of “Steves” is random statistical noise).
Colorful expressions, along with track, float my boat. Never before this season has the term “ham-and-eggers” been lofted my way so often from so many miffed numbers wonks who question the levels of performance in some events. Gotta admit I feel their pain.
Mostly, though, to each of the camps I say this: I hear all y’all. But I ain’t no ostrich. Head’s well clear of the sand and the genie’s out of the bottle forever. Late-model spikes and racing flats are super.
And yes, the art and science of training has advanced (when didn’t it?), along with track surfaces. I also buy into assessments from coaches that training in super-flats banned by WA for competition on the oval have accelerated progress.
As I told a CNN reporter who asked, “Workout performances are faster and recovery is quicker, allowing athletes to pack in more hard training with less risk of injury or overtraining.… From coaches and other long-time observers, I’m hearing estimates of 4 to 5 seconds of aid over a mile … I also believe some athletes are ‘super adapters’ to the shoes and due to stride mechanics get more help from the shoes than do others.”
Ten years from now I’m betting our collective T&F mind will have recalibrated. Once again we’ll feel secure we understand what “great,” “good” and “average” mean. For those of us who’ve followed the sport for a while, the current beats-me quizzical take on the numbers is mildly disorienting. But I’ll find my compass. In time.
For me the happiest takeaway is that in the sport’s heart, no matter what event, the test against the rest of the best is what really matters. Put a number on ‘em, line ’em up and race. And, goes without saying, jump and throw too!
This July issue is a thick one — overflowing with news. Love the run of meets we’ve reported on herein. A grand summer is brewing, methinks.
(For more perspective on recent performance levels in the sport, don’t miss Peter Thompson’s Updated Data-Driven Analyses Of ”The Super Shoe Effect”)
