Olly Patrick

Yeah, it's their fault.

It is a great quandary.

I'm very kind that you put me as a moral arbitrator in this scenario.

I think, you know, these shoes are undoubtedly enabling better performance.

So the shoes themselves are genius.

And sort of this all came around around the time Chip Chogia was trying to run the sub two and they were creating ever more intelligent shoes, which try to enhance the natural biology of the foot.

So they added this carbon plate, which if you think of the bottom of your foot held together by that plantar fascia, which is sort of keeps the structure fascia like connective tissue, and it holds your foot in that dome.

effectively when your foot compresses that sort of springs back a bit like a spring it goes down and releases energy back up and these shoes sort of mimicked part of that process by creating a carbon plate that would absorb your energy but return it in abundance and they sort of mirror the role of the plantar fascia and then the role of the Achilles so increasingly you have this sort of high stack at the back and your Achilles tendon running down the back of your calf connecting your calf muscle to your foot if you like is effectively a spring

but they're enhancing its spring-like capability.

So this sort of popped up and it raises such an interesting debate because instantly, as soon as something proves performance, it normally gets banned, you know, until it is democratized to a level where you say, we can't control it.

And then it's even, it's an even kill.

Everyone on the Tour de France got a ridiculous bike.

When you reach elite levels, you've sort of optimized everything.

My heart's as big as it can be.

My recovery's as good as it can be.

My sleep's as good as it can be.

So you're looking for that margin.

That margin will then automatically translate to performance.

If the reason you're slower than you'd like to be isn't the fact you don't get enough spring out of your heel as it hits the ground, it isn't going to be transformative as per finding your true bottleneck of performance.

I think that's always an important point.