Joe Humphreys

It's not so much about them.

I mean, I agree with your introduction there, Parkrun.

It's an inclusive event.

It's not meant to be designed to be a competitive event.

So the piece was more, it's more of the philosophical theme.

I do a column once a week on a philosophical matter, unthinkable column.

And it was really looking at how really technological innovation in sport changes sport by its very nature or changes in activity.

You might be aware that, I'm sure listeners are aware that these carbon fibre shoes came into

kind of public attention due to the athletes and Sebastian Saue who won the London Marathon in under two hours breaking that record.

But a few years ago, these shoes were kind of regarded in athletics as cheating.

I mean, a lot of runners and previous record holders said it's akin to what they call technological doping in sport.

You're effectively getting an advantage over other people doing the activity, doing the competition by reducing the amount of effort you have to put in as you're going along.

So, and it's crept in, I suppose, really kind of the bigger issue is not so much, I'm not out to condemn anyone who wants to buy these shoes.

You want to spend 500 euros on the Adidas Adizeros or the 300 euros on the Nike Alpha Flies, which are doing well.

I mean, there are cheaper models of these carbon fibre shoes as well you can get.

But if people want to do it, that's fine.

But it's really just the question of how an innovation like this, and it's a commercially driven innovation,

thing from the shoe companies have developed that it's become normalised and you do see them now being used, you know, in park runs, in fun runs, in mini marathons.

And it becomes almost a must have element within competition.

And this is why it's called a sort of a technological doping is that there's compulsion on other people to adopt the technology.