V 13 N. 50 More Thoughts on the Shoes

 Sometimes you lie awake at night wondering if your comments and thoughts are really relevant.  While consulting my navel last night I realized that there may be some erroneous thinking in yesterday's blog post about the advantage of those new shoes.    

If I recall correctly,  the manufacturers are suggesting that a runner of a high caliber might get anywhere from a 2% to a 4% advantage while wearing certain brands of shoe.  But this advantage is going from a hard road surface to the same hard road surface.  In other words it is a measure from the same road or track surface pre and post testing.     

When I did my 3rd grade arithmetic yesterday I was measuring advantage from the same surface and did not include the difference in the old tracks with old shoes and new tracks and new shoes.   So it seems I most likely undervalued the performances of Sirs Roger, Peter and Mr. Elliott (MBE).   

Undervalued by how much?  I'm not sure, and I'm not certain anyone can be absolutely sure.  There was variation on those cinder and clay tracks from one to the other and on any given day depending on how much rain had fallen prior to competition, what the drainage system under the track might have been, and how many races had been run on that day and chewed up the primary running lane.  

I once viewed an example of problems of drainage at the Texas Relays about 1962 when heavy rains forced cancellation of Friday night events and put them into an early Saturday start.  The weather was better Saturday morning but the track was still puddled and soggy.   The Texans solved the problem in a logical (to them) way by pouring bunker oil on the track and setting it alight to dry it out. Plumes of black smoke in the stadium were like the pictures of the first invasion of Kuwait.   Had it been Hayward Field with the old wooden stands it might have set the whole thing alight, but it did work in getting rid of the puddles.  However it left a strong odor of burnt oil in the stadium. Diesel Ally.   Races as I recall were fairly fast that morning with Kansas winning the DMR and Bill Dotson running a 4:04 mile anchor.  Not many college runners could go that fast in 1962.    But I digress.

Gonna digress some more.   In the book  "Otto Pelzer, His Own Man"  by Donald MacGregor and Tim Johnston, they note that the LA Coliseum track for the 1932 Olympics was so hard that long spikes could not penetrate the surface.  The German team was so under budgeted they could not afford to go to a hardware store and buy a grinder to file down their spikes, and Pelzer was almost hobbled on the track with his long spikes which were not interchangeable.   So cinder surfaced tracks are also very difficult to compare in that way as well.

So back to the problem of trying to determine the advantage of the new shoes.  We must take into consideration that track surface as well.   And can we even be certain that the carbon fiber plate in today's shoes would have provided the same if any advantage on the old tracks?   Without a lot more testing on that kind of surface, one cannot say with any certainty that they would have helped.  There are fewer and fewer cinder tracks around to test that hypothesis, and they are not well maintained.  .   But we can say on the new surfaces the new shoes most likely are an advantage.

Numerous times folks have claimed that the new tracks are 0.5 to 1.5 seconds better per lap over the cinders.  But those are measures of the heart and not very much science there.  So the times I calculated yesterday for the "Big 3" may  be considerably better than my numbers imply.    Perhaps someone with a grasp of AI can suggest an answer.     George

Good points G.   David Costill

Here in Florida it's sad to see the kids break out their "Cheaterfly" shoes for the 3200. These are the road shoes, illegal for international track and road racing. About 50% of kids (rich ones) wear them in 3200. Then I drive up to Ohio for their state high school meet, and notice 0 kids are wearing the thick racing shoes. Don't think there are any rules against it, but maybe a "higher" moral standard in Ohio?

Bruce Kritzler

Ohio vs Florida on morality?  Really?  George

"Sometimes we get so caught up in times that we forget that there is also a race between individuals going on."  George

From Bill Stone,  Oklahoma State

Mile Relay handoff to me from Terry Covert in dual meet on OSU track in 1961.  Not sure today’s shoes would have mattered.

Us old guys would say the better times today are a combination of both.  That said, we will never know for sure, will we?

Building on one of your comments, one should look at how one placed.  A first place yesteryear is as good as a first place today——??  Bill

That track looks like a plowed field.  I'm sure a new track would have given you a second maybe two.  George