Exploring the performance benefits of the shoe that went sub-2
Leading running economy researcher Dr. Shalaya Kipp breaks down the physiological benefits of the record-breaking adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3
Every sport has had its watershed moment when a new technology upends the landscape and redefines what’s possible. Baseball had torpedo bats, swimming the Lazer swimsuits, road cycling the introduction of aerodynamic carbon frames and in running we are living through an era defined by what were first, and best, described as “super shoes.”
For the last decade, the shoe industry has gone into overdrive to create shoes capable of blending impossible lightness with unbelievable energy return. The holy grail sought by shoe designers in this footwear arms race: crafting the pair of shoes that would propel the first man in history to a sub 2-hour marathon performance.
As of Sunday, we are now officially living in the new sub-2 era, as not one, but two men, Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe and Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha, tore down the two-hour marathon barrier at last weekend’s London Marathon.
While every factor imaginable aligned perfectly for these two men to take the sport somewhere no one has gone before, one factor in particular has drawn the lion’s share of attention: the shoes. Both Sawe and Kejelcha ran in the just-released adidas Adios Pro Evo 3, a shoe touted as the lightest, fastest super shoe ever created.
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This week on The Shakeout Podcast we’re diving into what makes these super shoes so super, and what physiological factors they impact that have helped runners achieve times long-thought impossible. To make sense of it all is Olympian and Mayo Clinic exercise physiologist Dr. Shalaya Kipp, a leading thinker in the science of shoe innovation. As one of the first researchers to quantify the running economy-improving benefits of super shoes, Shalaya reveals to us what specific factors are at play in these record-breaking shoes, how our bodies respond to these factors over the marathon distance and why runners of lesser ability might actually benefit the most from this new era of shoe tech.
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