I recently raced in my first pair of carbon-plated supershoes, the Nike Alphafly 3. I was returning from an injury, but I had an important race (important to me, that is). It was a 5-kilometer fundraiser for my daughter’s preschool. My firstborn asked if I would win. I told her that I would.
I had two weeks of training post-injury behind me on race day. Even so, I ran a time within one second of my finish at the same event a year prior — a time when I was strong and training well.
This probably indicates a couple of things. Clearly, my training lends poorly to racing 5ks if I was within striking distance of my past result while wholly unprepared. That makes sense. I train for ultras. But the supershoes also made a difference. It was strange bouncing along, feeling like the equation between energy input and performance outcomes was distorted in my favor.
I left the race with mixed feelings — grateful to run fast but absent the satisfaction I typically feel after a race. I did not know what my race time meant compared to my personal history. And while running fast is fun, it’s not the time itself that matters to me. What matters is knowing that I worked hard to become capable of running it. I did not like knowing that my result was partially attributable to shoes.
Sabrina Little with her daughters at a recent preschool fundraiser 5k, her first experience of running in supershoes. Photo courtesy of Sabrina Little.
Supershoes on the Trails
Supershoes are running shoes that propel the foot forward, often through some combination of buoyant foams and carbon plating. They are fast and responsive, and it is no secret that they have taken the running world by storm. Since their arrival on the running scene (sometime around 2016), the world record books have been rewritten in nearly every track and road event. We are running faster than ever.
Initially, I imagined that trail running and mountain running would be immune to the impacts of carbon-plating, since carbon works less well in mud. Also, being able to feel the ground adequately helps us stay upright on mountain trails. But I was wrong.
There were plenty of supershoes present in the top 10 at June’s 2024 Western States 100 — including the adidas Terrex Agravic Speed Ultra, the Nike Ultrafly, The North Face Summit Vectiv Pro 2, and the Hoka Tecton X 2.5 (1).
The same was true at the 2024 UTMB (2). We are a few years behind the track scene, in terms of their development, but supershoes have certainly arrived in trail running and ultrarunning.
Ruth Croft running through Trient on the way to finishing second in the 2024 UTMB. Many of the top runners in this year’s race were sporting supershoes. Photo: iRunFar/Kirsten Kortebein
The Case for Supershoes
There are many reasons to embrace supershoes. They help us run faster, and speed generates excitement for the sport. Also, supershoes can aid in recovery. We can run more miles in training because the increased cushioning softens our landing, and we can run further in a race before experiencing muscle damage and needing to slow down. In ultrarunning, the ability to run more miles with less damage is an obvious asset.
Supershoes reportedly improve running economy because of the stiff plates, in some cases by 4-5% (3), and they can reduce oxygen costs (4). This sounds nice in all cases but especially at altitude. Over places like Hope Pass on the Leadville 100 Mile course, we will take as much oxygen as we can get.
Supershoes sound great. So, why am I writing this? I am writing this because, despite these benefits, I think embracing supershoes is a mistake. This is for at least three reasons.
Ryan Smith climbing Hope Pass at the 2019 Leadville Trail 100 Mile, in more traditional running shoes. Photo: Leadville Race Series
Supershoes Violate the “Spirit of Sport”
On the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) website are listed the three criteria used to determine whether something is banned: 1. It has the potential to enhance or enhances sport performance, 2. It represents an actual or potential health risk to the athlete, and 3. It violates the spirit of sport. When two of these criteria are met, the substance, tool, or method is prohibited (5).
The fuzziest one (or least obvious to me) is the third criterion — determining whether something violates the spirit of sport. What does that mean?
According to WADA, the spirit of sport seeks to “preserve what is intrinsically valuable about sport.” It is about human excellence on display, and it reflects values such as fair play, fun, and community (6). The spirit of sport captures the kindergarten spirit of running. We see it when children race across a playground — humans unaided, striving together.
My worry is that supershoes threaten the spirit of sport. This is because they significantly distort the relationship between the effort someone puts in, and the output they get from the effort. The shoes are a kind of “middle term” that mediates how well someone is able to run.
If it were the case that everyone had access to the shoes and everyone was impacted in the same way by the shoes, then that might be fine. We could just disclose to one another that we were using them. But this is not the case. Supershoes can be expensive, so privilege dictates who has access to the shoes in many cases. And athletes receive varied impacts from them. Some people benefit much more than others do (7).
So, now we have this “middle term,” which is both accidental in its effects on us and often reflects privilege, playing a significant role in performance outcomes. We have introduced a confounding factor that distorts the nature of the activity. On these grounds, supershoes seem to violate the spirit of sport.
Supershoes Make the Sport Ahistorical
This was a great summer to be a running fan. We had an Olympic Games marked by national and world records, and this trend has continued through the Diamond League season and other high-level races. It has been riveting.
But I sometimes wonder what I am seeing. Every time a record falls, I attempt to discern what the time really means. Is this a meaningful record, or do shoe advancements entirely account for the improvement? It is vexing when I cannot tell.
The idea of breaking a world record — running the fastest race ever — means exceeding the previous record. This is framed as though we are (reasonably) equally positioned to the previous record holder, in the same way that we are held to the same standards as the athletes standing next to us on the starting line.
From left to right, Paula Radcliffe, Kara Goucher, and Dire Tune running the 2008 New York Marathon. Radcliffe held the world record for the marathon for 16 years — from 2003 to 2019 — prior to the advent of supershoes. Photo: {{{1}}}, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Certainly, technologies have advanced in other respects — nutrition, training, and track surfaces. These all make a difference. But when there is a nontrivial, decisive break from the past — as we have seen with these shoes — there is reason to question whether we should use them. It’s clear we are not engaged in the same races as our predecessors — not even close. We occupy our own narrow time slice, characterized by shoes.
Shoe Technology Is a Moving Target
In 2016, professional runner Kara Goucher finished fourth in the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. She ran a great race but ended up in the worst possible spot — one place shy of making her third Olympic team. The top three athletes represented the United States in Rio de Janeiro (8).
Eventually, we learned the Trials race may not have been fair. This was because select athletes running for a certain brand (including two athletes who finished before Kara), had access to the first iteration of supershoes (9). Everyone else ran without shoe aid. In the wake of this discovery, people were upset.
Since that time, many shoe companies have caught up. Now many brands’ racing shoes confer similar benefits, so athletes are on a level playing field in terms of access to the technology. Many people have conceded that, yes, the onset of the supershoe era was messy. It lacked transparency, and the early races — with undisclosed technologies — were unfair. However, that mess is in the past! We are on equal footing now.
My contention is that the transparency and fairness issues are not over. Companies will continue to innovate in this respect — trying to make faster shoes, to exceed other companies, in ways that are not yet illegal. Athletes will be caught in these murky waters, running for companies in different stages of development. It’s like standing on a starting line with a random stagger — with certain athletes already at a disadvantage before the race even starts.
I want races to measure running, not to serve as testing grounds for carbon fiber.
A close-up view of Jim Walmsley’s 2023 UTMB shoes. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
Final Thoughts
These days, it feels like a lost cause to speak up against supershoes. It is clear they are here to stay. Again, I confessed to owning a pair. Still, I think permitting these shoes has been a mistake in the running community. I hope that moving forward, we can be more cautious in assessing the kind of technologies we embrace in the sport.
Call for Comments
- What are your thoughts on supershoes?
- Do you own a pair? If so, what effects have they had on your running?
Notes/References
- Reddinger. Check out the Trail Running Shoes Worn at the Western States 100 (2024). “Believe in the Run.” 2 July 2024. Web <https://believeintherun.com/western-states-top-trail-shoes/> Accessed 12 August 2024.
- Metzler. Full-Time HOKA Shoe Engineer Vincent Bouillard Claims Shocking UTMB Win. “Outside Online.” 31 August 2024. Web <https://run.outsideonline.com/trail/trail-racing/2024-utmb-mens-winner/> Accessed 3 September 2024. For the shoes worn in 2023, see B. Metzler. The Fastest Trail Shoes in Chamonix. “Outside Online.” 24 January 2023. Web <https://run.outsideonline.com/gear/trail-shoes/the-fastest-trail-shoes-in-chamonix/> Accessed 3 September 2024.
- W. Rosen. Supershoes are Reshaping Distance Running. “MIT Technology Review.” 25 June 2024. Web <https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/25/1093520/supershoes-running-kenya-carbon-plate-shoes/> Accessed 5 September 2024.
- Hébert-Losier, K., Finlayson, S. J., Driller, M. W., Dubois, B., Esculier, J. F., & Beaven, C. M. (2022). Metabolic and performance responses of male runners wearing 3 types of footwear: Nike Vaporfly 4%, Saucony Endorphin racing flats, and their own shoes. “Journal of sport and health science,” 11(3), 275–284; E. Millard. Can super shoes really help with performance? “Runner’s World.” 10 July 2024. Web <https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/gear/shoes/a61552025/super-shoes-performance-injury-study/#r3z-addoor> Accessed 5 September 2024.
- How does a substance or method make it to the prohibited list? World Anti-Doping Association. Web <https://www.wada-ama.org/en/prohibited-list> Accessed 5 September 2024.
- WADA Ethics Panel: Guiding Values in Sport and Anti-Doping. 2017. World Anti-Doping Association. Web <https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/wada_ethicspanel_setofnorms_oct2017_en.pdf> Accessed 5 September 2024.
- Hébert-Losier, K., Finlayson, S. J., Driller, M. W., Dubois, B., Esculier, J. F., & Beaven, C. M. (2022). Metabolic and performance responses of male runners wearing 3 types of footwear: Nike Vaporfly 4%, Saucony Endorphin racing flats, and their own shoes. “Journal of sport and health science,” 11(3), 275–284.
- Pielke. The First Person to Miss the Olympics for Wearing the Wrong Shoes. “Forbes.” 21 January 2020. Web <https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2020/01/21/on-par-with-doping-the-first-person-to-miss-the-olympics-for-wearing-the-wrong-shoes/> Accessed 5 September 2024.
- Pielke. The First Person to Miss the Olympics for Wearing the Wrong Shoes. “Forbes.” 21 January 2020. Web <https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2020/01/21/on-par-with-doping-the-first-person-to-miss-the-olympics-for-wearing-the-wrong-shoes/> Accessed 5 September 2024.
