When should you wear racing flats?
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Version 0 of 1. Marathon season is looming and you may have noticed some of the runners around you getting more and more obsessed with marathon-paced efforts, stocking up on energy gels and furiously entering and re-entering numbers into online race-time predictors. You may even be one of those runners. I am. I’m running the London marathon in April. I’ve set myself a time goal and I’m doing everything in my power to beat it. I’ve even employed a coach – the endlessly patient Thomas Craggs – to guide me through the rigours of training. In my four previous marathons, I’ve never quite got my shoes right. Top elite athletes run marathons in racing flats, which are lighter than normal training shoes. This suits me as I generally prefer the lightest shoes I can get away with, but in the past I think I’ve gone too far. This is partly because I’m one of those who jumped on the Born to Run wagon and trundled off into the land of minimal running. I like to feel the ground under my feet; I aspire to run with the elegance and power of a Kenyan marathon champion. Big, clunky shoes don’t help with this. But I also like lighter shoes because they are faster. You don’t need to be a sports scientist to work that out. If you’re running 26.2 miles, it’s going to be more effort with heavy weights tied to your feet. In an endlessly quoted study from the 1980s, former Nike coach Jack Daniels found that adding 100g to a shoe increased the aerobic demand of running by 1%. This, he said, equated to around one minute during a marathon. To some people, that may not seem much, but what if I lost 100g off each foot? What about 200g? For those of us looking for every gain we can find, the question becomes: how low can I go? In my last marathon, I wore possibly the lightest shoes on the market, the New Balance RC5000. They weigh 90g. Holding them with your eyes closed, it feels like you have nothing in your hands. I felt great at the start, but by mile 18, my legs were aching so much I was reduced to walking. Of course, this could be because I hadn’t done enough training, and had misjudged my pace and started off too fast. But maybe the shoes were just too thin-soled. To be fair to New Balance, they would never advise running a marathon in these shoes, which are designed for much shorter races. For 10K, they are still my favourite, which is why I considered them for the marathon. So, it is not simply a matter of finding the lightest pair of shoes you can and flying off with the Kenyans at the front. In his original study, Daniels found that the gains from wearing lighter shoes were lost if the shoes became too light, as the legs were then absorbing too much of the impact, which was in turn costing energy. Tom Payn, an elite marathon runner with a best time of 2hr 17min, told me some of the top athletes shun racing flats altogether when running marathons and race instead in heavily cushioned training shoes for this very reason. Racing shoes are essentially a trade-off between lightness and cushioning, and where you sit on the scale will depend on many factors, such as your speed, weight, form, strength, foot shape and personal preference. Which makes choosing a pair tricky. Matthew Fitzpatrick, from the College of Podiatry, works as the podiatry clinical lead for the London Marathon. He agrees it is a fine balancing act. “Cushioning not only protects your feet,” he says, “but also the rest of the chain, as the shock from the impact of each stride shoots up your leg. However, cushioning also absorbs energy, making you work harder to maintain your speed, so you don’t want too much cushioning. “I know it’s a cop out,” he adds, “But a lot of finding the right shoe is trial and error.” Of course, we can’t borrow every shoe to test them out, but one trick Fitzpatrick suggests is trying your shoes on in a running shop in the afternoon, when your feet have swollen slightly from walking around in the day. During a marathon, your feet will expand and so tight shoes can cause problems. Fitzpatrick even suggests going for a run before trying your shoes out. In order to try on some racing flats myself, and to garner some more expert advice, I head to the Running Works shop in London. The first thing they do is look at my feet. I have good arches, I’m told, which is ideal if I’m planning to wear a lighter pair of shoes. If I ran flat-footed, Fitzpatrick says, I’d really need a shoe with more functional support. Next, they get me to run on a treadmill, watch me, and quiz me about how fast I run. My form, my size and my speed are all factors affecting which shoe I should wear. The lighter a runner, the less force is crashing into the ground as they run, so the less requirement for cushioning. But it’s not only about weight. If my body’s core is strong, and can hold good form without buckling, then again, cushioning is less of an issue. The shop’s experts tells me they usually advise people who will be running for more than around 3hr 15min to go for a shoe with more cushioning, mainly because they will be on their feet longer, pounding the ground, all the time sending shockwaves through their feet and up their legs. Luckily, I pass all their lightness and form tests, and they end up recommending me a lightweight racing shoe for the marathon, just as I had hoped. All I need to do now is take them out for a few training runs to get used to them before the big day. A few models tested Adidas Adios Boost 2 (235g) These are the shoes Dennis Kimetto wore when he broke the world marathon record last year. So they come with some serious endorsement. Yet I struggled with them initially. Perhaps I was expecting too much from all the hype surrounding their Boost technology, but I found the soles a bit hard and, well, not very bouncy. However, somehow I kept returning to them. They were light enough to feel fast, yet they also felt sturdy and protective. When it came to pick a shoe for my half marathon at the end of all my testing, these were the ones I chose. I can’t say they’re definitely my favourite, but they’re a safe pair of hands (or feet). Altra One2 (187g) As a minimalist runner at heart, these appealed to me as soon as I saw them. They offered something different from most of the narrow, arrow-like shoes on the market. “They look like someone has drawn around a foot,” another runner said to me. Which is precisely the point. Unlike all the other shoes I looked at, these are actually foot-shaped. This allows your toes to splay out naturally as your foot lands, giving you better stability and feel for the ground. This, combined with the zero-drop heel, creates what they like to call a “natural ride”, and encourages good form – although don’t be fooled into thinking they will magically fix bad form. I liked these shoes a lot. The soles were soft, which gives the impression you’re gliding along silently. They’re minimal shoes for people who need a bit more cushioning, which is probably me right now – especially over a marathon. Nike Zoom Streak 5 (189g) These were one of the lightest shoes I tested (almost as light as the minimal Altras) and they felt whizzy right from the first step. Most of the weight is trimmed from the upper part of the shoe, which feels paper-thin and is highly breathable. Although they’re narrow, the lightweight upper means there’s still lots of room in them, particularly compared with the Adidas Boost, which is a much more snug fit. Mizuno Wave Hitogami 2 (224g) These shoes were a cosy-fitting, solid build not unlike the Adidas Boost. Although slightly lighter than the Boost, they felt more cushioned. I felt like my feet were in a little (light) cocoon, being protected from the ground, compared with some of the other shoes. This may be a good or bad thing depending on your preference. Asics 33-DFA (246g) These were the heaviest shoes I tested, but still definitely light enough for speed sessions or races. They feel nicely close to the ground, and are slightly wider than most of the other shoes, with plenty of room for your toes to wriggle and splay. The uppers weren’t as breathable as some of the other shoes, though, and I felt my feet getting quite hot on my faster runs. |