Adidas has been doing this (returning energy) with their Boost tech for quite a while. Should those shoes be banned? Should track spikes be banned, since they give an insane mechanical advantage vs non-spikes? If the rule is completely subjective it is not a very good rule. Nike has a huge a incentive to make this shoes available to all, which they will do, so availability is not really an argument against them (I realize that’s not your gripe).
Let’s not kid ourselves, distance races are still all (99%) about the runner. You aren’t going to strap these shoes on and challenge Kipchoge in a marathon. You still have to put in an absolutely absurd amount of training time to compete. These shoes do not make you fit. For easy math, if you run a marathon in 2 hours and 5 minutes, the VaporFlys. may drop you down to 2 hours. Rallying against this just seems silly.
And shoes of any type give all sorts of advantages that have “improved” running relative to how it was at the dawn of time: stability, grip, cushioning, warmth/cooling depending on conditions, and now a small kinetic energy return. Why is the last one the only one to go?
I don't have a good answer but I feel strongly there is a difference of kind here, not just degree. But I would say as far as the 'easy math', people at that level train years to drop 30 seconds. So I think you're being a bit too flippant about the 5 minutes.
And yes I won't challenge Kipchoge but a lot of runners who were quite a bit worse than me are now running similar times to me, using the vaporflys. There is a competition/fairness issue at the sub-elite as well as elite levels.
But anyway I feel that storing and releasing kinetic energy is different than stability, grip, cushioning, temperature control. By the way I don't care if people train in things like Vaporflys just like I don't care if they train on a bicycle. But this is all just my opinion.
All rubber soled shoes store and release energy. It is physically impossible to build a perfect energy damper. So the question is: how much should be allowed to preserve the sport and how do authorities enforce it?
Let’s not kid ourselves, distance races are still all (99%) about the runner. You aren’t going to strap these shoes on and challenge Kipchoge in a marathon. You still have to put in an absolutely absurd amount of training time to compete. These shoes do not make you fit. For easy math, if you run a marathon in 2 hours and 5 minutes, the VaporFlys. may drop you down to 2 hours. Rallying against this just seems silly.
And shoes of any type give all sorts of advantages that have “improved” running relative to how it was at the dawn of time: stability, grip, cushioning, warmth/cooling depending on conditions, and now a small kinetic energy return. Why is the last one the only one to go?