Running is often lauded as the simplest sport....left, right, left repeat.
Those of us who are passionate about it know it's far from that simple, and making improvements over years takes increasing levels of commitment and dedication.
Lately the sport has become a battle ground. Footwear War is raging with no sign of a truce.
Last week World Athletics announced its new guidelines to shoe design, limiting stack height and carbon plate application. It seemed like an amnesty for the Vaporfly Next% and people assumed Nike's new shoe, the Alphafly would be banned as a result of the new guidelines.
A line was being drawn in the sand.
Some were satisfied, many were cynical and critical of the fact the shoes that have taken over road races of late were in effect being green lit by World Athletics. The anti-vaporfly camp claimed the shoes had broken running. This is a big claim considering we live in an era where athletes often get awarded medals years after an event because those ahead of them on race day were later found to be drug cheats. One of my first memories of being uninspired by running was watching Sonia O'Sullivan losing out on medals to a team of State sponsored drug cheats. I remember thinking at the time, if I had kids with athletic talent would I encourage them to dedicate themselves to a sport that seems devoid of honesty and fairness? Athletics being broken is a far more complex issue than the availability of a certain shoe.
Fast forward to this week and Nike releases the first images of the soon to be released legal Alphafly, cue further outrage and claims of the sport being destroyed. So what should have happened and where do we go from here?
Firstly, the shoes have been around since 2016; the technological applications they were using, like carbon plates and special foam are nothing new. Shoe companies have been using them and making claims about their advantages to runners for years; the difference with Nike and Vaporflys is they used the technology and it worked.
The tumbling of world records and ubiquity of attention grabbing, garish coloured shoes as lead packs jostle for position at the business end of races from 5ks to marathons the world over has been a publicity dream for Nike. If World Athletics had raised a flag at any of the components of the Vaporflys, Nike would simply have pointed to previous uses of the technology by other shoe manufacturers. Carbon plates have been used by Hoka and New Balance before, Adidas Boost foam was being advertised strongly to runners in the past, and thick stack heights have been the signature for Hoka shoes since their inception. Even the air capsules in the new Alphaflys has been used before; I had a pair of Nike Air in my younger days that I believed would get me closer to Michael Jordan in terms of my basketball ability......they didn't.
Considering all this, how could a shoe that's been around for four years - a shoe that included widely utilised technology - have been banned? We are also in an Olympic year, qualifying times have been met and celebrated, banning the shoes would have meant striking out most of the times over the last few years.
To me the horse has bolted.
The custodians of the sports, the governing bodies, didn't put guidelines and controls in place at a time when effective parameters could have meant a level playing field for both athlete and manufactures. The sport has gone down the road of fixating on numbers on the finishing clock.
The Nike and INEOS breaking 2 projects with Eliud Kipchoge got people talking, both runners and non-runners. I know people with zero interest in running and athletics who sat up and took notice of those two elaborate time trials. But now our sport has to navigate a way out of the situation it finds itself in, but how?
I don't have a definitive answer. Perhaps the introduction of untimed races would help. It seems strange I know, but getting rid of the time element brings it back to its roots- get the best in the world to a start line and let them race.
Yes, questions will still be asked about who is wearing what shoe, but over the coming months other sports brands will have comparable footwear available. In time people will forget the controversy; ultimately the inability to turn back the clock on this and introduce retrospective limitations on how sports companies can effectively have such a big say in how our sport developed, leaves no alternative but to do exactly what they did; draw a line of limitation and give things time to settle down.
Or perhaps there is nothing for it but pressing a hard reset, bring in stringent new laws on stack height to limit the space in which companies have to fit 'stuff' to give energy return. This is a hard road and would need very strong leadership from the top. And I'm not sure that exists in a world of corporate sponsorship and funding.
The 4 year evolution of an overnight scandal.
From my own perspective, that of a recreational runner who has committed to training hard and adjusting lifestyle to compliment that training - to do everything possible to allow myself to find the extra percent I need to achieve my goal of running a sub three hour marathon - it means something different.
I'm not trying to qualify for Olympics or finish on any podium. My goals are my own. It does beg the question of why? Why are arbitrary numbers so important?
Nike Breaking 2....Me Breaking 3?
The question has been running through my head over the last while, and I still don't have an answer. To recreational runners, personal bests are our Olympic qualifiers. Many of us don't race anybody but ourselves.
The next question is whether using footwear technology as a means of improvement is acceptable?
I don't hang on a pair of runners my hopes on achieving my goals. I train hard, give up on nights out, focus on diet, hydration and rest and along with everything else I can to give me my best chance of hitting my goal.
I have owned each version of the Vaporflys from my first pair in 2017 up to the Next% last year, I've never PB'ed in them but I like racing in them because they are light and I feel my legs are less battered after racing in them. Will I buy the next Alphafly version? Probably, but in terms of finding the X percent I need to go sub 3 I believe there are more gains to be made from proper training, recovery and getting the right mentality than there are from a pair of shoes.
Mentality, when it comes to Vaporflys is something that is completely overlooked. Racing is hard; being mentally stronger than an opponent is difficult.
I do wonder if the hype surrounding Vaporflys feeds positively into the mentality of competitors who pull on a pair. Lacing up a pair of brightly coloured racing shoes is akin to slipping on a superhero costume for a child. It makes you feel different. In a sport where having an edge psychologically can be the difference between winning and losing, Supershoes create positivity.
I won't go as far as to call it a placebo effect but there is some element there, especially for non elites who I feel are more likely to gain a mental edge through believing they have an advantage. Then there is the negative psychology for the non-Vaporfly wearing competitor when they race. Is it possible they feel the competitors they are racing against have an advantage before the gun goes off as they look around at the starting line? That psychology could be quite destructive during a race when the competition heats up.
It's a shame our sport has found itself in this position. Lets hope it finds a way out.
In the meantime I'm off to log some miles.
Training trumps complaining.
running!
