Chapter 1: What is the moral dilemma presented about super shoes?
Hello and welcome to Untap the Extra Mile with me, Spencer Matthews. And me, Olly Patrick. God, doesn't that sound good? And today, we have a moral dilemma of sorts that I would like to solve. And actually, I would love your help. both you, Ollie, and you, the listener, with this dilemma that I'm faced with. It's about a super shoe.
And I want to talk to you about super shoes more generally, right? Because I have a lot of older friends who... We're good marathon runners, but who never had the benefit of super shoes. And I'd love to understand the mechanics of a super shoe and how they work and stuff. But I have a particular conundrum that I would like to solve.
As mentioned before, we had Alistair Brownlee on the show, who made me aware, and I wish he hadn't actually, of a shoe made by Adidas called the Adizero Prime X3. This shoe is banned forever.
Chapter 2: How do super shoes enhance running performance?
for professional athletes in certain races. And therefore, it's a grey area as to whether or not ordinary ballot entry people can wear these shoes or not. It feels like a small point, but I just want to be honest. But you are a morally sound... like, good person, right? And very intelligent, if nothing else. And I am, I think I'm quite a good bloke, but, like, I don't mind a rule bend.
I'll jump a queue and, you know, I'm devious at an airport. Like, I'm terrible. Like, if I arrive, I'll, you know, people are, I know, neither here nor there, right, at airports. I think people stand in the wrong place a lot of the time.
Yeah, it's their fault.
It's there for the taking. These passport queues and ways of boarding. It's there for the taking, right? You don't need to be... People love a queue. They love a queue. I don't like a queue. I like to go down the side of the queue if I can. I don't queue jump per se. I go a different avenue. We're going off piste. My morality could be brought into question if we're talking about travel, right?
But I would like to talk about the moral... correctness of wearing this shoe in my position because i wish it felt like the other shoes but it doesn't it feels a lot better it made my adizero pro 4 feel like my grandmother Eunice's slippers right just like something you would never run it if i were kipchoge it is illegal
If I was competing and had a chance of podiuming or earning any money from this race, it would be illegal.
It is a great quandary. I'm very kind that you put me as a moral arbitrator in this scenario.
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Chapter 3: What are the ethical concerns related to wearing super shoes?
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.
if you turned up with that bike years ago you'd have been banned and then everyone's got the same bike it suddenly becomes normative so what you're saying is I'm ahead of time you are ahead of time I think the mind plays a monster part in kind of how you perform generally Are they faster than the Alpha Fly and the Pro 4?
I remember when I put my first pair of Alpha Flies on, I felt like Flash Gordon.
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Chapter 4: How does the technology behind super shoes work?
And so it's all kind of much of a muchness, I think. I think if Kipchoge chucked these things on, what is he going to gain? 10 seconds? Something like that. Marginal. For me, I might gain a minute from it. Two if I'm lucky. Great. Obviously, I'd love that. But should we be caring about this stuff?
When you reach elite levels, you've sort of optimized everything. My heart's as big as it can be.
Chapter 5: Are super shoes banned for professional athletes?
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. If it isn't the limiting factor, it may not be the drive to exponential benefit. Your point, whether it's placebo, right? And placebo is literally the greatest drug in the world, which is, you know, it doesn't matter if it works or not. If I believe it works... If I believe it works, we've got a cushion in our house.
If you believe you can or believe you can't, you're probably right.
Okay, so this is where I'm so happy to have you here, because this is when I would normally say something like, oh my God, I read a book once that had all these extraordinary examples of placebos that really worked, even though they were nothing. And of course, I don't know I don't even remember the book or the test, but I know that I've read that. It's real.
But you will have some examples, perhaps, of placebos working. So, you know, what was the book? It was something to... It may have even been in jaw. Yeah. And they were testing people on...
like here is a scientifically proven you know pill that'll help your performance you know because it's full of salt and you know whatever like you know before we had readily accessible gels and electrolytes and stuff and actually it was just some pill with nothing in it yeah and they would notice like a six or seven percent you know increase in speed over the course of that because they in their opinion have consumed something that should make them faster therefore they're faster
And they go out thinking, great, well, I've had that pill, so I can probably push it harder. And actually, the pill was a placebo. For me, at my level of running... I think that all of these shoes are probably very similar, right? Like, you know, I'm not extracting the maximum out of this shoe, right? It's like if you drive a Ferrari at 30 miles an hour.
Yeah, like when you see someone who has a Ferrari who clearly can't drive properly and you go, that's a shame, right? So that's how people will see me in these shoes, you know, all the gear, you know, not elite. Drifting towards elite.
In some ways, you know, you will probably use caffeine.
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Chapter 6: What are the potential risks of using super shoes?
That's the answer. No, but genuinely, I'm interested in performance and results, drug-free performance results. I would have a moral issue if I was... This is interesting, actually. I would have a moral issue if I were doping. Yeah, so if you did EPO.
Yeah, so if I did something that genuinely, like, enhanced my fitness, like, from a non-natural perspective, I'd have an issue with that because I would always know that, oh, well, the only way I could... I don't think those shoes are that. Do you see downside to wearing these things?
when we separate the morality from the physiology. So to put the morality, which is down to whether you're comfortable, that it's another performance enhancing aid that gives you an advantage, but so does your training, so does your knowledge. Everything creates advantage.
There is a question mark, which is unproven, that if you suddenly add this sort of high-octane return of energy, what is the biomechanical load of that? So if you suddenly get me running in effectively a 50 mil step, that changes the position of my pelvis, it changes the position of my knee, it changes the position of my head.
And we've got sort of anecdotal reports of increased load through shins, and some people aren't equipped to handle that load. From the stack? From the stack.
My shins, the first time I used them... afterwards were screeching.
But the second time, not so much. There's the question. I'm always amazed. I've run the marathon a couple of times, terribly. But I remember going to the event the night before and seeing people buying trainers. And I'm like, I hope you're not buying your trainers for tomorrow. But that's fine now. No, I don't think it is fine now.
No, I think it is. Because they're more like socks nowadays anyway. These things may as well not have laces. But it's not about this.
My knee, my ankle, my foot have adapted to the structure and shape of the shoe I've got.
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Chapter 7: How do placebo effects influence running performance?
So if you really want to prove effectiveness of something, the people in the participating group can't know whether they're on it or not on it. And that's to rule out the benefit of placebo, which is so compelling that it basically always changes your physiology, always changes your outcome.
So bringing people belief and that guy in your ear going, you can do it, is as vital a part of performance as, you know, the Muse playlist and the right pair of socks.
They're so good. just underrated and forgotten Reapers I know Reapers well I mean we say forgotten they're the 400th most listened to band in the world I think so I mean they're not forgotten no but maybe they don't get their flowers let's give them their flowers let's see if we can get them in like these lads are on taps let's get them in there's God I mean it's just
solid stuff so good yeah so so the question with the shoe is if you are and and what you would have realized is weight training has become a major part of endurance sport because most people don't get injured because they are too stiff or inflexible it's because they cannot weather the load and load management comes from strength so strength has suddenly become a big part of endurance which is which is a bedrock of your performance so are you strong enough
and biomechanically able to withstand the returning force of these new shoes, the only way to find out is to find out. But you don't want to find out on race day. That's the plan. Morally, if you cross in 259, that is a valid sub three. Well done. Retire.
As a non-professional, non-competing athlete, you should find an edge wherever possible.
Yeah.
Right? So, like, if you can buy these things from a shop on Oxford Street... great. Like, you know, I think wear the best shoes you can, fastest shoes you can. Alpha flies and all that stuff were illegal, by the way, when they first came out. So, you know, who knows? They may see me cross the line, right? And they may say, make these things legal.
It's unfair. Interestingly, they might make that decision. Do you remember the swimsuits?
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Chapter 8: What conclusions can be drawn about wearing super shoes in marathons?
And even if everyone says, listen, you shouldn't wear that shoe, I'm going to say, well, guess what? You know, I'm wearing it.
Yeah.
And that's that.
There's four lines in it.
I agree. I think totally fair, fair opinion. And I think it's a great example. Shake the guilt. And then the only person you got to hold yourself accountable to, Spencer, is yourself. If you feel that that criteria gives you the status, and there is a massive satisfaction, I'm not in the sub three group. I've got friends who are, friends who tried, friends who failed.
It's a beautiful accomplishment. Running yourself through a marathon is an elite thing. And if you feel that that has been done through all the efforts you've put in, which it has been, I think wear the shoe.
I think I might wear the shoe.
I think.
I'll tell you what, I was going to leave here today and I was going to buy a box fresh set of Alphaflies because I want to go back to the Alphafly for some reason. I don't know why, right? The Pro 4 was a harder race. It's a quicker time, but I actually think that the Alphafly was the better shoe maybe. But I think I'm just going to wear the Prime X3, mate. Do it. The big Larry one. Do it.
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