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The Truth About Super Shoes

In this episode of the MH Podcast, we talk Tokyo, Hoka's bizarre new shoe, and why super shoes don't make you faster

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Below is a transcript of an episode of The Marathon Podcast. It’s been lightly condensed and edited for clarity. You can watch a video version of the episode above, or via our YouTube channel (subscribe here), or on Spotify, which now supports video podcasts. You can listen to the episode in the embedded player below, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.



Michael Doyle (00:00)
All right, I am joined by the Dennis Kamedo of this pod, Alex Sear reporting from somewhere in Florida and our Paula Radcliffe, Caitlin Tosse in Costa Rica. And I am your one and only Ryan Hall in Toronto. Guys, what did those three

Alex Cyr (00:07)
Good.

Katelyn Tocci (00:14)
Mmm.

Michael Doyle (00:28)
superlative runners of the past have in common besides the fact that they’re they’re all retired and one of them is a jacked weightlifter now.

Alex Cyr (00:36)
Wild choices, I was gonna say. Is it that they’ve all held some sort of marathon record? Like Ryan Hall had the American one, Kimmeto and Radcliffe had the world ones? Is this it?

Katelyn Tocci (00:48)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Doyle (00:50)
You got it. So, yes, those. these are three running stars of the past that held big time distance running records of some kind. At the just at the dawn of the Super Shoe era, the last pre Super Shoe record holders. And the reason why we did that intro is today we’re going to talk all about we’re actually going to bring in a special guest. The Marathon Handbook.

Katelyn Tocci (00:51)
Nice

Alex Cyr (00:52)
Hey!

Michael Doyle (01:18)
founder and CEO, our boss man, Thomas Watson. He’s going to join us because he’s been writing a weekly column the last couple of weeks, which is excellent. And his column this week is all about a personal dilemma that he is facing, which led him to think a lot about super shoes, the super shoe era and the piece and is entitled. It turns out super shoes don’t make you faster.

So we’re going to pick his brain all about why he wrote the column, what his findings were. And we’re going to think we’re going to probably find ourselves having a bit of a debate, guys, because I have a sense since one person in this pod feels very strongly in favor of super shoes. And then I’m really curious to find out what others think. And Thomas is obviously very conflicted. But first, guys, let’s let’s talk a little bit about the Tokyo Marathon, the first major

2025 is coming up. It’s all starting. This signals the beginning of the marathon season. It happens on March the second. The elite fields were announced this week. Our teammate, Jesse Carvath, our news editor, put out a story highlighting the entire elite field, both men’s and women’s, and this race is smoking hot. I have a question for you guys.

Katelyn Tocci (02:41)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Michael Doyle (02:44)
Is

this is this field? Is this field better than the London Marathon field, which has been so hyped in the last couple of weeks because of the incredible trio of of of women that are running the marathon. But is this when we’re all done this marathon season, will Tokyo be the fastest race of the year in either the men’s or women’s race?

Alex Cyr (03:06)
I have to say, okay, let’s focus on the women. I have to say no, because we’re just missing the obvious two big players, right? Tigas, Deceiva, and Ruth, Chep, and Getish, by far the two fastest women in the world. This is the best of the rest, I think. Not to say it’s not going to be fast. You could have, you could have, if we’re staying gender specific, Michael, you could have introduced Caitlin as Bridget Cosgai.

Michael Doyle (03:11)
Mmm.

Katelyn Tocci (03:23)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Doyle (03:25)
Best of the rest. Poor Tokyo.

Alex Cyr (03:35)
because she also used to have a record though I guess maybe it was in the Super Shoe era. So maybe it doesn’t count. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I guess she doesn’t qualify for this, but like to have a marathon with Brigid Koskai is one of the very top athletes and then two others in that 216 low, 215 high range and have it considered a second rate type of marathon is crazy. But you have three women who are gonna chase sub 216. So I mean, it’s not like we don’t.

Michael Doyle (03:39)
That was definitely in the SuperShure era. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Katelyn Tocci (03:40)
aha.

Michael Doyle (03:59)
That’s just mean.

Katelyn Tocci (03:59)
Yeah.

Alex Cyr (04:05)
have absolute world-class runners there. So it’s gonna be fast.

Michael Doyle (04:09)
Yeah.

I think the neat thing and it’s always nice to see a marathon major do this is they brought back the three previous winners to show up and compete against each other. So I think that’s I think that’s kind of exciting. And that will build in the storyline feature with all of this on the men’s side. we’ll do a complete deep dive preview.

Katelyn Tocci (04:21)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Doyle (04:32)
all about the Tokyo Marathon, as we will do with every marathon major this year, as we did last year as well. So we’ll do that the week of Tokyo so that and the Thursday at the end of February, the week leading into Tokyo will unpack the race and all of its detail will go into the history, what the course is like, what the experience is like, how the heck you watch it, which is, which can be tricky. But Caitlin, the men’s side,

We’ve got also like a good amount of depth and Joshua Chepdiguy the He’s given it another go. So if you’re not familiar with the name Joshua Chepdiguy, he is the Olympic 10,000 meter champion this past or last year, I guess in Paris but he’s only run he’s tried the marathon and Didn’t I think it probably didn’t go according to plan for him

Katelyn Tocci (05:03)
He’s gonna give it another go. Yeah.

Yeah, even though we can’t even imagine or wrap ourselves around the time, which was 2.08, I think, 59 that he ran in Valencia, it still just wasn’t quite as fast as getting up in those top guys. So for him, I’m sure that he saw that as a bit of a disaster. So let’s see if he can come back in Tokyo, give it another go and get up into those low, know, 2.02, 2.03, up with the top guys.

Alex Cyr (05:45)
waiting to see if he is going to be a an Elliott Kipchoge or a Mo Farah a dominant you know we’ll get more yeah we’ll get more into this last night next time but it’s like you have a super dominant track runner who could follow in Elliott Kipchoge’s footsteps and become an even better marathoner or he does the Mo Farah thing where he dominates the 5 and 10k for a number of years

Katelyn Tocci (05:47)
He is going crazy.

Michael Doyle (05:53)
Whoa, okay.

Katelyn Tocci (05:55)
Okay.

Alex Cyr (06:13)
and then never quite translates it to the marathon. And I think marathon number two is weirdly quick enough to have people start to form an opinion about which route he’s going to take. And so if I’m Chep DeGuy, man, I’m feeling the pressure for Tokyo.

Katelyn Tocci (06:30)
Yeah, of course, because you think, okay, he maybe used Valencia kind of like to get his feet wet. So you can kind of chalk up the first one to being like, okay, this was my practice. This was to kind of get in the swing of things to feel the marathon distance for the first time in competition. But now the second one, like you said, the pressure’s on. The pressure’s on because you can’t have two subpar marathons, right? So now we’re gonna see what happens.

Michael Doyle (06:52)
two duds to

two. Yeah, like what I mean, we will get into like what would success be for a guy like this. We should say he is the current five and ten thousand meter world record holder. He’s a generational absolute superstar. mean, we thought maybe that he was retiring after Paris. Turns out he was just retiring from the track. So it’s good news that he’s coming and trying the marathon, giving it another kick at the can here in Tokyo.

Katelyn Tocci (07:04)
Yep.

Michael Doyle (07:20)
Bit of safe space for him, Tokyo. It’s like a little bit of Tokyo sort of sneaks up on you, right? It doesn’t have the pomp and circumstance that Boston or London get in April, but it’s a fast course and an extremely obviously well organized event. One little number to keep in mind, little, a little like teaser, a little moose bouche for when we do our Tokyo preview. If you were to take Joshua Chep to guys, 10,000 meter world record and

do a corresponding marathon time just purely based on his world record, the 10,000 meters corresponding time is two hours, 39 seconds. That’s four seconds off the world record, which is interesting. So obviously a ton of promise, but as we know, the marathon is a cruel mistress. And I’m sure you can speak to that. Okay. And one final thing we should say about Tokyo before we pivot here is

Alex Cyr (07:58)
Yep, okay.

Katelyn Tocci (08:00)
Okay.

You

Michael Doyle (08:16)
this sort of begins or unlocks the marathon major season, which will be significantly different this year because we’ve got a new edition. We’ve got. A race in Sydney that’s been added to the marathon major circuit, and that’s going to be the first fall race. So it’s taking place August 31st. It used to be that like you do Tokyo, you do Boston, you do London.

We all take a little breather in the summertime. And then you used to do Berlin and then Chicago and then New York. And now it’s Sydney, Berlin, Chicago, New York. So that’s going to be exciting and crazy demand for Sydney. I read this week, 79,000 applicants for the 35,000 positions to run Sydney. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s, it’s.

Katelyn Tocci (08:45)
Break.

Wow. Okay.

Alex Cyr (09:10)
Oof.

Michael Doyle (09:13)
It’s amazing that little that the pixie dust of becoming a marathon major and all of a sudden everyone wants to do it. Right. OK, so let’s take a quick break and then we’re going to get into one more opening topic before we bring Thomas in to talk about super shoes.

Alex Cyr (09:31)
It may be an open-toed topic, if you will.

Michael Doyle (09:35)
well played, sir. We’re going to talk all about super sandals, super flops.

Alex Cyr (09:44)
Irk. Irk.

Katelyn Tocci (09:46)
Super crocs.

Alex Cyr (09:47)
Yeah, no!

Michael Doyle (09:49)
Super loafers. We’re going to talk about a very weird trio of running footwear related stories that we had on the site this week. We’ll be right back with a croc segment. Be right back.

Super Sandals, Speed Loafers and a Hoka Marathon World Record

Michael Doyle (00:00)
All right, and we’re back.

Gang, what the hell is going on with running footwear in the last week? I feel like we’ve all lost our minds in the last seven days. We have had three stories on our site about the following something called the super sandal or jury still out on like what the naming is going to be super sandal, super flip flop, super flop. Get to that in a second.

A new world record in Crocs for the marathon and Hoka’s just absolutely wacko loafer that they’re calling the speed loafer.

Katelyn Tocci (00:43)
Ha ha.

Alex Cyr (00:43)
you

Michael Doyle (00:45)
The shark has we have jumped the shark with shoes. OK, so like first, let’s talk about. Let’s talk about the super sandal. I just it rolls off the tongue tongue better than super flip flop. Super flip flop soccer. Yeah, or the or the speed loafer. So in Thailand last week at the Kone Can Marathon, I just butchered that I’m sure that’s.

Katelyn Tocci (00:59)
Or the loafers. Or anything else. Okay. Super sandal.

Michael Doyle (01:13)
Probably not the correct pronunciation. Kenyon runner, Barnabas Kipleymo ran to 1856 and then you zoom in on his feet. And he’s wearing a pair of slides. I don’t know if that’s sick or ridiculous.

Katelyn Tocci (01:28)
You know, I looked, I saw them and the first thing that came to mind were the sandals. You guys have both, of course, red born to run. So I thought of the Tarumara sandals though. The huaraches, I can’t pronounce it correctly. Huaraches. So they have these sandals that they run in. I saw that when I competed with the Tarumara here in Costa Rica, because they came to visit us, I saw these sandals in the flesh and they literally looked like.

Alex Cyr (01:45)
Better than me.

Katelyn Tocci (01:55)
nothing, like almost like they were running barefoot. But what I want, the difference between these and these super sandals, which we’ll get into explaining they have great carbon plate and everything, is that the huaraches had like something along the back to hold them onto the ankle. So I was like, okay, well, at least they’re not gonna flop and they’re actually attached onto the foot, though, but these aren’t, can you imagine even just walking in flip flops and you have to,

make that effort with your toes so they don’t go sliding off? How the heck did he run in these?

Alex Cyr (02:28)
Yeah, that’s the point that I don’t really get. It’s like, I could, I was thinking about this in disclosure. This is like the least weird out of the three weird footwear parts that we’re going to talk about to me because I could get behind a shoe that doesn’t really have an upper if somehow it can just stick on your foot. Cause like when you look at like a really good racing shoe, the uppers are almost non-existent.

Michael Doyle (02:37)
Yeah.

Katelyn Tocci (02:49)
Right.

Alex Cyr (02:54)
The shoe that I race in, it’s paper thin. It’s not really doing much for you. It’s kind of just there out of convention. But then it’s like, obviously it has laces and then the laces help the shoe stay on the foot. without a mechanism to keep it on the foot, man, I don’t know. My dad has this thing where he refuses to wear anything other than those old Jesus sandals with the really thick straps around the back and the toes because they stay on your feet.

Michael Doyle (03:18)
Love those things.

Katelyn Tocci (03:19)
You

Alex Cyr (03:22)
You can’t wear flip flops because he says they’ll flip off. And so I’m thinking of this, how do they make shoes that don’t flip off? Yeah, I don’t know when.

Katelyn Tocci (03:27)
Right.

Michael Doyle (03:29)
Hence the name.

I’m

maybe there’s some special engineering. This is a Thai company called Ving and the name of the super sandal is the knee run. I guess would be pronounced N I R U N got a pretty rudimentary side up right now with the with the with the shoe shoe sandal with the sandal. Yeah, it’s got a carbon plate, super critical foam and not a whole lot up top. And I guess that’s their kind of selling point is they’re like

Katelyn Tocci (03:52)
Flip flop.

Michael Doyle (04:01)
We’ve been able to shed all this weight because there is no upper. I should say coup to. Not a lot, not a whole lot. Yeah.

Alex Cyr (04:06)
Not a lot going on up top could also be the way to describe what they

thought of when designing this. Although, maybe it’s the future, right? You can find a way to stick that to your foot. That’s just a couple ounces off the top.

Michael Doyle (04:19)
Right.

Katelyn Tocci (04:20)
now that I’m really looking at it, there is something that wraps around the top of the ankle, right? So there is something that it’s not just like a complete flip-flop like I was imagining or that I thought when I saw it the first time. There’s something that kind of holds it on. But still, don’t you think the work you need to do with your toes is just gonna be a lot of extra energy wasted? I don’t know.

Michael Doyle (04:42)
Katelyn almost

talked herself into these shoes or sandals. Sandals, sandals, they’re sandals.

Katelyn Tocci (04:48)
Sorry, I it does.

Michael Doyle (04:50)
I will give Barnabas Kip Limo, the man who ran to 1855 in this sandal, a lot of credit not only because that’s a superlative time. And I’m sure Thailand is probably not the greatest conditions for running a marathon, especially given I believe it’s summertime there right now. He was wearing socks with his sandals, which I know is a hyper controversial move, although not so much anymore with the kids, Alex.

Katelyn Tocci (05:12)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Doyle (05:18)
your generation, you all wear socks with your sandals like you’re 80 years old. But I think that’s a pro move when you’re running a marathon, because imagine how slippery those feet get if you didn’t. Yikes. Twenty five thousand little farting noises is what Barnabas had to suffer through when he heard the bottom of his foot pressing down on that sandal. I just did the math on that. It’s about twenty five thousand steps in a marathon.

if you ran 219 to 1855. So there you go. Okay, let’s pivot to the next one, which.

Katelyn Tocci (05:50)
Wow.

Michael Doyle (05:55)
Lightning Yellow Crocs, a man from Australia named Dan Kamak. He’d never worn Crocs before, I don’t believe, or never raced in Crocs before. He ran the Cadbury Marathon in Tanzania and set a new Croc world record in the marathon. He broke 250.

Katelyn Tocci (06:16)
Wow.

Michael Doyle (06:18)
I mean, I mean, the record had just been bettered in November. And we did a story on that as well in November in the New York City Marathon. I think it was like two fifty one or two fifty two. I don’t have it in front of me right now. So he cracked the Dan Kamen cracked the two fifty barrier in Crocs. I’m not sure what the sub two hour marathon is equivalent in Crocs. Is it to is it to thirty? Is it to twenty? I don’t know. But.

Katelyn Tocci (06:45)
Well,

what is his record? Does he have a PR that’s faster than his Crocs record?

Alex Cyr (06:51)
creep this guy. Dan.

Michael Doyle (06:52)
I know

the previous guy, I know the guy, the American guy from Colorado that set the, that the previous record holder that set it in New York. We, we Strava stalked him and I think it was like his, his PR was something like two 35 or something like that. So it was about a 15, 17, 18 minute slowdown in Crocs.

Katelyn Tocci (07:08)
Okay.

Alex Cyr (07:14)
I found Dan Kamak online. So his best marathon, Sons Crocs, is 234.55. So around the same range. Yeah. And also, I don’t know, man, respect to that guy. This has become a quarterly segment for us. Every three months, the Crocs record is being reset. And the first time I heard of the Crocs record, I kind of just didn’t really care about it because it’s always a world record if you’re the first person to think about

Katelyn Tocci (07:21)
Yeah

Michael Doyle (07:24)
There you go.

Katelyn Tocci (07:24)
there you go. Okay. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Alex Cyr (07:44)
doing something, but now that there seem to be a good amount of croc runners out there, this is like some bragging rights to hold this record. And it’s becoming more more impressive. So I’m kind of like, kudos, man. Like, 2:49 in crocs, assuming, put those in a sport mode, like put the, you know, the little strap at the back. I’m pretty impressed. Yes. And that’s a skill in itself, because like, if you think of his, he’s taken a 15 minute cut.

Katelyn Tocci (08:02)
Yeah, you have to.

Michael Doyle (08:03)
You’d have to you’d have to go sport mode, right? You couldn’t I

Alex Cyr (08:12)
over his personal best. If any of us tried to run a marathon full out, I think we would really struggle to run another one in Crocs within 15 minutes of our time. I think there’s like an element of skill there to master.

Michael Doyle (08:29)
curious to know how much practice these these guys do in in the footwear. I mean, you know, never do anything new on race day, especially where Crocs last one.

Katelyn Tocci (08:39)
I even

put on a pair of crocs, but I imagine that there’s way too much space in them. Like, they must not hug your feet, right?

Alex Cyr (08:46)
Caitlin,

where were you in like 2006?

Michael Doyle (08:49)
being cool, Alex. She was being cool. Crocs.

Katelyn Tocci (08:54)
I’ve never

put on Crocs.

Michael Doyle (08:56)
OK, so listeners and viewers on our YouTube channel who are under the age of 30. There’s a dark secret out there. Anyone over the age of, say, 35. We’re quietly judging you on the whole Crocs thing.

Crocs are just awful. You couldn’t force a pair of Crocs on me. They’re just brutal. I am anti-Crocs. No, no, no, no. I see 40 something dads sliding around in a pair of Crocs. I got a couple of friends that have gone to the Croc dark side. I just quietly judge them. Shame on you, your gibbets.

Katelyn Tocci (09:20)
I can’t bring myself to it either. I can’t, I can’t. It’s just our generation, I guess, Michael. We just can’t.

Michael Doyle (09:40)
your sport mode. OK. Carrying on. And this is probably the greatest sin of all.

Hoka has released a new. I don’t know what to call this besides just what it is called. They have released something called the Speed Lover. We will put links to all of these stories in the show notes. I highly recommend you click on this one and give it a good look if you’ve not seen it already, because it’s been doing the rounds on social media because people are appalled by this thing. It is basically like.

It’s like a little like Penny loafer, like a little leather loafer with the tassel and everything on top. And then it’s like, I don’t know, like a like a hookah Clifton or a bond underneath. It’s just absolutely bizarre. It’s got a vibram soul. You know, somebody is going to wear this sucker for for a spring marathon just to make a statement. Love it. Hate it. Alex, are you wearing your

Katelyn Tocci (10:22)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Doyle (10:43)
You’re wearing these for your very first marathon next fall.

Alex Cyr (10:47)
Couldn’t think of something more sinful. No. I am wondering if Hoka’s just take advantage of, and I’m not meaning this in a bad way, if I were leading a Hoka I would do the same thing, but if they’re taking advantage of the fact that everyone just really likes Hoka and so now they’re trying to create a Hoka for every situation in life. think if you’re working as, in healthcare, okay, you’re a nurse and you’re on your feet all day.

What do you and your colleagues wear right now? Hokas. like, go in a hospital. you and, well, I mean, I don’t wish it on anyone, but if you end up finding yourself in a hospital, look at what people are wearing. And that’s the same in schools. Teachers, like, people wear hokas all day. And so why not one day switch it up and put on some loafers if that goes better with your outfit? And you have the bottom that’s that same comfortable, cushy, Clifton feeling.

Michael Doyle (11:16)
Yeah.

Katelyn Tocci (11:17)
Yeah, we’re in hell, guys.

Teachers. Yep.

Alex Cyr (11:43)
No one really says you have to run in those. I think the sin is for people to accept these as an alternative type of running footwear and then wear them in marathon. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s not even made for that.

Michael Doyle (11:57)
I would hope not. I would hope that the good people at Hoka were like, we’re just putting this out there so that the executive class can just be a touch more comfortable in the boardroom. This does remind me of like their Cole Hawn many years ago had a partnership with Nike where they did this like this nice, classy, casual, but dressy series of loafers. And they had the lunar lawn.

Katelyn Tocci (12:09)
You

Michael Doyle (12:24)
soul, I believe was called lunar lawn, which is the mid soul technology that Nike had at the time. And they would do it in these kind of like crazy colors like the like a vibrant orange or like neon yellow or whatever. And it looked pretty slick. I actually had a pair. But no one in their right mind would run in these things. But I just I feel like we’re in this moment right now where you could you know that there’s like a couple of dozen.

dudes. It’s always dudes. Why is it always dudes that are just like, yeah, New York, New York this year. I’ve got an entry. I’m going speed loafer. I’m going to set the speed loafer world record. Anyway, man, hopefully we never see the speed loafer again in this space. But I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll be doing another segment on the loafer world record come this spring or fall. OK, guys, let’s take a quick break.

Katelyn Tocci (12:57)
This is a good idea.

Michael Doyle (13:22)
And then we’ll get to our main topic of the day. We’re to bring in Thomas. I’m to talk all about his super shoe dilemma. Be right back.

Main Topic of the Day: Super Shoes Don’t Make You Faster, It Turns Out

Michael Doyle (00:00)
All right. And we’re back and we are joined today by the Marathon Handbook founder, Thomas Watson, his first foray into podcasting with the three of us clowns. And the reason why we have pulled you, Thomas, into the chat is because you started writing a column, an excellent weekly column. And if you’re listening and you’ve not followed this column, you should definitely. And this week’s

entry is all about a conundrum that you face regarding super shoes. So I guess the analogy for you, Thomas, would be Alex’s analogy was what was it, Alex? It was

Alex Cyr (00:39)
So Thomas is kind of like one of these guys who went into the backwoods in the United States on a like six week long camping trip before COVID. And then by mid April, they came out and rejoined society to come to a completely different world, not knowing what had happened or why everyone had changed.

Michael Doyle (01:01)
And you experience this with super shoes. And Caitlin is like, well, I’ve got a much less controversial, much sort of more like idyllic version of that, which is. Yeah.

Thomas Watson (01:02)
Okay.

Katelyn Tocci (01:03)
my god

Thomas Watson (01:10)
Okay, let’s hear Caitlyn’s.

Katelyn Tocci (01:11)
Right. Okay,

okay. Mine was being the Massachusetts girl. Okay. So for those of who are familiar with Henry David Thoreau, okay, famous American author, went out to Walden Pond, right? And he went out and lived in a cabin for a long period of time to live the simple life, to live alone and to live the simple life. And he wrote a book called Walden. And I see Thomas as with this point of view with his super shoe column.

Right, so Henry David Thoreau. Yeah.

Thomas Watson (01:43)
Caitlin, I prefer that one. And Caitlin’s actually been to my house, which kind of is in the woods. And she knows that

I just go running around the woods every day. So yeah, I prefer her take so far than the kind of Colorado anti-vaxxer take. But let’s see where this goes.

Michael Doyle (02:00)
So tell us a little bit about this. you you’ve written, I guess the title of the piece is. Super shoes don’t actually make you faster, it turns out, which is a provocative title. But like, let’s unpack a little bit what inspired you to take on the idea that perhaps super shoes don’t actually make you faster. And what do mean by that?

Thomas Watson (02:19)
Yeah, well the subheading is something like, as soon as you take them off, you’re the same speed you always were, something like that. so you know, you guys have been doing a lot of the news coverage, and specifically we were talking about the corner months, half marathon, new American record, which was set nine, 10 days ago now. And what I pay attention to and what a lot of people like to see is this little asterisk, which is theโ€ฆ

Michael Doyle (02:24)
Mm.

Thomas Watson (02:44)
He broke, I think it’s a 14 year record that was held by Ryan Hall. But the record was broken wearing super shoes and Ryan Hall didn’t wear super shoes. And actually the little nugget that got me thinking about this piece was, hmm, I wonder what Ryan Hall thinks of all this. So he’s been the proud holder of this record. It’s now been broken. He’s moved on other things.

But as far as I know, he hasn’t said anything publicly about this. He hasn’t come out and been like, I want to initiate the non-carbon standards or something like that. So his record somehow gets held. But I thought it’s an interesting discussion. And yeah, you guys talked about my background. So I was more of a competitive runner, always on the recreational end, basically until COVID.

And the background there is we went and had three kids. Our first kid was born in May 2020. And just now I’m circling the idea of getting back into competitive half marathons and marathons, again, at a recreational level. And this isn’t obviously a novel observation that the world has changed in the last five to 10 years in terms of running and running shoes. But I do think there’s this discussion still to be had as super shoes become more and more

prevalent and we were all at TRE and every brand I would say apart from maybe a couple of the sort of bear shoe brands has some form of super shoe out there. I think it’s an interesting discussion not to forget the impact that super shoes is having on the running world both in terms of the elite and the sub elites and how I guess the idea there would be how innovation changes a space.

And then more at recreational level, all recreational runners really have a choice they can make between super shoes and non-super shoes. And I just think it’s an interesting discussion whether or not you make that choice.

Michael Doyle (04:40)
Feel like I don’t have a choice, to be honest with you. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I edited this piece. You and I worked pretty closely on it and had a little back and forth about it. And it got me thinking about this a lot because first of all, my marathon personal best is pre-Super Shoe, which could like, it’s like a little bit of a flex. It’s like, well, if only I had Super Shoes on it would be four minutes faster than that. But then also I’m very conflicted myself personally about

about wearing the shoes. And I definitely was when they were first introduced. Alex, have you you’ve only been running road races in super shoes. You’ve never run a road race, not in super shoes. Correct. Or is that not true? Because you’ve been running you ran when you were younger as well.

Alex Cyr (05:25)
Yeah, I had a little road career before Super Shoe was like 2015, 2016. And then my thing is I was injured for while Thomas was family planning, I was on the shelf with patellar tendonitis. And so when I came back, I quickly got back to form and tied my old personal bests, even though I’d been out for most of two years. So I’ve seen the pre and the after. And it clearly didn’t take me as much work to get

to my best times once the super shoes were out.

Michael Doyle (05:57)
And Caitlin, you are a relatively recent super shoe adherent, right? Like we’ve talked in the pod before that I think your marathon last year was the first time you ever wore super shoes in a race. Is that correct?

Katelyn Tocci (06:11)
Yeah, exactly. And I think that, and I feel the same way that Alex does because my previous marathon record from a couple of years back and then running in super shoes for the first time last year, I shaved eight minutes off my time. And so I feel like maybe I would have been able to improve who knows four or five minutes, but maybe not the entire eight minutes. So I do feel as well, is I probably got a little boost.

from wearing super shoes and I didn’t train a lot in those super shoes. I only wore them, I got them maybe about a month before the marathon and I wore them for a couple long runs and then just the race. So it wasn’t something that I saw previously to the marathon. I just got to the marathon and I was like, wow, eight minutes. I felt like that was a lot of time. Maybe it wouldn’t, who knows? It would have been such a large gap if I had not worn super shoes. I don’t know.

Michael Doyle (07:00)
Thomas, you have of course not been entirely living in complete hermetic isolation from the super shoe era. You do have a pair. I’m curious to know, because it was not mentioned in the piece, what shoe it is. And you said you’ve trained in them and you’re intrigued by the upside of being able to train in a super shoe. And it’s because of its incredibly fat, you know, 40 mil stack height, super critical foam.

It allows you to maybe do like a long run and then recover pretty quickly compared to to the old days. What sure you have you run in and like. Do you feel a huge difference? mean, I know I do. I feel that they’re like totally I feel like they’re totally cheating.

Thomas Watson (07:43)
Yeah, it’s the Saucony Endorphin Elite. I think it’s the first model. Feels like I’m cheating. It feels like, to be honest, I haven’t used it enough that I’m used to running in them. So it feels weird, like I’m over striding and then my calves kind of ache a bit. But listen, I’m not anti-supershoe at all. I think that’s maybe what the knee-jerk reaction to the piece might be. I find them very interesting.

As you and I discussed, Michael, I think it’s more of a genie out the bottle scenario. And you could almost make the same analogy with AI, which is like it or not, AI is now here and people can use it to boost their productivity or do some work for them. The interesting question mark for me is whether you’re acknowledging you’re using this performance enhancer because, you know, going back to the old days of pre, not pre COVID, preโ€ฆ

Michael Doyle (08:18)
Mmm.

Thomas Watson (08:38)
Super shoes. Shoes never made a hugeโ€ฆ Shoes did make a difference, but the performance gains weren’t such a big deal. I remember running marathons in the UK 15 years ago and it was a mixed bag of shoes people were wearing. A lot of amateur runners would have seen the shoes almost as an afterthought. But nowโ€ฆ And I get there’s been innovation before in terms of both shoeโ€ฆ

Michael Doyle (08:39)
Yeah

Thomas Watson (09:05)
performance ability and nutrition and how we train things have gradually got better but there was a leap with the the release and the widespread wide spread release of super shoes that changes the game so then the question becomes the genie’s out the bug you can use this stuff there’s nothing wrong with using this stuff I think my my TLDR is just don’t lie yourself if you’re using this stuff to get faster put a little asterix onto this travel post or the

the Instagram posts that says, PR with Super Shoes.

Katelyn Tocci (09:37)
You know, Tom, as it reminds me of something that I was thinking about in Costa Rica and I’m sure in all countries, you have like your national list of yearly records for the country, right? The national records, the national marathon records. And we have one here that comes out and gets updated after all the big marathons or after someone gets on the list and it’s the top 20. And on that top 20 list, there are asterisks next to the names that where someone has run like a revel marathon or they’ve run a marathon where there’s more.

net loss than there is a net gain. And so it’s kind of like a, it’s a nice little punch in the stomach. Like you got your PR, but you cheated because you ran more downhill than up-tail. Or I don’t know. I guess that’s, you know, that’s the way that I, that I see it because I ran a rebel marathon and an asterisk was next to my name and they were like, yeah, you’re here, but you really shouldn’t be here. Cause your PR doesn’t mean that much. And I was like, but it does to me. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

Alex Cyr (10:26)
Mm-mm.

Michael Doyle (10:26)
That

Thomas Watson (10:26)
Some stickler

in Costa Rica is keeping you right. I like it.

Michael Doyle (10:31)
It’s actually a really interesting thing to dig into is world athletics. The governing, the international governing body of running has a list of like, you know, the all time list for the marathon. And for one, they do actually, they don’t include courses like Boston, which is not, it’s point to point instead of, instead of kind of going back on itself to make it even with, you know, wind and whatever. And it’s also quite a net downhill as well. So they don’t.

count courses like that. so for record eligible courses, the history of the marathon, the last pre-Super Shoe world record on the men’s side was a 202.57 by Dennis Kmeto in 2014 in Berlin. And that’s now the 18th fastest marathon in history. So 17 marathons have been run that are faster than that last

pre-Super shoe world record. think that’s pretty damning. And on the women’s side, it’s even worse. It’s I think three of the times or four of the times under the top 50 are pre-Super shoe. And three of those four times are held by Paula Radcliffe, the other Mary being Mary Katani right at the end of the pre-Super shoe era in 2016. And she was certainly not wearing super shoes. She was wearing those little like

Adidas adios loafers that I that I love and miss. Yeah. I mean, when you look at the statistics, it’s pretty overwhelming. I think a really interesting thing to to contemplate and a really tough thing to contemplate as a recreational runner is like if you’re going after like a Boston qualifier or certainly if you’re going after one of those big round times like sub four or sub three in the marathon. Like the truth is, if we’re just sticking with the

concept that it’s a 4 % time discount, right? Like a 259.59 is a 307.29 in the pre-Super shoe era, right? So it’s like a seven and change. And you have to run like a two, I think it’s a 252 something to make it the non-Super shoe equivalent, which is, it’s a tough pill to swallow for a lot of people, right? So yeah, I don’t.

Alex Cyr (12:43)
Which just

Sorry, which just proves that everyone is wearing super shoes, right? The fact that the Boston Marathon standards have gone way down just proves that those are the new rules of the game. I think like I was reading Thomas’s line about making the decision of whether or not to be a super shoe athlete and what came to mind is like I don’t think I met someone who decided not to be one.

Michael Doyle (12:49)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm. wow. Yeah, that’s I mean that’s sort of at the Yeah,

Alex Cyr (13:10)
Except for for except for Thomas, who’s waving in the screen.

Katelyn Tocci (13:12)
Except for Thomas.

Thomas Watson (13:13)
I haven’t raced, I haven’t raced a non-super shoe race. Well, I did in 2022, I did a half marathon, but yeah. I wouldn’t consider myself somebody that would be a racer so you can ignore me.

Michael Doyle (13:25)
No, but that’s I think even for like a recreational runner, it’s I mean, it would be absolutely absurd and like, you know, PR suicide for like a sub elite runner like Alex, for example. You know, you’re like at the bleeding edge at the front of the court, at the front of the start line and a lot of races and like you just can’t not wear a super shoe.

Right? Like Alex, what would it take for you to not wear a super shoe? Like some sort of weird dare?

Alex Cyr (13:55)
Yeah, some sort of, I just, I just wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. I’m too close to, but here’s the thing. Okay. I’m too close to hitting certain times that would let me do things that I really want to do. For example, getting into the actual elite a section of a major race. I’m close to that, but that’s no better or worse or different that someone who’s trying to get that Boston marathon standard, right? Everybody has that like thing they want to do.

Michael Doyle (14:20)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Alex Cyr (14:24)
even if it’s just a personal goal. And so I struggle to think of the person who wouldn’t want to wear super shoes. But, and this is where I’m more sympathetic to you, Thomas, because I think you have a pretty good grasp of what it is that you don’t want to tell yourself. You don’t want to be cheating to yourself. When it’s a personal goal, it comes down to how you feel about your own result. And you said this earlier and you say this in the piece, but

I think the mass delusion with super shoes is not, they faster or are they not? And therefore that’s why I should change. I think you should change your title, Thomas. I don’t think it should be, they don’t make you faster because they do make you faster. The thing is they don’t make you fitter and the delusion is thinking that they do. And so if you are comparing your time right now to your time 10 years ago and are telling yourself, well, I’m a minute faster. I’m two minutes faster. Well, then you’re, you are cheating yourself.

I, when I saw your title, I got nervous that I would have to debate, to debate the actual benefits of Super Shoes and I was hoping, and I didn’t think you would do this, and I was hoping you were not gonna hit me with it’s all in your head because I was ready to come guns blazing. It’s, it’s such, it’s such a game changer, but.

Thomas Watson (15:38)
Ha ha ha.

I would love to have convinced you that it’s all in your head. So then you go out your next race with a pair of non-carbon shoes.

Alex Cyr (15:48)
I think I would have had a breakdown.

I think I would have had a breakdown. Yeah. But.

Katelyn Tocci (15:49)
Ha ha!

Michael Doyle (15:53)
mean, it’s

a fascinating like thought experiment, right, especially for someone like yourself, Alex or Caitlin, you know, chasing sub three hours in Boston, myself trying to hold on to not just absolutely riding off into the sunset with the marathon in terms of times. It’s, it’s like, we’ve all made a Faustian pact with Nike and Adidas and ASICs and whomever else like, you just can’t do it. You can’t not

But and and Thomas, you’re in like this gloriously like idyllic and perhaps naive is not the right word because you fully know what what’s in front of you. But like it’s I find it very tough. Do know what you’re going to do? Like, obviously, you’re going to run again. You’re going to run a marathon, a half marathon, something again. You’re going to want to try to train up to get fit. And once you’re fit,

There’s we all have goals. I’m sure you’ve got some goals in mind. If you’re close to those goals, what do you do?

Thomas Watson (16:49)
You know, I get a lot of, maybe it’s just my contrarian nature, but I would get a lot of, I would feel pretty good about telling people I run a certain race time and they would kind of think in their head, that guy’s okay, but he’s not that fast. But I know I didn’t do it in super shoes. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Michael Doyle (17:08)
No, you’re like, but oh, it’s like the

Katelyn Tocci (17:09)
Yeah.

Michael Doyle (17:12)
reverse asterisk.

You’re like, you know, I ran a 303, but.

Thomas Watson (17:17)
And I’ll maybe just slip it

in five minutes later once they’ve already judged me as a slow guy. But no, you guys bring up a really good point which I hadn’t thought of which is if I want to run Boston and then it’s like I’ll need a pretty good Boston qualifier and if I didn’t run in super shoes I need to be eight minutes faster than everybody else basically if it’s at my level. So

Katelyn Tocci (17:29)
huh.

Michael Doyle (17:39)
which is a

huge amount.

Katelyn Tocci (17:41)
Yeah. It’s like, love it, Thomas, because it’s like a refreshing take on the authenticity of the sport, right? You want to like bring it back down into before using kind of these advantages and these technologies. So it’s a really nice way of looking at it. And when I read your piece, I kind of took it thinking of trail running. Like when you go out on the trails, you just, you you run a lot of trail running. You’re an ultra runner as well, like I am. And so it’s just like, you’re free. You’re not looking at pace. You’re basically not even using your watch.

to know what’s going on if it’s not, you for a map. I mean, why would you be looking at a pace when you’re going up a 16 % grade incline, you know, for what? And so I think it kind of just brought me back to thinking, okay, just kind of making everything a little bit simpler, going back to our Thoreau analogy.

Alex Cyr (18:23)
What I got from it is that to be honest with yourself, you need to think about running times over time as like money with inflation. And it’s really tough to do that because the cool part about running is that it’s meant to be objective, right? Like a 210 marathon 50 years ago should be a 210 marathon now. You got to do away with the idea as nice as it is because time’s in flight.

Michael Doyle (18:36)
Hmm.

Alex Cyr (18:52)
overtime. Like, think of Abebe Bikila’s 1960 Olympic victory in Rome where he ran, think, 215. I’m on the top of my head here, but I know for a fact he ran it with no shoes. A 215 these days? It’s pretty good, but I have a couple friends who run that and they’re not Olympians, you know? I think I maybe could take a crack at that one day. I’m not gonna do it shoeless and I won’t do it at the Olympics either.

Michael Doyle (19:16)
I was gonna say but ask those guys to

take their shoes off. Exactly. Yeah.

Alex Cyr (19:20)
and then

they don’t do it. So you got to think of it as an inflation kind of thing.

Michael Doyle (19:24)
And I think, Thomas, really kind of as you’re saying, Caitlin, like at the core of all of this. And I think a real a real problem that I face with this is somebody who’s sort of straddled the SuperShoe era. And I will say right now I am pro SuperShoe because I find technology fascinating. I find what they’ve done to the sport and the industry, industry fascinating. It’s like Nike injected a huge amount of interest and excitement.

into the sport in a time where it felt like it was waning in 2016, 2017. But I think kind of the core thesis here, if correct me if I’m wrong here, Thomas, is that like, especially when you take the marathon, the marathon is supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be this ultimate challenge. It’s you against yourself in both training and in the moment of performance. And it feels like what you’re implying here, correct me if I’m wrong.

is that like the super shoe kind of takes the edge off of that challenge. Maybe.

Thomas Watson (20:26)
think that’s fair to say. I thinkโ€ฆ

Yeah, I like people who I see judge themselves by an inner scorecard. And in a marathon, at least the marathons pre-Super shoe, your finishing time was a result of all the effort you put in on training and race day. And it was came down, every second was a second hard won. And now, as I said in the piece, for $300 and nothing extra, no extra effort, you can cut minutes off that time.

Which is fine, it’s something that’s out there, it’s something we all use, it’s something that’s available to us. I just think, remember your inner scorecard and don’t forget that you’re using performance enhancing technology. I think that’s the moral of the piece.

Michael Doyle (21:11)
Well, we should say that Thomas doesn’t even know this yet. I’ve got working in the background here. we’ve got these, various calculators on our site for pace for marathon times. We’re going to add one that, adds or subtracts 4 % from your time so that you can know the truth in the future. And we’ll put a link to the show notes in that one. When we’ve got, we’ve got one of our, our teammates Felix working on that one and, Thomas’s piece.

which is entitled Super Shoes Do Not Make You Faster, turns out, will be linked in our show notes. It will be live by the time this podcast goes out on Thursday on Thursday morning. We’re recording on Tuesday morning, so it will be live by the time you are listening and watching us. Mr. Watson, thank you for joining us. You’ve got to come back more often.

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