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This episode of the City Smack 
podcast is presented by USA 

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Track and Field. 
All right, if you love speed, 

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power, and championship moments,
lock in right now. 

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The USATF Indoor Track and Field
Championships presented by 

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Prevagen are back in New York 
City from February 28th through 

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from March 1st at the Ocean 
Breeze Athletic Complex in 

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Staten Island. 
This is where legends don't just

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race, they punch their ticket to
the world stage. 

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The pressure is real, the 
margins are razor thin, and 

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every athlete is fighting for 
one thing. 

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A spot on Team USATF at the 
World Indoor Championships. 

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The star power? 
Unreal. 

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You'll see the likes of Olympic 
champion Noah Lyles, Olympic 

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champion Cole Hawker, Olympic 
medalist Jasmine Moore, world 

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record holder Hobbs Kessler, 
world champion Ellie Saint 

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Pierre, US record holder 
Sinclair Johnson. 

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I can go on and on and on. 
This meet sells out every single

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year because when the fastest 
and the strongest athletes on 

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the planet show up, there's 
nowhere to hide. 

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No bad seats, no second chances.
So don't wait. 

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Grab your tickets now at 
usatf.org/tickets and experience

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track and field at its absolute 
loudest. 

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What's up everyone? 
You are listening to the CDs Mag

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podcast. 
I'm your host Chris Chavez, and 

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every week we go beyond the 
results to bring you 

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conversations with the biggest 
names on the track, the roads 

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and behind the scenes, from 
world class athletes and coaches

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to innovators shaping the sport.
If it's happening on the track, 

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we're covering it with real 
insights that sharpen minds, 

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deep dives into the moments that
define careers and the kind of 

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access to the pros you won't get
anywhere else. 

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So let's get into it because we 
love track and. 

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Field. 
Before we get into today's 

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episode, we wanted to take a 
moment to say thank you. 

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This show exists because you 
listen, you share it with your 

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friends, and you care about the 
sport the same way that we do. 

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So truly, we're grateful that 
you're here with us. 

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If you've been enjoying the 
podcast, leaving a five star 

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review on Apple Podcast really 
does make a difference. 

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It helps new listeners find the 
show and keeps this whole thing 

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moving forward. 
Here's one recent review that 

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we. 
Loved. 

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The banter is back, I've been 
listening for a long time now 

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and with the whole crew back 
together at Melrose, yay Kyle, 

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it was exactly what we all 
needed. 

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The banter and analysis is 
perfection. 

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That one's from Sedarama. 
To everyone listening, thank 

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you. 
And if you feel the same way as 

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Cider on taking a minute to 
leave, a Five Star View on Apple

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podcast is one of the best ways 
to support the show. 

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We love every single one and 
they genuinely mean a lot to us.

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We all remember the first time 
we slipped on a pair of those 

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shoes. 
Not the ones you wear to jog 

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around the park. 
Not the ones you buy because you

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just like the colorway. 
I'm talking about the thick, 

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springy and sometimes a little 
absurd looking ones. 

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I used to call them chunky boys.
You know the ones I'm talking 

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about now. 
And then you went for a run in 

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them and you felt it. 
Not magic exactly, back in 2016.

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Many of us didn't realize it at 
the time, but the sport we 

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thought we understood was about 
to change. 

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Because here's the thing, in 
running, we like to believe that

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the equation is simple. 
Talent, training, grit, maybe a 

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little bit of luck on race day. 
But starting around that time, 

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10 years ago is when Nikes vapor
flies hit the road. 

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Something else had entered the 
formula, and this was a new kind

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of advantage, one that didn't 
live in your lungs or in your 

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legs, but under foot. 
Suddenly, all around us, time 

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started dropping and dropping 
and dropping. 

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World records fell like 
Domino's. 

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Olympic marathon records got 
smashed on courses that honestly

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had no business producing the 
fastest Olympic marathons ever. 

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And the debate got louder. 
Was this innovation? 

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Was this unfair? 
Was it shoe doping? 

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Or was this just the next 
chapter in the sports evolution?

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Liam Tharm went chasing those 
questions the way that a good 

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journalist does, with curiosity 
and a refusal to settle for the 

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easy take. 
He spoke to elite athletes and 

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coaches, researchers and bio 
mechanics, shoe designers and 

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engineers, the people inside the
labs and the people inside the 

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races. 
And what he found became this 

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new book, Super Shoes, How 
Advanced Technology 

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Revolutionized Running. 
An inside story of the carbon 

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plated foam revolution that's 
reshaped distance running in a 

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decade, from the science of why 
these shoes work to the battle 

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between Nike, Adidas, Puma A6, 
Hoka on New Balance and everyone

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else trying to catch up. 
He also touches on the moral 

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Gray areas this tech introduced,
including a really uncomfortable

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question of if the shoes can 
explain the biggest leaps in 

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performance, what does that do 
to our ability to spot the leaps

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that can't necessarily be 
explained? 

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Liam is a writer for The 
Athletic, a 248 marathoner 

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himself, and one of the 
journalists that I've enjoyed 

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reading when it comes to 
understanding where the sport is

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headed because he's not just 
watching it, he's inside it. 

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I'm Chris Chavez, and this is 
the Sidious Mag podcast today, 

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the Super shoe moments that 
broke our sport, the story of 

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Breaking 2 and how we reflect on
Nike's moon shot all these years

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later, the researchers who 
helped make it real at 

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universities and whether we've 
reached a state of equilibrium 

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with these shoes. 
This is my conversation with 

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Liam Farm. 
All right, now welcome on Liam 

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Farm, who is a writer for The 
Athletic and is now the author 

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of the book Super Shoes. 
Wrote an entire book about the 

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thing that has just been the 
talk of the town in the sport 

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for the last almost 10 years now
up until this point. 

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But Liam, welcome to the CDs Mag
podcast. 

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And I guess let's set the table 
a little bit as to just sort of 

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what your background is as 
you're the narrator in this one.

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And so yeah, I guess how did, 
what's your relationship with 

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running and what kind of drew 
you to write a whole book on 

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super shoes? 
Yeah, well, first of all, Chris,

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thanks so much for having me on.
I'm a long time listening to the

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pod, so it's quite cool to be be
on the other end. 

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I guess my background is I'm a 
runner myself primarily. 

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I cover kind of football, soccer
over here for The Athletic. 

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I also do athletics coverage for
us and track and field marathon 

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stuff within that. 
This is a book that I've 

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written, not for the athletic 
that's kind of separate to to my

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day job, but kind of all started
from the work I've done within 

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that. 
I know it's similar to yourself 

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kind of the more you dive into 
this, you speak to athletes, you

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kind of understand the numbers. 
It it's something that's 

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dominated the sport for quite a 
long time. 

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And I've, I've benefited from it
as I know you have as well, 

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Chris, from, you know, putting 
the shoes on, running a little 

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bit quicker, training a bit 
better. 

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So that's kind of my, yeah, I 
hopefully come at it from all 

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angles as someone that benefits 
from it, understands the sport, 

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competes, but also I'm, you 
know, quite lucky in a 

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journalistic sense that I can go
into a mix zone or I can, you 

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know, get access to an athlete 
and ask them about something 

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where I can e-mail a researcher 
and and whatnot. 

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So yeah, I'm hoping it's quite a
comprehensive look at everything

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going on. 
How's it work for you? 

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Because I guess, like, I can go 
think back to my Sports 

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Illustrated days and there'd be 
times I'd be pitching track and 

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field stories to my editor. 
And basically, you know, for me 

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being such a fan of the sport, 
like, they would be like, all 

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right, we trust your judgement. 
Like, go for it, you've got the 

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access. 
And how is it at The Athletic 

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when it comes to pitching track 
and field stories? 

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Because most times I think when 
I open up the app and I see a 

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track story, it's written by 
you. 

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Yeah, well, that's great. 
I mean, it's fantastic. 

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We've got, especially over on 
the UK side, I've got some 

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editors who have actually kind 
of got past experience covering 

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track and field athletic stuff 
for themselves. 

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So it's easier because they 
understand and they're like, 

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this is great and they see the 
numbers. 

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It's really well read stuff. 
So that I think just makes my 

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life a little easier. 
And the same actually with the 

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book. 
So pitch publishing of the 

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company that have published it. 
And when I first pitched it to 

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them as a, you know, they're 
great independent publishers 

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over here in the UKI was like, 
Oh, well, you know, they're 

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going to say, I thought, no 
one's going to want a book on 

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this because there isn't really 
anything kind of out there too 

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much from kind of the, the 
running side. 

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All the books you get in the 
space tend to be kind of how to 

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train or prepare for a marathon.
I was amazed, to be honest with 

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you, that I, I, you know, it was
like, no one's written on this 

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year. 
I've seen so many articles, 

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journalists I know in the US and
the UK over here as well. 

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Love it. 
It's been such a kind of, I 

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think hot topic. 
It almost an easy thing as well 

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to talk about because everyone's
got an opinion. 

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The numbers are so accessible. 
I think brands also quite 

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forthcoming with how good their 
shoes are, performance, you 

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know, metrics with them and 
really keen to kind of show them

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off. 
But yeah, no one had written it.

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So I went off the back of kind 
of doing a piece at the end of 

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end of 2024, which we'd actually
meant to do during the Olympic 

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Games. 
No one got around to it. 

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I took it on and it came around.
So I think at the time it was 

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kind of the five year 
anniversary of Kipchoge in 

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Vienna and the first, you know, 
the the famous 1:59 and that 

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piece just blew up. 
Like loads of people read it. 

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I mean, people seem to hate it, 
love it, be in between, but are 

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are talking about it. 
And you know, when pitch came 

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back to me and they were like, 
we love it. 

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I was like, Oh my God, OK, But I
didn't think you'd actually say 

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yes, so when give me a year, 
I'll get this done. 

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And yeah, true to my word, I 
did. 

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So the article, I think I 
remember right was shoe doping 

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was in the title of it. 
Yeah. 

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What was the reaction to that? 
Because I guess it's been a 

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topic of conversation for, you 
know, nearly a a decade up at 

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this point. 
It's rarely, I think, equated to

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doping, which is so taboo in in 
the sport to talk about. 

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Yeah, definitely. 
And I guess that's probably why 

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maybe it struck a nerve with a 
few people. 

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I mean, I can't actually take 
credit for the headline in that 

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sense. 
I don't ever write my own 

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headlines, which is a good thing
because the editors are great 

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for that. 
And in fact, the peace idea came

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from one of our sub editors, a 
guy called Justin, who I've I've

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00:09:54,480 --> 00:09:56,840
thanked, you know, sense for 
that because it's kind of been a

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launchpad into what what became 
this book. 

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And that's kind of the whole 
point of saying, I guess, where 

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we draw kind of these 
philosophical lines of what's 

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right and wrong. 
And I always come back to the 

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point, look, I guess a shoe, the
worst case, that kind of damage 

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that can do to a body is 
probably hurt you, right? 

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Or it might not be right for 
you. 

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You get injured. 
But that's very different to the

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kind of the slippery slope of if
you started to go, OK, we're 

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going to relax the laws on 
drugs. 

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00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:19,200
We don't need to chat about the 
enhanced games. 

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But there's naturally more kind 
of, I think risks with that 

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than, you know, with a shoe. 
And I think because so many 

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people were interested and I 
felt like really I'd only kind 

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of scratched the surface with 
the piece that I'd done. 

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I think I wrote like 3000 words,
cut it down a bit. 

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I'd done four or five 
interviews. 

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00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:36,000
And it's one of those pieces, I 
don't know if you've ever had 

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this over the work that you do 
where you kind of file it off at

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the end and you go, oh, I 
actually. 

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00:10:40,400 --> 00:10:42,360
Feel like I could have done that
way better or there's way more. 

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There's like 10 ways I could 
have written that. 

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And I think I said to a friend, 
look, this could be a book or a 

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thesis. 
And they were like, well, why 

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why don't you do it? 
And I went, well, I'm not doing 

224
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the PHDI went, OK, let me 
picture a book because loads of 

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people where I work at the 
Athletic have have written books

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and really great journalists 
that I work with. 

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And then lo and behold, it kind 
of got accepted. 

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I went we've. 
Got to do this thing. 

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I think one thing that's 
interesting is the timing. 

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00:11:02,920 --> 00:11:05,640
So you mentioned like how you 
can walk into a bookstore 

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nowadays and there isn't 
anything necessarily about Super

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Shoes. 
My assessment of just sort of 

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like the running book landscape 
is lots of memoirs out there 

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right now. 
It seems like every major 

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marathoner has a memoir, but few
things to really hit a topic 

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like super Shoes. 
So it's like, what made this 

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feel like the right moment? 
I guess like given the your year

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to, to work on it because some 
people I guess may also say it's

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like, all right, well, in 10 
years they might have to be like

240
00:11:37,080 --> 00:11:39,600
a whole addendum to this thing 
too, because it's a, you know, 

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00:11:39,600 --> 00:11:41,760
we might reach another tipping 
point with the marathon. 

242
00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:44,280
We probably will, but I think 
from kind of going through the 

243
00:11:44,280 --> 00:11:49,200
numbers and I remember in kind 
of autumn 2024 kind of going 

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through and I was collating, I 
can't remember what thresholds I

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00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:53,480
took. 
It's in the book for kind of 

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00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:55,960
some graphs in there of the 
number of men. 

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I think it was like sub 207 men 
and some like sub 224 women over

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the marathon and looking at like
the total number of instances of

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00:12:02,040 --> 00:12:05,280
calendar year of that happening 
and you basically just have a 

250
00:12:05,560 --> 00:12:08,360
quite low threshold going 
through like the 2000s. 

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00:12:08,520 --> 00:12:10,440
There's a bit of a peek around 
2012. 

252
00:12:10,440 --> 00:12:12,720
My assumption looking back is 
that's like an Olympic year 

253
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thing. 
Then you kind of you start to 

254
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peak a bit in 20/17/2018 as 
obviously night come out to to 

255
00:12:19,640 --> 00:12:21,960
market with these shoes and 
until they're athletes, it goes 

256
00:12:21,960 --> 00:12:24,680
a bit flat during the pandemic. 
And then it just you know, it 

257
00:12:24,680 --> 00:12:27,880
just goes straight up as 
everyone else is caught up. 

258
00:12:27,960 --> 00:12:30,560
Other companies are making equal
or better shoes to that. 

259
00:12:31,080 --> 00:12:33,120
And you're right, this is a kind
of moving thing. 

260
00:12:33,120 --> 00:12:35,840
And actually one of the problems
I have with writing it, I wrote 

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00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:37,560
a good portion. 
There's like a data chapter in 

262
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there and I said to editors, to 
the publishers, I was like, I'm 

263
00:12:41,320 --> 00:12:43,640
going to need to edit this right
at the end because I go, if I 

264
00:12:43,640 --> 00:12:46,120
use numbers from 2025, like 
they're going to be outdated 

265
00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:47,200
straight away. 
There's going to be world 

266
00:12:47,200 --> 00:12:49,200
records that I talk about that I
might have to change. 

267
00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:52,840
But I thought, look, it's, it's 
been this kind of year now it's 

268
00:12:53,040 --> 00:12:55,480
going to be 10 years, going to 
be a decade since when they, 

269
00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:58,000
they first came on this, you 
know, and it's a nice kind of 

270
00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:00,600
neat period of time. 
And I also think just when look,

271
00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:02,640
so much has happened in that 
space, I think there's so much 

272
00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:05,080
interesting stuff to go at it. 
There's interesting kind of 

273
00:13:05,080 --> 00:13:07,360
social aspects to this, there's 
performance, there's 

274
00:13:07,720 --> 00:13:10,440
biomechanical aspects to this. 
And I go, I'd love to get into 

275
00:13:10,440 --> 00:13:13,560
the roots of how and why this 
has occurred and where, again, 

276
00:13:13,560 --> 00:13:15,440
it might go in the future. 
So I've tried to hopefully be a 

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00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:18,520
bit predictive within it. 
And so many people I think gave 

278
00:13:18,520 --> 00:13:20,800
up, you know, so much insight, 
how much time that I went that 

279
00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:25,440
this deserves kind of to, to go 
out to the world. 100% can 

280
00:13:25,800 --> 00:13:28,920
relate to you on just sort of 
your concerns of where like is 

281
00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:31,080
some of this information going 
to be outdated? 

282
00:13:31,080 --> 00:13:34,800
Because working on my book, I 
have a chapter that's dedicated 

283
00:13:34,800 --> 00:13:38,320
to sort of like the the arms 
race on people's feet is I think

284
00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:40,480
what I kind of titled the 
chapter. 

285
00:13:40,760 --> 00:13:42,720
But even then, I think I 
remember in one of the first 

286
00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:45,520
meetings with like my publisher 
and and my editor, I was like, 

287
00:13:45,840 --> 00:13:49,200
what's the latest we could 
change some world records in 

288
00:13:49,200 --> 00:13:51,160
here? 
Because is I think that come 

289
00:13:51,160 --> 00:13:56,160
fall 2027, which is the expected
published date, I was like, if I

290
00:13:56,160 --> 00:13:59,080
have to submit this thing in 
June of 2026, I was like, so 

291
00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:03,680
much can happen. 
And so it's really funny to hear

292
00:14:03,680 --> 00:14:06,760
from you. 
So in part of my own sort of 

293
00:14:06,760 --> 00:14:10,160
research and writing, I think 
one of the fun parts was that 

294
00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:14,240
just sort of like I reminisce 
where I was in life in 2016 as 

295
00:14:14,240 --> 00:14:18,480
as like the Super shoes were 
starting starting to quietly get

296
00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:21,840
rolled out. 
So that's essentially where your

297
00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:24,640
book also opens up. 
It's a, you know, in the lead up

298
00:14:24,640 --> 00:14:29,040
to breaking to where were you at
just in terms of your own 

299
00:14:29,040 --> 00:14:32,320
running and life at that point? 
And when did you start to have 

300
00:14:32,320 --> 00:14:36,600
that curiosity, you know, behind
the tech that is obviously drop 

301
00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:38,440
in people's times? 
Yeah, it's funny. 

302
00:14:38,440 --> 00:14:40,600
That was right before actually 
probably got into running. 

303
00:14:40,600 --> 00:14:43,080
I guess I was a very, very much 
a failed like football soccer 

304
00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:45,880
player that kind of moved to 
that. 

305
00:14:45,880 --> 00:14:47,560
I think kind of in my my mid 
late teens. 

306
00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:49,600
I had a friend that was, you 
know, a really decent runner and

307
00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:52,000
started training with him. 
I remember actually my coach at 

308
00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:55,280
the time, the first time he had 
AI guess it was a first 

309
00:14:55,280 --> 00:14:57,720
generation vapor fly kind of 
gave it to us and let's try it 

310
00:14:57,720 --> 00:14:59,320
on and we're like, what on earth
is this? 

311
00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:02,080
You know, he'd given me a pair 
of his old Adidas Adi Zero. 

312
00:15:02,080 --> 00:15:04,360
I can't remember the model, but 
like the bumblebee looking one 

313
00:15:04,600 --> 00:15:06,280
and the yellow and and black 
striped 1. 

314
00:15:07,520 --> 00:15:09,520
Remember how thin they used to 
feel running in those and like 

315
00:15:09,520 --> 00:15:12,320
races where you're like, you 
know, it was not quite 

316
00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:15,240
uncomfortable, but you went the 
idea with the shoes then was, 

317
00:15:15,560 --> 00:15:17,760
you know, so thin. 
Like we're not trying to add on 

318
00:15:17,760 --> 00:15:18,840
anything that's going to add on 
weight. 

319
00:15:18,840 --> 00:15:20,720
And the more weight we have on 
the shoe, you know, the more 

320
00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:22,960
metabolic demands, the more 
energy demands it's going to be.

321
00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:26,000
There's no way these things can 
genuinely be like significant in

322
00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:27,760
terms of propulsion. 
It's all going to be kind of 

323
00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:31,200
damage limitations with it. 
So I came in, I guess, right as 

324
00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:34,240
things were about to turn. 
And it's funny now when I look 

325
00:15:34,240 --> 00:15:36,520
at kind of the shoes that I've 
got compared to that kind of the

326
00:15:36,520 --> 00:15:39,280
stack heights on them and the 
quality of the foam, the plates,

327
00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:40,840
it feels like a whole different 
world. 

328
00:15:41,280 --> 00:15:43,520
Were you a believer at first? 
I guess when Nike comes out and 

329
00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:47,480
announces the Breaking 2 
initiative, did you think that 

330
00:15:47,480 --> 00:15:50,840
it was going to happen? 
It felt like a big, a really big

331
00:15:50,840 --> 00:15:53,920
jump, but I think it, it felt 
quite exciting. 

332
00:15:54,520 --> 00:15:57,000
I mean, I've primarily come from
a, you know, sport in, in 

333
00:15:57,000 --> 00:15:59,360
football and soccer, where I 
think generally we feel like the

334
00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:01,920
sport is a bit late to catch up 
to other things that there's 

335
00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:03,920
other more innovative. 
We'll probably look over at the 

336
00:16:03,920 --> 00:16:05,640
US, right, and look at what's 
happening like baseball and 

337
00:16:05,640 --> 00:16:08,360
basketball, especially with data
and I think even kind of 

338
00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:10,440
materials and stuff there. 
Like in the same sense, no one 

339
00:16:10,440 --> 00:16:13,000
over here in the UK or I think 
in world soccer, world football 

340
00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:15,240
is talking about how they might 
revolutionize boots, for 

341
00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:16,600
instance. 
And I know that's a different 

342
00:16:16,600 --> 00:16:18,920
thing and kind of different 
movement, but it's just not 

343
00:16:18,920 --> 00:16:22,760
really a topic of conversation. 
So I don't think I necessarily 

344
00:16:24,040 --> 00:16:27,120
was kind of so pro against it, 
but I just went, this is really,

345
00:16:27,120 --> 00:16:29,800
really exciting. 
And I mean, everyone loves 

346
00:16:29,800 --> 00:16:31,400
Elliott Khichroge. 
And I think the fact he was the 

347
00:16:31,400 --> 00:16:35,080
face of it just made it so much 
better because he's such an easy

348
00:16:35,080 --> 00:16:38,240
kind of hero to root for And 
someone that you went, OK, this 

349
00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:40,920
is a thing that Nike are doing 
to try and have success as a 

350
00:16:40,920 --> 00:16:43,680
company and to, you know, try 
and redefine human limits. 

351
00:16:43,680 --> 00:16:45,960
But you went, we always also 
just want to see Elliott do well

352
00:16:45,960 --> 00:16:47,640
and and win because it's it's 
Elliott. 

353
00:16:48,200 --> 00:16:51,640
What also struck me is the 
access you had to so many of the

354
00:16:51,640 --> 00:16:55,680
researchers and the Nike 
scientists behind breaking to 

355
00:16:55,680 --> 00:16:59,480
and some and how open they were 
with you even in the selection 

356
00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:02,120
process when it came to 
determining who the three 

357
00:17:02,120 --> 00:17:04,599
marathoners were going to be for
that initial breaking to 

358
00:17:04,599 --> 00:17:06,960
project. 
And the detail that stood out to

359
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:10,079
me was that, you know, it 
necessarily wasn't always a 

360
00:17:10,079 --> 00:17:14,839
guarantee that Elliot was gonna 
become the face of marathoning 

361
00:17:14,839 --> 00:17:18,000
in this modern era and this 
global superstar that he is. 

362
00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:22,880
Honestly, if Zersenate Tedesse 
would have responded much better

363
00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:26,720
to the shoes, who knows where 
that marketability and that 

364
00:17:26,720 --> 00:17:28,480
image would have been for 
someone like him. 

365
00:17:28,480 --> 00:17:31,080
But and what stood out to you, 
because I thought that was a 

366
00:17:31,080 --> 00:17:33,320
very interesting thing that 
doesn't necessarily come across 

367
00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:36,120
on like what's already been out 
there with the National 

368
00:17:36,120 --> 00:17:40,480
Geographic documentary and a 
bunch of YouTube videos and 

369
00:17:40,480 --> 00:17:42,720
Nike's own just sort of 
chronicling of that moment. 

370
00:17:42,720 --> 00:17:47,040
But what were some of the new 
revelations that you discovered 

371
00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:51,120
in the reporting process from 
these reflections on Breaking 2?

372
00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:53,960
Yeah, I mean, speaking to Brad 
Wilkins especially was really 

373
00:17:53,960 --> 00:17:55,760
fascinating. 
It's funny, he's now kind of 

374
00:17:55,760 --> 00:17:58,160
faculty at the University of 
Oregon and he almost talks about

375
00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:00,720
breaking 2 as though it's like a
different life for him. 

376
00:18:01,080 --> 00:18:03,320
And he's had some really 
interesting stuff kind of around

377
00:18:03,320 --> 00:18:05,160
the testing that they were 
looking for kind of, you know, 

378
00:18:05,280 --> 00:18:08,120
2-3 real solid physiological 
markers, things that could 

379
00:18:08,120 --> 00:18:12,640
really robustly look at VO2 Max 
kind of the commonplace things 

380
00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:16,120
in, in athletics, lactate turn 
points as well. 

381
00:18:16,120 --> 00:18:19,200
Kind of understanding basically 
who had, you know, the, the 

382
00:18:19,200 --> 00:18:21,480
engine. 
Andy Jones also I spoke to on 

383
00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:24,760
this was again, like really, I 
think open and insightful as 

384
00:18:24,760 --> 00:18:27,240
much as they can be and even 
more than I expected them to be,

385
00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:28,560
to be honest. 
I'd have understood if they were

386
00:18:28,560 --> 00:18:30,400
like, no, we're not talking 
about that. 

387
00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:34,040
You know, there's, there's kind 
of red tape up and I'd tape up 

388
00:18:34,040 --> 00:18:35,640
around that. 
But yeah, Brad was talking as 

389
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:37,600
well about kind of the 
psychological element having 

390
00:18:37,600 --> 00:18:40,200
athletes who are like committed 
to it and, you know, really kind

391
00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:43,440
of resolute because I think the 
body is probably going to break 

392
00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:45,600
down, you know, potentially 
quicker than than the mind in 

393
00:18:45,600 --> 00:18:47,560
the marathon. 
So you want athletes who are, 

394
00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:49,800
yeah, really, really strong in 
that sense. 

395
00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:53,240
And the thing that struck me 
most, and he kind of was taken a

396
00:18:53,240 --> 00:18:55,320
bit aback by the question, I 
think Brad, when I asked him, 

397
00:18:55,360 --> 00:18:56,960
you know, why did you pick 3 
athletes? 

398
00:18:56,960 --> 00:18:59,120
I find this fascinating because 
any us, when they did get the 

399
00:18:59,120 --> 00:19:02,920
159 marathon, they just picked 
Elliot and he said, well, we 

400
00:19:02,920 --> 00:19:04,920
wanted three because we just 
didn't want one. 

401
00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:07,360
He's like, he always talked 
about it almost like it's a bit 

402
00:19:07,360 --> 00:19:09,800
of a maths equation that you 
kind of have so many variables 

403
00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:12,240
involved, you trying to reduce 
everything to say what can we 

404
00:19:12,240 --> 00:19:14,360
control the most? 
And obviously the technologies 

405
00:19:14,360 --> 00:19:17,280
are part of that, the course 
design and the nutrition or the 

406
00:19:17,560 --> 00:19:20,560
and the hydration and then 
picking a limited number of 

407
00:19:20,560 --> 00:19:22,640
athletes because he said, well, 
if we pick one and Elliott's 

408
00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:25,480
sick on race day, the game's out
the window. 

409
00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:28,160
You know, we've, we've, we 
haven't got anything and we can 

410
00:19:28,160 --> 00:19:29,800
run with. 
But he said we put 3. 

411
00:19:29,960 --> 00:19:33,040
Elliott was obviously probably 
him and Kennisa Pickela, the the

412
00:19:33,080 --> 00:19:36,680
lead marathoners at the time. 
But with the season with 

413
00:19:36,680 --> 00:19:38,680
Tedesse, he said they were 
athletes who had so much more 

414
00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:40,400
potential. 
Elliott's had this whole team 

415
00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:42,440
around him. 
He's running probably closest 

416
00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:44,520
maximum potential ever. 
You know, he's got all his 

417
00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:46,720
hydration nailed, his diet, his 
training. 

418
00:19:46,920 --> 00:19:48,800
There's not much room for him to
get better. 

419
00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:50,840
And that's because he's so good 
already. 

420
00:19:50,840 --> 00:19:53,240
But these other guys, I think it
was the essay, they were saying 

421
00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:56,080
kind of his marathon PB was, was
run without taking water on or 

422
00:19:56,080 --> 00:19:57,720
something crazy like that. 
It might be a slightly 

423
00:19:57,720 --> 00:19:59,320
embarrassed bellish story at 
this point. 

424
00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:01,360
You know, when they said, look, 
there's so many games we have 

425
00:20:01,360 --> 00:20:03,800
with these athletes. 
We don't know if he's still just

426
00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:07,800
a 2O82O7 guy, or maybe he's a 2O
one guy that we can put, you 

427
00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:10,000
know, behind a bunch of 
pacemakers and give him good 

428
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:11,760
drafting given the right 
hydration. 

429
00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:14,080
Put him in a really good shoe, 
maybe that makes a difference. 

430
00:20:14,080 --> 00:20:16,440
So I thought their approach with
it were kind of a couple wild 

431
00:20:16,440 --> 00:20:19,160
cards I really liked and thought
made an awful lot of sense. 

432
00:20:19,280 --> 00:20:23,160
How much did you have to sift 
through, you know, using your 

433
00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:27,280
journalistic instinct here as to
like, what was marketing hype? 

434
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:31,440
And it like you maybe a couple 
embellishments here and there 

435
00:20:31,760 --> 00:20:35,560
versus like truth and fact and 
actual science. 

436
00:20:35,560 --> 00:20:38,680
And it helps when there are 
various points in in reading it 

437
00:20:38,680 --> 00:20:42,280
where I'm like, there's a lot of
numbers in this section, but it 

438
00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:46,320
serves a purpose in backing up 
whatever finding or theory is 

439
00:20:46,320 --> 00:20:49,120
being floated in that chapter. 
Well, I'm glad it reads well. 

440
00:20:49,120 --> 00:20:51,720
That's a relief to hear because 
I think that was one of my fears

441
00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:52,840
with it. 
It's kind of almost being a bit 

442
00:20:52,840 --> 00:20:55,440
too forensic and too too kind of
detailed. 

443
00:20:55,440 --> 00:20:58,280
But I guess those numbers are 
all I think hopefully relevant 

444
00:20:58,280 --> 00:20:59,840
in the running and the athletics
world. 

445
00:20:59,840 --> 00:21:02,760
And so much of what's great 
about this is that there's 

446
00:21:02,760 --> 00:21:05,280
publicly available journal 
articles that have been 

447
00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:08,000
published from the time around 
the time the University of 

448
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:10,280
Colorado were really big and 
helping Nike with with a lot 

449
00:21:10,280 --> 00:21:12,600
with a lot of stuff. 
And I'm sure there's even more 

450
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:14,720
interesting stuff that doesn't 
get published for obvious 

451
00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:17,040
reasons. 
But I spoke to Walter who came a

452
00:21:17,440 --> 00:21:20,520
few times, he's great. 
I've spoken to him for other 

453
00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:22,320
projects. 
I spoke to him for some stuff 

454
00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:24,920
that we did on like Faith, 
Kapiagon and Breaking 4. 

455
00:21:26,320 --> 00:21:28,400
And I think it's just so great 
that these people who have made 

456
00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:30,520
such significant contributions 
in testing the shoes and 

457
00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:33,040
validating the shoes, Obviously 
they don't manufacture them. 

458
00:21:33,040 --> 00:21:34,680
They're just testing what Nike 
kind of give them. 

459
00:21:35,120 --> 00:21:37,040
But those are like long standing
relationships that you can go 

460
00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:40,040
back, you know, way further. 
It's the same when you look at 

461
00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:42,240
the University of Calgary and 
their relationship with Adidas. 

462
00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:44,640
I speak about them in a later 
chapter as well that, you know, 

463
00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:46,800
actually a lot of what Nike have
done is building off kind of the

464
00:21:46,920 --> 00:21:49,840
the research that they made 
public, which I think people 

465
00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:53,480
now, you know, Calgary are 
perhaps not kind of sad about. 

466
00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:55,560
But you know, you kind of feel 
bad that you've kind of given 

467
00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:57,880
your or the rest of the sport, I
guess a leg up. 

468
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:00,120
But a rival, you know, kind of 
shoe brand, right, have been 

469
00:22:00,120 --> 00:22:02,880
given kind of a building block 
that you maybe wish are we could

470
00:22:02,880 --> 00:22:05,000
have kept that in house. 
But I guess that was the culture

471
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:08,520
right, of the industry at the 
time where we said no one 

472
00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:11,320
imagined that this would happen 
in the mid to late 2010. 

473
00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:14,200
So what people were doing in the
2000s, you know, it's kind of 

474
00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:17,760
been born out in those articles.
I think what one thing that was 

475
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:21,000
it came across also in the book 
is just the importance of the 

476
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:24,760
work that was done at the 
University of Colorado where if 

477
00:22:24,760 --> 00:22:29,080
Nike comes out and says, oh, 
this, this shoe is, you know, 4%

478
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:31,040
better than any other shoe out 
there. 

479
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:35,400
But it's another whole thing to,
you know, hand give it over to 

480
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:37,360
independent hands. 
And then the New York Times 

481
00:22:37,360 --> 00:22:41,200
obviously also did like it's own
reporting into the into the 

482
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:45,680
benefits of the of the shoe 
where, yeah, sure, like whatever

483
00:22:45,680 --> 00:22:48,720
Nike says is going to is going 
to be louder and have bigger 

484
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:53,160
reach then, you know, a Science 
Journal and like whatever ends 

485
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:58,080
up getting reported. 
But has the science behind super

486
00:22:58,080 --> 00:23:00,240
shoes been independently 
verified? 

487
00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:04,760
You know, these gains that 
people report aside from just 

488
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:07,680
what these major companies are 
telling you about like, hey, 

489
00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:09,520
this shoe is, you know, 4% 
better. 

490
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:14,240
And then it's not necessarily 
5%, so it's next percent like I 

491
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:16,760
guess like how did you parse 
through some of that stuff? 

492
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:19,200
And do you feel like the 
information gets out to the 

493
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:22,160
public in the right way? 
I guess, so I guess that's 

494
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:24,440
probably our job as journalists,
right, where we will kind of 

495
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:26,600
take stuff from articles or 
we'll kind of sift through a 

496
00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:29,040
whole kind of research paper. 
Maybe unfortunate in this 

497
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:31,600
regard, but my, my background 
before I got into journalism was

498
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:33,960
basically in football coaching 
or soccer coaching and and 

499
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:35,760
analysis. 
So it's part of what I did for 

500
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:38,000
my master's degree was going 
through a lot of journal 

501
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,160
articles and, you know, writing 
a lot of academic stuff. 

502
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:42,960
So that is kind of second nature
to me. 

503
00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:44,920
It wasn't too bad kind of going 
through papers and going, I'm 

504
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:47,240
looking for like 1 line here or 
just kind of trying to 

505
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:50,520
understand the, the numbers or 
seeing, you know, OK, what was 

506
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:54,400
when I was speaking to, to alter
about the, the 4% shoe, what he 

507
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:56,680
was saying that was most kind of
striking to him was the fact 

508
00:23:56,680 --> 00:23:58,760
that actually it was the sheer 
number of people that got better

509
00:23:58,760 --> 00:23:59,960
in it. 
It wasn't just the average. 

510
00:23:59,960 --> 00:24:02,720
He says often you can get a good
average, but it might be a case 

511
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:05,920
where if you put the shoe on 
Chris, maybe you get 5% better, 

512
00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:09,000
maybe I get 2% worse. 
Now, overall, we'd average out 

513
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:10,400
to be a slight net positive, 
right? 

514
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:12,720
And of course you wouldn't do 
that over a two person sample. 

515
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:15,080
It'd been a big level. 
But he was Walter was saying, 

516
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:17,640
look, with this Nike shoes, like
everyone's getting better. 

517
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:19,920
And then Puma had the same thing
when they brought out a shoe. 

518
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:24,120
Well, I guess last last 
springtime now when they brought

519
00:24:24,120 --> 00:24:27,280
out the Fasta 3, which again had
a had a preprint of a paper that

520
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:29,280
came with it. 
And I think I was a bit late 

521
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:31,880
when that actually happened to 
see and kind of my social media 

522
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:34,360
just started blowing up for 
people saying, Oh my God, you 

523
00:24:34,360 --> 00:24:36,840
know, you can almost condense 
the the whole paper of 20 odd 

524
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:40,560
pages into a, into a tweet being
like, it's like 3% better this 

525
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:42,040
shoe than anything else on the 
market. 

526
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:44,520
And I think those numbers just 
cut through everything, right? 

527
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:47,800
And, and the fun part about that
whole thing is I think Wouchers 

528
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:51,320
was involved with the Puma shoe 
that came out much later on. 

529
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:54,120
Can you describe him as a as a 
character in this book? 

530
00:24:54,120 --> 00:24:57,320
Because I got the chance to to 
chat with him last year when we 

531
00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:00,480
did stuff with Puma around the 
launch of the fast *3. 

532
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:05,920
And he comes off as the most 
like nonchalant, like the yet 

533
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:10,360
genius when it comes to his role
in the elevation of super. 

534
00:25:10,360 --> 00:25:12,120
Shoes. 
Yeah, he's, I mean, he's 

535
00:25:12,120 --> 00:25:14,040
incredibly wise. 
I mean, you can look at all the 

536
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:15,920
papers that he's publishing. 
He was kind of joking to me 

537
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:17,560
about being like, it's getting a
bit crazy now. 

538
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:21,320
He needs to almost slow down a 
bit, but I mean, he felt almost 

539
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:23,280
a bit too on the nose at times 
where, you know, be saying 

540
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:24,760
something and he'd just pick up 
something off screen. 

541
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:26,280
It would be like a model of a 
foot or something. 

542
00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:28,680
And he's just got, you know, 
this all this apparatus around 

543
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:31,360
him to kind of demonstrate 
everything that he does. 

544
00:25:31,360 --> 00:25:33,560
And I mean, the work he did in 
Colorado was really, really 

545
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:35,480
good. 
The work now at UMass as well 

546
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:37,040
is, you know, really, really 
strong with Puma. 

547
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:39,840
I know those people that have 
gone on from UMass who have a 

548
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:42,120
partnership with Puma, similar 
to what, again, what we're 

549
00:25:42,120 --> 00:25:44,200
speaking about with Nike and 
Adidas, with other unis. 

550
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:46,480
People have gone from there to 
work with Puma because these 

551
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:48,600
researchers are so good at what 
they do, right, that they 

552
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:51,280
probably get to the point where 
you go, actually, we need that 

553
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:52,720
guy, we need that girl on the 
team. 

554
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:54,160
We don't just want them there 
testing something. 

555
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:56,760
Let's have them there kind of 
making it and contributing to it

556
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,240
in house. 
At some point, I felt in the 

557
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,000
book that there was a little bit
of tension between the people 

558
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:05,160
who engineered the issues at the
very beginning and coming to the

559
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:09,080
realization as to like what they
unleashed on the world and like 

560
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:12,520
how maybe it did start to get 
out of control. 

561
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:15,000
And this is before, I guess, 
like World Athletics comes down 

562
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:18,560
and like sets the, the 
parameters around, you know, the

563
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:21,160
stack height rules and how many 
carbon plates there could be and

564
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:23,720
all that stuff. 
But there's, there's been times 

565
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,440
where I feel like the people 
who, you know, created this 

566
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:28,320
thing are, you know what they 
were like. 

567
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:30,520
They didn't expect it to to get 
to this point. 

568
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:34,200
Yeah, I think, and I kind of, I 
come out, I don't about you, 

569
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:35,960
Chris, but I kind of come out a 
little bit centrist in all of 

570
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:37,680
this. 
Where I go, well, I, I think 

571
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:39,720
largely like it's okay. 
Once it's accessible to 

572
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:41,840
everyone, you go. 
It's a much better situation now

573
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:43,400
than it was. 
I also get the point where you 

574
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:46,080
go, I think it was at the start 
of this year, I think Kenny 

575
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:48,560
Sabekele no longer holds any 
world records now he's finally 

576
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:51,040
had his final window. 
World records go and you go, OK,

577
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:53,200
is that now a bad thing? 
Is that a, you know, a good 

578
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:54,200
thing? 
The sport moving on? 

579
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:56,480
I don't really know. 
It's probably more the speed of 

580
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:57,640
it. 
I think when I did the maths, I 

581
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:00,200
worked out it's something like 
double or a bit more than double

582
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:02,280
the rate of which world records 
are being broken and kind of 

583
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:05,160
the, the sheer frequency. 
And a big problem of that was, I

584
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:07,520
think so many going during the 
pandemic and especially around 

585
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,120
super spikes when they kind of 
launched and think changed track

586
00:27:10,120 --> 00:27:12,640
running as well. 
The people were like, you know, 

587
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:15,320
the sport shouldn't be having 
this kind of awkward trajectory 

588
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:17,560
in a period of time where 
training must be much harder. 

589
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:19,920
Races aren't all going on. 
It's been, you know, kind of 

590
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:21,960
behind closed doors. 
People understand, we want to 

591
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:24,640
see, you know, the equivalent 
like a Sydney Rockland Liveroni 

592
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:26,480
running a world record in an 
Olympic final. 

593
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:29,200
I get that. 
And it's a similar thing when we

594
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:32,120
had the 2 Olympic records in the
marathons in Paris where you go,

595
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:34,040
and I know because you've ran 
this course, Chris, you can 

596
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:35,320
probably tell everyone how bad 
it was. 

597
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:38,800
Like that shouldn't be probably 
the fastest Olympic marathon 

598
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:40,800
ever, right? 
But the shoes kind of make that 

599
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:42,480
difference. 
So when you see that almost 

600
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,640
visualized or explaining that 
way, you go, wow, that's crazy. 

601
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:47,040
But I mean, there's research is 
in there. 

602
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:49,520
Whilst is one of them is kind of
like, I enjoy this as a 

603
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:50,680
challenge. 
It's going to make people 

604
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:52,640
better. 
It's probably a really 

605
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:54,560
worthwhile thing to mention. 
It's a public health tool as 

606
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:55,760
well. 
The amount of people I see out 

607
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:58,440
in London, where I live running,
it's really contributed to a 

608
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:01,040
running culture. 
You look at the entry rates to, 

609
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:03,600
you know, major marathons now, 
the number of people just, I 

610
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:05,960
think running recreationally, 
it's made that a lot more 

611
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,120
accessible for people. 
And that's really, really good. 

612
00:28:08,120 --> 00:28:10,080
And you probably can't have that
without having the turbo 

613
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:12,880
charging at the very top end. 
But there are also researchers 

614
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:15,600
that I like, yeah, wow, we kind 
of didn't expect that. 

615
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:18,080
Like these are, you know, 
despite what athletics saying, 

616
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:20,280
it's not like a spring or 
whatever the argument is for 

617
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:22,040
they're like, it's functionally 
that. 

618
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:24,600
So you can kind of be, I think 
as extreme as you want to be on 

619
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:26,080
it. 
And I see people even in the 

620
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:28,600
same kind of job roles that are 
wildly different on it, which to

621
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:30,680
me just kind of makes me go 
shrug. 

622
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:34,480
I I really don't know. 
Yeah, no, I love Ross Tucker and

623
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,400
the Real Science of Sport 
podcast that that he does, but 

624
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:40,640
he's one of those people who's 
like I hate that these things 

625
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:44,080
like actually exist because now 
there's just sort of you know, 

626
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:47,400
you dive into just the 
difference between super 

627
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:51,640
responders and and people who, 
you know, don't have as big of a

628
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:55,080
benefit come the shoes. 
And that's essentially what it's

629
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:57,800
also done with all these world 
records falling is that we don't

630
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:01,160
necessarily know, you know, when
when it all the spikes used to 

631
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:05,160
be basically the same. 
And, and the trainers like that 

632
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,600
was maybe, I guess a little bit 
more level of playing field of 

633
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,600
assessing what was the athlete 
and what was, you know, the 

634
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:13,560
tech. 
And now it's it's like we don't 

635
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:17,880
necessarily know how much better
of a super responder Conor Mance

636
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:22,680
is in his Nikes versus, you 
know, an Adidas athlete who 

637
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:24,880
finishes around the same exact 
time. 

638
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:28,240
And how have you just sort of 
assessed how people grapple with

639
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,480
that where it's like, how much 
do we know is the actual athlete

640
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:34,080
versus the shoes? 
Yeah, that's a really tricky 

641
00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:35,680
part. 
And I think an interesting 

642
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:37,920
response I saw to that was what 
ASICS have done with some of 

643
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:40,080
their current shoes now, where 
they basically brought out two 

644
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,200
different models of the same 
kind of shoe design. 

645
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:43,960
And they flipped the phone 
around and there's a couple 

646
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:46,320
types of phone going on. 
And they flip them around and 

647
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:48,440
design them slightly differently
with how the plates are aligned.

648
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:51,840
Basically to change how the shoe
works for the athlete that's 

649
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:53,000
running. 
Because they say, we'll look, we

650
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:56,240
can't yet quite kind of dive in 
and see on your muscular level 

651
00:29:56,240 --> 00:30:00,280
or on your kind of biomechanical
level what's going on. 

652
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:02,200
So we'll just kind of make the 
shoes to kind of work how we 

653
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:04,440
want them to. 
So one's designed to basically 

654
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:06,720
have people run with a high 
cadence to take more steps. 

655
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:08,600
And one's designed for athletes 
who want to run longer. 

656
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,440
And it made a lot of sense when 
you know the design guys there 

657
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:15,200
kind of explain it to me. 
Mark Vermulion, really, really 

658
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:18,280
an insightful guy, was basically
saying, look, the speeds, 

659
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:21,200
basically the number of steps 
you're taking and how long those

660
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:23,720
steps are and if you can 
increase one of them, where you 

661
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,200
going to get quicker. 
And I was like, I guess he's 

662
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:28,640
just basically boiled it down to
a really simple level. 

663
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:33,320
I go it makes perfect sense and 
I think the responder thing is 

664
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:36,000
funny that without kind of 
having shoes improving, if you 

665
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:37,840
could have a way, and this is 
what everyone describes to me is

666
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:40,360
basically the the Holy Grail is 
the phrase I keep hearing that, 

667
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:42,840
you know, because if someone can
put you on a treadmill, assess 

668
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,480
you and say, oh, we can see that
actually what's happening is 

669
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:47,840
your calves are doing less work 
or wherever it's kind of 

670
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:50,440
impacting your loading and to do
with your own mechanics. 

671
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:53,240
This is the right shoe for you. 
Actually, the gains might not be

672
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:55,080
making a new shoe. 
It's finding the one that works 

673
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:58,280
for you or saying actually, if 
this part of this Nike shoe is 

674
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:00,640
phenomenal and we want to add in
a separate bit. 

675
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:03,320
This kind of customization, it's
been likened to me. 

676
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:05,480
It's almost like tailoring a 
suit of saying, Oh no, you need 

677
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:07,480
this bit adjusted here or, or 
change there. 

678
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:09,560
And that could just change the 
game completely. 

679
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:12,120
Because if then everyone's 
running in a shoe in which 

680
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:15,560
they're three 4% better that 
that I think moves the sport one

681
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:19,760
in an equally scary way, which 
yeah, I think opens up a whole 

682
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:25,240
new kind of discussion. 
This episode of the Sidious Mag 

683
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:29,440
Podcast is presented by Ollipop.
Polly Throw is taking over for 

684
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:33,720
this special ad read, so try 
January may be over, but one of 

685
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:37,000
the best things to come out of 
it was Ollipop's brand new 

686
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:41,240
Shirley Temple flavor. 
Funny story, I was still under 

687
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:44,080
21 when I started working with 
Sidious, and when I was on the 

688
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:46,960
road with the team last year, 
I'd hit that awkward moment at 

689
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:50,080
dinner when everyone's ordering 
drinks and I still had a few 

690
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:53,920
months to wait. 
That was until Chris suggested I

691
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:58,200
try a Shirley Temple, and golly,
I was hooked. 

692
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:01,720
Just ask the hotel staff in Fort
Lauderdale. 

693
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:05,000
The bright pink color, the 
syrupy sweetness, the fizzy 

694
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:08,360
lemon lime finish. 
It absolutely shook me. 

695
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:11,920
Now obviously that led to a few 
laughs every time I ordered a 

696
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:13,600
Shirley Temple at a bar or 
restaurant. 

697
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,880
But even now that I'm 21, I 
definitely haven't outgrown the 

698
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:19,840
craving. 
And that's where Ollie Pop steps

699
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:21,880
in. 
Lollipop Shirley Temple is a 

700
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:24,960
modern, grown up take on the 
classic, made with a bright 

701
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:28,880
blend of tart cherry, white 
grape, lemon and lime, plus 

702
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:31,240
Ollipop's signature prebiotic 
formula. 

703
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,640
It's sweet without being 
overpowering, refreshing without

704
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:37,880
being boring, and way more 
interesting than the sugary 

705
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:40,800
original. 
Each can has just 4 to 5 grams 

706
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:44,440
of sugar, 50 calories, and all 
the fun of the drink without the

707
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:47,200
sugar crash. 
And honestly, we know runners 

708
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,640
appreciate tart cherry too. 
You can find Ollipop Shirley 

709
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:52,920
Temple at retailers nationwide 
right now. 

710
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:56,600
Or head to Drink ollipop.com, 
where Sidious Mag podcast 

711
00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:00,240
listeners get 25% off with the 
code Sidious 25. 

712
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:04,040
It's not just the runner's soda.
A big throws guy like me loves 

713
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:07,520
it too. 
Ollipop Polly throws Approved. 

714
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:14,720
We've rattled off a variety of 
different brands, but I want you

715
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:17,680
to kind of share with the 
listeners how you assess the 

716
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:21,760
timeline of where, you know, we 
started to where we are in this 

717
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:25,080
sort of pecking order of the 
brands because Nike comes out 

718
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:27,640
and they were on top for the 
longest time. 

719
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:32,680
And then it did feel like Adidas
would, would try and counter and

720
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:34,800
it was Nike and Adidas for the 
longest time. 

721
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,520
You, you mentioned the pandemic,
the pandemic also afforded every

722
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:41,920
other brand to catch up because 
there were no races. 

723
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:45,200
So there wasn't a way of 
necessarily getting embarrassed 

724
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:49,480
on the world marathon major 
stage where I think it was 2019 

725
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:52,040
and 2018. 
And most of these podiums were 

726
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:55,880
primarily Nike athletes. 
And coming out of that, there 

727
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:57,840
definitely has been a bit more 
diversity. 

728
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:02,280
So where do you assess all these
different brands and what's the 

729
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:05,400
closest you think we've gotten 
to a state of equilibrium? 

730
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:08,480
It's probably now and I think 
that's the uncomfortable part, 

731
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:11,600
right, where everyone's kind of 
manufacturing these, these 

732
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:13,960
different shoes that you can see
different brands. 

733
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:16,080
You've got for instance, Puma 
with like an industry leading 

734
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:17,239
shoe. 
I think that's Mizuno have 

735
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:19,520
brought out a really, really 
good middle distance spike. 

736
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:23,199
Asic's really coming back in as 
a major player that you kind of 

737
00:34:23,199 --> 00:34:24,760
look at. 
I think world records are always

738
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:26,800
a way to do it. 
And even throughout the 20 Tens,

739
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:29,760
it was Adidas right in the the 
ADI 0 range because they were 

740
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:32,239
the first to market with 
basically the type of foam. 

741
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:35,320
They just created a really, 
really responsive foam and a 

742
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,520
much softer foam as well so you 
could compress it more. 

743
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,000
There's some great insight. 
I had a great time speaking to 

744
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:42,199
Angus Wardlaw about a load of 
that. 

745
00:34:42,199 --> 00:34:44,800
He was one of the engineers on 
the project and he says that 

746
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:47,679
really that was part of Adidas's
success in the 20 Tens was they 

747
00:34:47,679 --> 00:34:50,400
were so engineering focused. 
It wasn't kind of as much about 

748
00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:51,639
the design of how the shoe 
looks. 

749
00:34:51,639 --> 00:34:53,639
It was people saying this is 
what we need to make a shoe 

750
00:34:53,639 --> 00:34:56,320
perform and then put whatever 
kind of colour you want on it. 

751
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:57,920
We don't really care as long as 
it works. 

752
00:34:57,920 --> 00:34:59,440
We're we're going to kind of use
that. 

753
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:03,360
But you can go back to the kind 
of the 90s, you know, Fila tried

754
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:05,520
a carbon plated shoe. 
There's other brands that were 

755
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:08,040
experimenting with similar. 
And what's been explained to me 

756
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:10,400
really is that it's about a 
quality of materials thing as 

757
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:12,040
well. 
It's not just kind of the, the 

758
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:14,120
novelty of ideas. 
The phone wasn't good enough for

759
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:16,320
a long time where you wouldn't 
make a shoe tool because the 

760
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:18,120
phone wasn't that responsive and
kind of that good. 

761
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,800
The carbon fibre, you know, 
decades ago was, was a lot 

762
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:22,800
weaker. 
And there's, I think there's a 

763
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:27,320
story in there about an Adidas 
employee bending a shoe that's, 

764
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:29,920
you know, an early, early shoe 
with a carbon plate in it to, to

765
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:33,840
test it and slapping it because 
it just wasn't kind of resilient

766
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:34,960
enough. 
And I think I've heard stories 

767
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:38,080
I've done about Eucharist, but 
of early Nike shoes also kind of

768
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:41,240
the the carbon fiber and that 
not quite, you know, always 

769
00:35:41,240 --> 00:35:43,400
being up to kind of the 
robustness that it needs to be. 

770
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:45,560
So I think it's interesting that
so many different brands have 

771
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:47,160
kind of played a role in shaping
this. 

772
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:49,640
You can also look at Hoker and 
on throughout the 20 tens and 

773
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:52,520
there's a chapter that it hits 
them in the book because I spoke

774
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:54,960
to some people associated to 
those companies and I think 

775
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:56,760
they've played a really 
interesting role of coming in 

776
00:35:56,760 --> 00:35:59,360
with these big chunky shoes, 
novel designs. 

777
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:03,360
And that is I think encouraged 
in a way, maybe this is me 

778
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:06,360
coming at it with kind of my 
analytical soccer football head 

779
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:08,880
on where we see kind of teams 
playing a certain style and 

780
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:10,800
influencing bigger teams. 
And then and that kind of 

781
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:14,040
becoming a normal thing, but I 
wonder why the US and Nike would

782
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:15,720
have done differently had other 
brands. 

783
00:36:15,720 --> 00:36:17,800
And I'm not showing them that 
these models can can have 

784
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,440
success, you know, before they 
brought out those market leading

785
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:22,720
shoes. 
What are the elements you think 

786
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:26,720
from the first iteration of the 
4% that Nike came out with that 

787
00:36:26,720 --> 00:36:31,360
still lives on through every 
Nike shoe, that is, that is kind

788
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:34,960
of come after it, but then at 
the same time the influence on 

789
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:38,160
all of these other brands? 
Yeah, I mean, the, the phone 

790
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:39,680
part is really interesting, 
right? 

791
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:41,760
And that's where all the all the
games have been had people at 

792
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:44,560
Puma were explaining this to me 
that they've basically just had 

793
00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:47,640
a, a phone that they've never 
seen before in terms of how 

794
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:50,440
responsive it is, you know, how 
much, again, you can compress 

795
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:52,000
it. 
So it's really, really squishy. 

796
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:55,160
I've had, I've run and I've got 
a pair of fast * threes, which 

797
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:58,080
I, you know, just just put away 
in the box and I'm not using 

798
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:00,240
them because that's so good that
I'm like, I need to keep these 

799
00:37:00,240 --> 00:37:02,160
and, and not, you know, wear 
them down too much. 

800
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:05,800
And that there was then saying 
people at Puma was because 

801
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:07,560
you've then got really, really 
good foam where you can make 

802
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:09,760
the, the shore a lot taller and 
you can put in that carbon 

803
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:12,120
plate. 
Now decades ago, people did try 

804
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:14,520
putting carbon plates in and at 
first they, they put in flat 

805
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:17,040
carbon plates, which weren't the
same as the design we see that 

806
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:19,000
Nike have now with the 
curvature. 

807
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:21,520
And there's some funny legal 
stuff around that are like Nike 

808
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:23,920
tried to patent it, but they 
couldn't completely because 

809
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:26,880
Adidas had put in it wasn't 
specifically a carbon plate, but

810
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:28,560
it was that kind of plate 
design. 

811
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:30,400
I think it was Kevlar or 
something they used. 

812
00:37:30,720 --> 00:37:32,960
And that meant then I could say 
as long as you don't make it 

813
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:36,520
this exact shape and this exact 
curvature around the foot, then 

814
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:39,000
you can work around it. 
And that's from what I'm told, 

815
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:41,160
put in a lot of time and effort 
into making sure kind of with 

816
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:43,240
alloys, we can do this right? 
And we're not going to end up in

817
00:37:43,240 --> 00:37:45,440
court over it. 
It was like in 2M. 

818
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,440
If you make a pencil a really 
specific length, someone can 

819
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:52,360
make it a centimeter or an inch 
longer either way and it's 

820
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:55,000
completely fine. 
So obviously, Nike, the big part

821
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:58,080
where the plate because that was
the new thing again, but the 

822
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:01,600
foam really from whatever says 
to me is where a lot of that 4% 

823
00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:03,240
that we're talking about comes 
from the foam. 

824
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:05,720
And also by having way more 
foam, suddenly you then got 

825
00:38:05,720 --> 00:38:08,080
space to put in a plate and you 
can curve it now as well because

826
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:10,800
you got that room to play with. 
The room to play with thing 

827
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:15,080
comes from now, I guess. 
Also the World Athletics rules 

828
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:16,720
and guidelines that they 
established. 

829
00:38:16,720 --> 00:38:20,520
Was that 2019 or 2020? 
Yeah, I think it was closer to 

830
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:24,080
2020, but again, they kind of 
brought it in and then with a 

831
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:25,720
delay, right. 
So they said we're going to 

832
00:38:25,720 --> 00:38:27,640
bring in these rules in about 
two years time. 

833
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:29,880
So you've kind of got a lot of 
time with your design cycles, 

834
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:32,400
which again was probably lenient
twice I think. 

835
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:35,720
And a lot of people, I think 
it's difficult because I think 

836
00:38:35,720 --> 00:38:37,520
we're retrospect, we all look 
back and go, should you have 

837
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:38,920
done more? 
Should you've been stricter? 

838
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:42,480
But what were they necessarily 
to do at the time? 

839
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:44,880
Did Nike deserve credit of being
like the first mover in this and

840
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:46,320
saying we've made a really good 
product? 

841
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:49,400
No one knows that in a decade 
when we sat here on a podcast 

842
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:51,960
saying, Oh my God, think about 
how much the sport has changed. 

843
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:54,440
If that doesn't have the impact,
then it's not a big deal, right?

844
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:57,160
So I don't know if it's if we're
just being harsh in, you know, 

845
00:38:57,160 --> 00:38:58,200
in hindsight. 
Yeah. 

846
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:01,360
And then coincidentally, I think
when the rules did come out, 

847
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:04,440
there were people probably from 
the other brands who were just 

848
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:07,120
like, well, if we look at just 
sort of like the restrictions is

849
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:11,840
like this just so happens to me,
Nike's newest shoe. 

850
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:15,480
And I remember that sentiment 
pretty vividly. 

851
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:18,520
But when the rules did 
eventually come out, now it just

852
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:20,880
sort of created was like, well, 
here are your limits and here's 

853
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:24,600
like how much you can play with.
What do you think that 

854
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:27,560
creativity, I guess has sort of 
led to because we've seen so 

855
00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:31,040
many different iterations of of 
super shoes, even with like the 

856
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:34,360
fast R3 where they cut, you 
know, space out of the heel to 

857
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:36,120
be able to do more stuff 
elsewhere. 

858
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,760
Or I think that was more focused
on like the weight of the upper 

859
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:41,560
and all and just the weight of 
the total shoe. 

860
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:45,680
But yeah, I guess like what as 
you studied all of this, like 

861
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:49,960
what was the most creative that 
you've seen a brand get? 

862
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:52,920
Yeah, the P1's pretty creative. 
They take, you know, chunks out 

863
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:55,320
the middle of the shoe. 
There's like kind of decoupling.

864
00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:57,520
I think Walter describes it to 
me with with where you basically

865
00:39:57,520 --> 00:39:59,560
you can see the plate and parts 
of it, which you just can't. 

866
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:01,200
You know, the shoes. 
There's a couple others that 

867
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:04,560
have got, I can't remember the 
brand, but have real sharp 

868
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:05,760
tapers. 
So we're talking about the 

869
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:08,160
middle of the shoe being really 
chunky and then it's slipping 

870
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:11,120
up, you know, really heavily to 
to the toes or away from the 

871
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:13,160
heel. 
And that's because of where they

872
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:15,240
basically measure the shoe. 
It's funny, they take these kind

873
00:40:15,240 --> 00:40:18,680
of random points that aren't. 
They're kind of just under the 

874
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:20,760
the balls of the feet where the 
toes are and then a little bit 

875
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:23,920
in from the heel When it means 
that as long as you're at the 

876
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:27,240
stack height limit those 
specific points, you can however

877
00:40:27,240 --> 00:40:29,000
you want to be around that. 
You can kind of you know, if you

878
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:31,160
want loads of foam in the mid 
sole, you can do it, but you 

879
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:33,280
might have to be really 
aggressive kind of kind of on 

880
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:35,360
other side. 
And then I think VUVO even came 

881
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:38,640
out with the, the rule Breaker 
one, which was just sort of like

882
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:42,800
their extreme way of it more 
probably for catching headlines 

883
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:46,680
of like this shoe is illegal. 
And there have been just sort of

884
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:50,360
like those fun also just sort of
like, all right, well, if the 

885
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:54,840
limit is 40, here's a 45, you 
know, millimetre trainer or even

886
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:57,960
I think we've seen in what was 
it one of the Iron Man races 

887
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:01,600
from like 2 years ago, like the,
the guys were wearing on shoes 

888
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:04,560
that were much bigger, right? 
Yeah, there's like 50 mil sack 

889
00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:07,360
like shoes I think, you know, on
hookah everyone has them. 

890
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:11,200
Adidas have them. 
In fact, I think it was the 100K

891
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:13,080
world record. 
There was an ultra world record 

892
00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:16,120
that got broken again in what 
was like a very similar breaking

893
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:18,600
2 style thing of you look at the
kits that they're wearing and 

894
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:21,480
they're like scientifically 
designed to like reduce sweat 

895
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:24,960
and stuff. 
And you know all the the way the

896
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:26,520
shoes have been like tailored to
them. 

897
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:31,400
That was broken in a shoe, which
was I think a 15 more stack like

898
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:32,680
shoe. 
And in fact, I think I've run in

899
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:35,200
that shoe. 
I went to Adidas HQ because I 

900
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:37,760
was speaking to a biomechanist 
who was working there guy, a guy

901
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:39,120
called Bax, who's who's in the 
book. 

902
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,560
Funnily enough, he's now doing 
PhD research with on which I 

903
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:44,240
think is really, really cool and
again, great to see so many 

904
00:41:44,240 --> 00:41:46,040
people. 
He's also a Kenyan, which I 

905
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:47,800
think is great to have. 
Kenya's not just running in the 

906
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:50,200
shoes but also playing such a 
key role in the research. 

907
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:52,880
I'm always very mindful that 
we're a bunch of Western guys 

908
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:55,640
speaking about a sport and an 
event that is dominated by 

909
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:58,080
people mostly from from another 
part of the world. 

910
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:01,360
But yeah, all these brands are 
having shoes which are kind of 

911
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:03,240
deliberately over the over the 
stack height. 

912
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:05,560
Part of me thinks that's 
obviously not designed to try 

913
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:07,840
and sneak those into a race. 
It's probably more for training.

914
00:42:08,240 --> 00:42:10,840
And it might also be for for, 
you know, casual runners might 

915
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:12,480
be for that. 
You know, the amount of like 

916
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:14,880
high rocks races I see now or 
kind of across Europe, you've 

917
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:17,560
got the, the real rise of like 
the hybrid athlete people that 

918
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:19,920
want to, you know, bench press 
however many hundreds of pounds 

919
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:22,680
or kilos and also run a 5-6 
minute mile. 

920
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:25,280
I think you'll never catch me 
trying to lift that much in the 

921
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:26,960
gym. 
I'll, I'll stick to, you know, 

922
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:28,520
running in a 40 mil stack like 
shoe. 

923
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:30,080
Yeah. 
Yeah, exactly. 

924
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:32,800
But I think clearly it's 
companies knowing that, you 

925
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:35,280
know, it's such a global sport 
and probably the biggest sport 

926
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:37,640
in in the world, especially on a
recreation level where you say 

927
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:39,960
actually different people might 
want different things. 

928
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:42,720
And this technology now is so 
good that you can market shoes 

929
00:42:42,720 --> 00:42:45,600
for heavier or bigger people 
because they they want to run as

930
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:47,880
well. 
Where did this book take you? 

931
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:51,240
I mean, obviously you got the 
chance to report from global 

932
00:42:51,240 --> 00:42:53,840
championships. 
You've probably been to labs and

933
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:58,320
headquarters and even just sort 
of flagship stores. 

934
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:02,720
Like what was the most fun part 
of the reporting process with 

935
00:43:02,720 --> 00:43:04,760
this one? 
Yeah, I think I was speaking to 

936
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:07,360
so many people. 
I mean, for instance, I had a 

937
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:09,040
great time. 
I was speaking to Polly Laws, 

938
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:11,920
who he works, works on, does a 
lot of great work there. 

939
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:14,840
Went up to their office in kind 
of spital fields and we sat 

940
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,160
down, had a coffee and we were 
just chatting various things 

941
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:18,520
through. 
And it's, it's such a great 

942
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:20,120
unifier. 
I find sport in that way. 

943
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:22,760
I mean, I've been fortunate 
enough to go kind of across the 

944
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:24,600
world, partly for work and 
partly for pleasure. 

945
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:28,440
I was in Chicago last October to
run the marathon there. 

946
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:31,680
And it's, it's a weird thing to 
kind of, I think, go to 

947
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:33,480
different places. 
And I don't know if you share 

948
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:36,800
this sentiment, Chris, but just 
for for sport, it's a it's a 

949
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:39,920
very random thing that I guess 
people hadn't done kind of up 

950
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:42,360
until now in the past fifty kind
of 60 years. 

951
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:44,680
So it's kind of a baffling 
thing. 

952
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:47,440
And it's the same, I think 
really in my day-to-day job as 

953
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:49,840
well. 
You ran 2 marathons I think 

954
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:52,760
right in the last while you were
working on this project. 

955
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:56,920
Yeah, so I did the Kelvin Kipton
double, which I really enjoyed. 

956
00:43:56,920 --> 00:43:58,560
So I did. 
I did London and Chicago. 

957
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:01,240
London is my home race. 
It was the first time doing that

958
00:44:01,720 --> 00:44:04,680
and I'd run around what's a good
fridge time in the UK, which is 

959
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:06,280
great. 
It's all like national level 

960
00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:08,920
qualifier equivalent. 
So I, I cashed it in while I had

961
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:12,080
it partly on the basis of going,
well, we're in a super shoe 0 

962
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:13,680
now. 
I keep looking across the pond 

963
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:16,400
and seeing the Boston qualifier 
time dropping and then not 

964
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:18,360
dropping and people not getting 
in and then it drops again. 

965
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:22,080
And I'm like, OK, if I've got a,
you know, a, a major marathon 

966
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:23,680
entry time, I, I might as well 
use it. 

967
00:44:24,240 --> 00:44:25,800
So I cashed it in for Chicago as
well. 

968
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:28,760
And when had a had a great time 
there and A and in a race where 

969
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:31,200
Con obviously set the set the US
record, which I was like, 

970
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:32,520
that's, that's great. 
Yeah. 

971
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:35,240
So how much did learning so much
about this science kind of 

972
00:44:35,240 --> 00:44:38,040
change your, your thinking when 
it came to just like, I mean, 

973
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:40,600
did it pop into moments while 
you were like on the run and 

974
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:42,920
just kind of realizing like 
what's happening in your under 

975
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,600
foot? 
Yeah, sometimes you want to say 

976
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:47,400
it did and I've. 
I mean, I have a great kind of 

977
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:49,680
group of people that I run with 
in London as well at the running

978
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:51,840
club and like the amount we'll 
just kind of chat about shoes. 

979
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:54,640
And there's someone that really 
struck me, Laura Healey, one of 

980
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:57,080
the researchers at Puma, 
formerly at UMass, who worked 

981
00:44:57,080 --> 00:45:00,600
with Alta, She was sent to me. 
How kind of educated consumers 

982
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:02,720
are these days that, you know, 
people aren't just kind of 

983
00:45:02,720 --> 00:45:05,200
rocking up and going, oh, I want
that shoe because it looks nice.

984
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:07,720
They want to understand the 
science of it and people then 

985
00:45:07,720 --> 00:45:09,680
want to get tested in the shoe 
or understand, you know, what's 

986
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:11,120
going to really work, but best 
them. 

987
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:13,160
So there definitely were times 
where, you know, I was thinking 

988
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:15,000
about that or kind of like 
pacing strategies. 

989
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:17,320
And I remember actually took 
from reading an interview with 

990
00:45:17,320 --> 00:45:19,640
Paula Radcliffe that she said 
before she ran her, her first, I

991
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:22,800
think it was her first world 
record in London going off of 

992
00:45:22,800 --> 00:45:25,400
her Chicago time. 
Previously, her aim was just to 

993
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:27,840
run as many miles as she could 
quicker than her Chicago 

994
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:29,200
average. 
And I was like, that's a great 

995
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:30,760
game plan. 
I'm, I'm going to copy that for 

996
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:32,560
my next marathon. 
And it, it works really well. 

997
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:34,400
So you'd be amazed what you can 
learn. 

998
00:45:34,720 --> 00:45:36,800
No, definitely. 
And I think sometimes I've, I've

999
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:39,160
selfishly like taken the 
opportunity to pick an athlete's

1000
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:43,680
brain and then just take 
whatever training advice and 

1001
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:45,840
apply it to to my own. 
I mean, yeah. 

1002
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:48,880
I mean, how many times have I 
probably called Conor Manse up 

1003
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:51,440
and been like, hey, like, am I 
doing this, this whole thing 

1004
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:52,360
right? 
Like what? 

1005
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:56,240
So no, I've, I've definitely 
been been guilty of that before.

1006
00:45:56,240 --> 00:45:58,360
So you brought up Paula 
Radcliffe. 

1007
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:01,440
She's someone who's like hung on
to her spot, like on the all 

1008
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:03,640
time list. 
But in general, just like 

1009
00:46:03,720 --> 00:46:05,040
everything's been totally 
rewritten. 

1010
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:09,480
Do you feel like sometimes the 
the hate that super shoes get 

1011
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:13,720
comes from a crowd that is just 
like not ready to let go of just

1012
00:46:13,720 --> 00:46:16,800
sort of seeing all these names? 
Because was it like Palter got 

1013
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:20,880
first guy under 205, like no 
longer in the top 100? 

1014
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:24,120
And I'm sure people who were 
around in 2007 around that like 

1015
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:27,520
find that really hard to come to
grips with. 

1016
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:31,960
So where do you feel like the 
hate comes from for super shoes?

1017
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:33,720
Yeah. 
I think a lot of people in sport

1018
00:46:33,720 --> 00:46:35,280
don't generally like change, 
right? 

1019
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:38,960
I remember seeing similar stuff 
with like torpedo bats in the 

1020
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,240
MOB past couple years. 
So anything that's new and 

1021
00:46:41,240 --> 00:46:43,360
different, I understand in sport
were generally quite quite 

1022
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:46,320
resistant to change. 
And obviously the example that's

1023
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:47,520
held up is swimming in the 
suits. 

1024
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,680
Then when they got banned, I 
think that was kind of a tiny 

1025
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:52,920
bit different. 
But I kind of get as a 

1026
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:55,920
comparison, we don't have a huge
amount to to kind of compare it 

1027
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:57,400
to. 
I always think the most 

1028
00:46:57,400 --> 00:46:59,440
interesting people to ask in 
these moments are the athletes 

1029
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:01,520
themselves. 
And I think any elite athlete or

1030
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:04,160
mostly athletes, and certainly 
the ones that I spoke to were 

1031
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:06,880
generally of the, you know, 
agreement being like the sport 

1032
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:09,440
is always moving on. 
It's moved on like a sharper 

1033
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:12,040
amount now than previously. 
But even Paula Radcliffe herself

1034
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:14,320
has said, like, I ran a shoes 
that were better than what 

1035
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:16,760
people before we ran in. 
And that is just how evolution 

1036
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:18,520
tends to go in general. 
Things get better. 

1037
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:20,440
Same with nutrition. 
We could have a different 

1038
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:22,920
conversation about middle 
distances and, you know, bicarb 

1039
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:26,600
and tracks themselves, you know,
the improvements there, that 

1040
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:29,280
there's a human tendency to 
evolve and want that. 

1041
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:31,520
And I don't think you can really
have the sport without having 

1042
00:47:31,520 --> 00:47:34,680
that as well. 
So the athletes seem to, you 

1043
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:38,000
know, accept this is going to 
happen and this is something 

1044
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:40,400
that they can benefit from 
because everyone, you know, 

1045
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:42,280
before them would have benefited
from it as well. 

1046
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:45,080
So I think once they've had wins
and medals, those are things 

1047
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:48,600
that kind of matter a little bit
more and and everyone's going to

1048
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:50,360
wish they'd had something. 
We could have run this and it 

1049
00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:53,560
was a bit quicker, right? 
But I don't think it's almost 

1050
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:55,920
worthwhile to kind of like 
chastise a whole sport. 

1051
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:58,040
For it like this is. 
This is natural and happens in 

1052
00:47:58,040 --> 00:47:58,760
other sports too. 
Do. 

1053
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:01,760
You feel like it's starting to 
get a little bit cloudy when it 

1054
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:07,880
comes to trying to quantify like
what can be attributed to, you 

1055
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:12,560
know, this performance where 
it's like, obviously nowadays, 

1056
00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:14,520
if you're not in the shoes, then
you're doing yourself a 

1057
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:17,200
disservice at the professional 
and the and the highest level. 

1058
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:20,600
But then from there, you 
mentioned bicarb that, you know,

1059
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:22,400
has accounted for a chunk of 
time. 

1060
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:25,920
Now there's the no meal broccoli
shots which are making we're 

1061
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:28,960
making headlines, I think during
the the Winter Olympics. 

1062
00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:34,240
In addition to that, just like 
there's a whole variety of other

1063
00:48:34,240 --> 00:48:37,960
X factors that could be 
incorporated into an athlete's 

1064
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:41,120
performance. 
Did you get any feeling from the

1065
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:44,480
folks that you talked to that it
has made, you know, just sort of

1066
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:47,880
their jobs a little bit harder 
to, you know, put this 

1067
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:50,560
percentage to this performance 
that you see on race day? 

1068
00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:52,920
Yeah, definitely. 
And I think the, the kind of 

1069
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:55,200
thing we're alluding to with 
this is, is doping, right? 

1070
00:48:55,200 --> 00:48:57,960
Is, is performance. 
Of course there there's, there's

1071
00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:01,800
such a a problem with that, a 
deep rooted problem with that 

1072
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:05,600
globally. 
The there's an issue where you 

1073
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:08,040
can say it's almost that 
plausible deniability of well, 

1074
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:10,880
it might just be explained by 
the shoes, which means athletes 

1075
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:13,680
couldn't not not get away with. 
But it kind of, you know, it 

1076
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:15,880
makes it harder and it isn't 
kind of as clear. 

1077
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:18,000
Oh, this is just attributable to
other things. 

1078
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:21,000
I've seen people this week, I 
think, talking about, you know, 

1079
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:23,800
Co Hawker and would he have 
broken four kind of in the for 

1080
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:26,600
the mall, you know, in like the 
70s or 80s, whatever it might 

1081
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:28,880
have been that I think we can 
really tie ourselves up in 

1082
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:31,080
hypothetical knots in the track 
and field world. 

1083
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:33,480
Maybe that's because it's just 
not a regular thing as other 

1084
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:34,960
sports. 
We kind of get bored in the 

1085
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:36,920
meantime where, you know, we 
haven't always got the 

1086
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:39,400
championships or big races all 
the time that we're kind of sat 

1087
00:49:39,400 --> 00:49:41,920
there twiddling our thumbs and 
going, you know what, coming up 

1088
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:43,640
with a, you know, a thought 
experiment like that. 

1089
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:45,640
So it definitely has made it 
hard. 

1090
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:47,720
And I think there's probably a 
whole nother book to be written 

1091
00:49:47,720 --> 00:49:50,120
on the problems with, you know, 
actual prompt enhancing drugs 

1092
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:52,320
and doping and sport. 
I'll leave that to someone else 

1093
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:54,240
for now that that'll be a really
great read one day. 

1094
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:57,120
But definitely, I think that's 
probably one of the biggest 

1095
00:49:57,120 --> 00:49:59,480
problems with actually, I think 
more so than what it's done for 

1096
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:03,040
people on the all time lists and
the greats of kind of making 

1097
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:05,560
their performances probably look
worse or not quite as impressive

1098
00:50:05,560 --> 00:50:08,840
as they were then. 
Yeah, making I think an already 

1099
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:11,880
difficult, quite cloudy drug 
situation. 

1100
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:14,120
I think a lot more harder to 
actually kind of find the the 

1101
00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:17,520
truth with them. 
Where did you land on Ruth 

1102
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:21,440
Cheppengetich? 
Because I know for me, I have a 

1103
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:24,920
chapter on Ruth and it's, I 
think titled When Ruth 

1104
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:27,640
Cheppengetich like broke our 
brains or broke the marathon or 

1105
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:31,560
whatever it might be because it 
was just sort of such a crazy 

1106
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:35,360
performance on the day that led 
to so many people instantly 

1107
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:39,080
casting doubt. 
And I'm of the belief sometimes 

1108
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:41,880
that it's like if you just 
immediately are skeptical to 

1109
00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:45,960
every single performance that 
wows you, then you're going to 

1110
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:48,520
have a really hard time enjoying
the sport. 

1111
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:52,800
But then again, there were just 
so many different factors around

1112
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:56,720
Ruth's performance that just 
raised a little bit more 

1113
00:50:56,720 --> 00:50:59,640
suspicion than usual. 
And then, you know, the positive

1114
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,960
test for a diuretic, which is it
wasn't even the smoking gun that

1115
00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:04,600
most people thought that we 
would get. 

1116
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:08,280
And now we're sitting with two O
9 as a women's marathon world 

1117
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:11,280
record for as long as World 
Athletics will, you know, 

1118
00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:14,600
recognize that. 
And part of the reason why I 

1119
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:17,320
think like she she ran past, of 
course, were were the shoes. 

1120
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:19,760
But then you really don't know 
until you know. 

1121
00:51:19,760 --> 00:51:25,600
So where did you ultimately land
on, you know, expending ink on 

1122
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:27,080
Ruth Chevingenic? 
I'm. 

1123
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:28,800
Probably a bit too much 
irromantic. 

1124
00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:31,200
I think I always look for the 
reasons to kind of see why it it

1125
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:32,800
would be legitimate and would be
clean. 

1126
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:35,400
And so I. 
Had previous same thing and I, I

1127
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:39,360
started off the my chapter with 
and because I wrote it a while 

1128
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:43,160
back, just about like, here are 
the reasons why I think it could

1129
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:45,720
have, it could have worked. 
And here are the reasons why 

1130
00:51:45,720 --> 00:51:49,520
it's OK to be skeptical. 
And then it was funny enough 

1131
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:53,520
because I, I submitted the draft
over to one of my editors and 

1132
00:51:53,520 --> 00:51:56,560
then two days later the positive
test came and I was like, well, 

1133
00:51:56,560 --> 00:51:58,800
guess we got to totally rewrite 
this one. 

1134
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:01,640
And so that's what I know 
happening to me behind the 

1135
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:05,200
scenes. 
Yeah, I mean, that's the part I 

1136
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:07,520
actually added into kind of the 
chapter where I talk about shoot

1137
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:10,280
opening way later on. 
The shoot opening chapter that 

1138
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:13,840
that's in there didn't kind of 
include that, but it fitted in 

1139
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:16,960
kind of perfectly. 
And I think one of the the kind 

1140
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:20,160
of almost the character in this 
book, Yanis Pitzeladis, who I 

1141
00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:22,360
spoke to is, I mean, he's a 
fascinating guy. 

1142
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:25,760
He's done an awful lot of good, 
good work in the running world 

1143
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:28,840
in, in the research world going 
back kind of decades now. 

1144
00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:32,120
You know, he, he was fascinating
what he tried to do. 

1145
00:52:32,120 --> 00:52:34,200
Of. 
One of the earlier kind of 

1146
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:36,320
pioneers of trying to get 
towards the sub two marathon, 

1147
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:38,600
but his approach wasn't kind of 
what the Browns are doing. 

1148
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:41,080
It was saying, OK, we're going 
to build this team, develop them

1149
00:52:41,080 --> 00:52:43,560
over time, but also we're going 
to revolutionize the doping 

1150
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:44,960
because we want people to 
believe it. 

1151
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:47,280
And we want to basically 
validate all these races and say

1152
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:49,240
that's that race has been done 
clean. 

1153
00:52:49,240 --> 00:52:51,160
And I think you've almost got 
the worst case scenario with 

1154
00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:54,440
with Richard Mcgetich whereby, 
as you say, 1, we don't actually

1155
00:52:54,440 --> 00:52:57,400
know what The thing is that 
she's taken and, and what The 

1156
00:52:57,400 --> 00:53:00,880
thing is covering up. 
So that leads to even more kind 

1157
00:53:00,880 --> 00:53:02,640
of speculation. 
And the worst part where you 

1158
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:05,120
then go, well, she has 
technically passed the drug test

1159
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:06,920
in order to have this world 
record ratified. 

1160
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:10,800
So there's an argument whereby 
technically, and I don't believe

1161
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:13,040
it, but the argument is she 
could be clean after that 

1162
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:15,000
Chicago Marathon and then have 
started doping. 

1163
00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:18,360
Now as a result of breaking that
world record, she is then 

1164
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:21,680
subjected to a lot more regular 
testing, which which makes 

1165
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:22,640
sense. 
You want to test the top 

1166
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:24,800
athletes even more. 
I think Kenya athletes 

1167
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:27,480
especially get really high rates
because of kind of, I think 

1168
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:30,440
decades long problems and and 
you know, positive tests that we

1169
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:32,880
get from other athletes. 
And it's a result of that that, 

1170
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:34,800
you know, post half marathon, 
it's came out. 

1171
00:53:36,240 --> 00:53:38,920
And I think that then doesn't 
really help anyone because she 

1172
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:40,840
then keeps that record, keeps 
the prize money and everything 

1173
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:42,320
there. 
But also they technically 

1174
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:46,320
haven't proven that she's broken
that after taking after taking 

1175
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:48,680
some kind of pronouncing drug, 
which I think it's just a real 

1176
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:51,520
shame for for all involved. 
Now, my hope is that the sport 

1177
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:53,360
continues to move at a positive 
rate. 

1178
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:55,520
And I mean, I've heard 
researchers say they didn't 

1179
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:57,880
think a sub two Ted marathon for
the woman was ever quite 

1180
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:00,160
possible. 
Maybe we do start to get closer 

1181
00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:01,600
to that. 
There's some really good top 

1182
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:03,200
female athletes. 
And I think the biggest part in 

1183
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:06,000
all of this is the benefits of 1
athlete of getting better 

1184
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:08,160
benefits everyone. 
So if you can then suddenly get,

1185
00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:12,840
you know, 345 women running 215 
pace in, in a marathon, that's 

1186
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:14,360
so beneficial for the, for the 
very end. 

1187
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:16,640
I mean, Chris, you know what the
last 10K of a marathon is like. 

1188
00:54:16,880 --> 00:54:19,240
If you're out on your own and 
you know, your body's starting 

1189
00:54:19,240 --> 00:54:21,560
to break down, you need people 
around you, one, to just keep 

1190
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:22,840
you, you know, going at that 
pace. 

1191
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:25,400
And two, protection from wind, 
all the actual good kind of 

1192
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:28,520
science stuff as well. 
So I think we see that in track 

1193
00:54:28,520 --> 00:54:31,840
as one out right of like someone
like Jacob or Faith going out 

1194
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:34,120
super hard in a middle distance 
race, you just drag everyone 

1195
00:54:34,120 --> 00:54:37,760
else along to really fast times.
And that, I hope, will kind of 

1196
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:40,560
make up the gap in the 
difference to what people might 

1197
00:54:40,560 --> 00:54:41,880
be doing with performance 
announcing drugs. 

1198
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:44,440
But it seems to be part of the 
problem, which people have never

1199
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:46,920
quite reconciled in the sport. 
And to be honest with you, I 

1200
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:49,720
don't really know how they can. 
I think that's a really hard job

1201
00:54:49,720 --> 00:54:51,400
that the testers have to catch 
up. 

1202
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:54,320
I'd love to understand, you 
know, see more of that in kind 

1203
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:57,240
of deep dive and chat to people 
at water and the AIU because I 

1204
00:54:57,240 --> 00:54:59,320
think you've probably got one of
the most thankless tasks of 

1205
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:02,040
anyone in any sport. 
Yeah, sounds like you do want 

1206
00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:04,120
that doping book as your, as 
your second go round. 

1207
00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:08,440
All right, So back to just the, 
the, the writing process. 

1208
00:55:08,720 --> 00:55:11,440
You, you, you said in one part 
of the book that you were 

1209
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:14,480
surprised that like some people 
weren't bound by Ndas and all 

1210
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:16,800
that kind of stuff and they were
pretty open. 

1211
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:20,160
So, but what were some of the 
the challenges that you found in

1212
00:55:20,160 --> 00:55:22,080
reporting? 
Sometimes it's just finding the 

1213
00:55:22,080 --> 00:55:24,080
right people to speak to you, 
right, and you don't know what 

1214
00:55:24,080 --> 00:55:26,000
you don't know. 
So there's chapters of that and 

1215
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:29,120
parts of the book which at the 
start I didn't think I or I 

1216
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:31,000
didn't know I'd be writing about
because I didn't even know it 

1217
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:32,880
was a thing. 
I think what's quite cool is 

1218
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:35,200
that I hope I've got it down to 
kind of working out what the 

1219
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:37,400
difference maker is. 
And there's a guy who goes by 

1220
00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:41,480
the name of Gang Luo, Chinese 
guy who moved over to the States

1221
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:44,280
and from everything that I'm 
told, studied at the University 

1222
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:46,960
of Calgary and worked with them,
worked with Adidas on a bunch of

1223
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:49,320
projects. 
And his lifelong dream was to 

1224
00:55:49,320 --> 00:55:51,520
work for Nike. 
And he ended up getting a job at

1225
00:55:51,520 --> 00:55:54,280
Nike after graduating. 
Adidas didn't give him a job. 

1226
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:56,880
And I think a lot of people, 
Adidas understandably, regret 

1227
00:55:56,880 --> 00:55:58,720
that. 
He then took a bunch of research

1228
00:55:58,720 --> 00:56:00,680
that they done on. 
You know, publicly. 

1229
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:04,240
Publicly facing then published 
stuff, but taking kind of the 

1230
00:56:04,240 --> 00:56:07,160
building blocks of what kind of 
phone we need, how we're going 

1231
00:56:07,160 --> 00:56:09,200
to revolutionize the shoe in 
that way. 

1232
00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:11,960
Then when what's up with NYCAB, 
with the, you know, with the 

1233
00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:14,920
better plates and put that all 
together as part of Breaking 2. 

1234
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:18,280
I just thought that was really 
fascinating that kind of the the

1235
00:56:18,280 --> 00:56:21,360
landscape of this sport now and 
the way it's been changed by 

1236
00:56:21,360 --> 00:56:24,920
Nike and then others. 
It seems, at least to me, partly

1237
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:27,440
hinging by the fact one guy had 
this lifelong dream to work for 

1238
00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:29,200
a certain company. 
If you wanted to work for anyone

1239
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:30,720
else, this might look completely
different. 

1240
00:56:30,720 --> 00:56:33,400
I just think that's really great
and really, really cool. 

1241
00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:35,800
And I did, I put it in the book,
but I did reach out to him as 

1242
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:38,040
like, I'm writing this, I'd love
to speak to you. 

1243
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:39,880
I think he'd done one public 
interview. 

1244
00:56:40,200 --> 00:56:42,640
He emailed me back. 
He didn't like directly say no, 

1245
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:44,960
but he indirectly was like, talk
to other people. 

1246
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:47,640
So I was like, I respect you. 
I get it. 

1247
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:50,840
And especially when you're kind 
of going to people, I'm not 

1248
00:56:50,840 --> 00:56:52,160
really offering them anything in
return. 

1249
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:54,400
I don't think there's much they 
get out of being featured in 

1250
00:56:54,400 --> 00:56:56,120
something like this. 
It's for my own benefit and 

1251
00:56:56,120 --> 00:56:58,440
hopefully in public interest to 
kind of have a lot of this 

1252
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:00,880
publicized, which was why I was 
so grateful. 

1253
00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:03,000
There's a lot of people I 
bothered with text messages. 

1254
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:05,560
I became a bit of a LinkedIn 
warrior going through finding 

1255
00:57:05,560 --> 00:57:07,400
people. 
But the best part was you speak 

1256
00:57:07,400 --> 00:57:09,840
to someone and they know someone
else that you talk to and they 

1257
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:12,000
say, oh, you should speak to 
this guy or this person because 

1258
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:13,360
they played a role and they did 
this and that. 

1259
00:57:13,360 --> 00:57:17,200
So my, my, I think the thing I 
enjoyed the most about it was 

1260
00:57:17,200 --> 00:57:20,920
that was chatting to people and 
you find this, it really kind of

1261
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:22,840
snowballs in that way. 
Which was which is really great.

1262
00:57:23,240 --> 00:57:26,200
It also helps that although 
running can sometimes feel like 

1263
00:57:26,200 --> 00:57:29,000
this huge sport, the actual 
running community is much 

1264
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:31,360
smaller and everyone seems to to
know each other. 

1265
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:35,120
When you know you've got the 
copy of of the book in your 

1266
00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:36,880
hands, like what it What are you
most proud of? 

1267
00:57:37,080 --> 00:57:39,480
I, I think all just kind of 
finally came together. 

1268
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:41,160
I don't know where you're at in 
your writing process, but 

1269
00:57:41,160 --> 00:57:44,200
there's a lot of times where, 
you know, I'm sat somewhere and 

1270
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:46,520
it's it's a lot of kind of Word 
documents and spreadsheets and 

1271
00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:47,640
things. 
And I'm like, I don't know how 

1272
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:50,560
this is going to become a, a 
physical kind of tangible thing.

1273
00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:54,040
But I, yeah, I guess I pulled it
together across a year and in a 

1274
00:57:54,040 --> 00:57:56,080
period where I was kind of 
running marathons and covering 

1275
00:57:56,080 --> 00:57:58,880
it for work as well. 
But it's just a real privilege 

1276
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:01,320
to be able to, I think, go and 
ask people stuff about this and 

1277
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:03,440
also to kind of share and chart 
their own experiences. 

1278
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:05,720
The the biggest thing I think 
I've learned in all forms of 

1279
00:58:05,720 --> 00:58:08,200
journalism is as long as you 
don't really go in with too much

1280
00:58:08,200 --> 00:58:11,960
of kind of like a fixed idea or 
kind of you're not trying to get

1281
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:15,200
people to say something specific
where whereby I mean, you're not

1282
00:58:15,200 --> 00:58:17,680
going in with a preconceived 
notion of saying, I want to get 

1283
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:19,640
these words out of their mouth 
so I can put that down as a 

1284
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:21,560
quote from them. 
If you go in and say, look, I'm 

1285
00:58:21,560 --> 00:58:23,960
genuinely just curious. 
Tell me about your experiences, 

1286
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:26,800
the role you played in this shoe
or as an athlete, what you've 

1287
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:28,320
achieved. 
People generally are really 

1288
00:58:28,320 --> 00:58:30,080
forthcoming because they know 
that you're not kind of like 

1289
00:58:30,080 --> 00:58:33,320
trying to trap them. 
And and I think with how kind of

1290
00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:35,400
the past decade and a bit have 
panned out with shoes that 

1291
00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:37,600
there's some people that 
probably rightly so are a little

1292
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:40,040
bit frustrated that they had 
work that didn't quite get the 

1293
00:58:40,040 --> 00:58:42,480
recognition and all the other 
brands have done things they 

1294
00:58:42,480 --> 00:58:44,720
wish their brand had done. 
And I think him and build a 

1295
00:58:44,720 --> 00:58:46,360
chancellor platform that is. 
Is really great. 

1296
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:50,400
What are you looking forward to 
with this getting out into to 

1297
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:51,920
the world? 
I'm, I'm sure there's going to 

1298
00:58:51,920 --> 00:58:56,360
be like lots of visiting with 
run clubs and running stores and

1299
00:58:56,360 --> 00:58:57,760
all this kind of stuff to market
it. 

1300
00:58:57,760 --> 00:59:00,640
But you know, when someone picks
it up, I guess, what's the 

1301
00:59:00,640 --> 00:59:02,080
feeling you hope they take away 
from it? 

1302
00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:05,640
I guess I just hope they they 
learn something, you know, about

1303
00:59:05,640 --> 00:59:07,400
people's stories and what's kind
of shared in that. 

1304
00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:08,800
I I rose it's my name on the 
cover. 

1305
00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:10,920
But as I think I said, the 
acknowledgements like this is. 

1306
00:59:11,160 --> 00:59:13,840
A book from. 
The insight and the time of so 

1307
00:59:13,840 --> 00:59:16,160
many other people and the 
achievements of kind of other 

1308
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:19,200
athletes that hopefully it's not
anything really to do with me. 

1309
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:20,920
I've just been the one that 
spoken to all of them and kind 

1310
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:23,960
of compiled it all together. 
And I hope that people will then

1311
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:26,400
become a little bit more 
informed, I think, and I don't 

1312
00:59:26,400 --> 00:59:28,680
know where you stand on this 
Christian kind of a journalism 

1313
00:59:28,680 --> 00:59:31,280
error, but increasingly, I 
think, you know, there's a lot 

1314
00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:33,360
of misinformation in the world. 
It definitely feels like there's

1315
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:35,040
a lot of misinformation in the 
sporting world. 

1316
00:59:35,040 --> 00:59:37,960
And I'd love for people to just 
kind of understand how how 

1317
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:39,680
things have gone. 
I'm not claiming to be the 

1318
00:59:39,680 --> 00:59:42,040
gospel on this and this be, you 
know, the completely accurate 

1319
00:59:42,040 --> 00:59:43,360
story. 
It's definitely probably been 

1320
00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:46,880
embellished by people in certain
moments in certain times, but it

1321
00:59:46,880 --> 00:59:49,400
feels to me intuitively fairly 
close to truth. 

1322
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:51,840
So I kind of trust that. 
So go look, if you can kind of 

1323
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:54,800
take away these people's 
opinions and their insight and 

1324
00:59:54,800 --> 00:59:57,040
better inform your own opinion, 
then then that's great. 

1325
00:59:57,040 --> 00:59:59,160
That's kind of, I think, 
ultimately all I ever aim to do.

1326
00:59:59,840 --> 01:00:02,680
Well, Liam, congratulations on 
putting this whole thing 

1327
01:00:02,680 --> 01:00:06,800
together. 
And I'm sure, yeah, it was lots 

1328
01:00:06,800 --> 01:00:10,960
of late nights, lots of hours 
spent on transcribing and trying

1329
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:14,360
to find, you know, where this 
quote is going to fit and. 

1330
01:00:15,080 --> 01:00:18,080
Who else can I get to to add 
some more color voice to this 

1331
01:00:18,080 --> 01:00:20,400
whole entire thing? 
And it's such a rewarding 

1332
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:23,720
process once it you finally have
that that book in your hands and

1333
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:25,040
can, you know, share with the 
world. 

1334
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:28,520
And so thank you for for sharing
an early copy of the book with 

1335
01:00:28,520 --> 01:00:30,960
me. 
I guess it's available starting 

1336
01:00:30,960 --> 01:00:33,360
March 2nd, right? 
That's right. 

1337
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:37,160
And we'll include the links to 
it in the show notes so that you

1338
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:40,680
can pick up a copy. 
And once again, yeah, 

1339
01:00:40,680 --> 01:00:43,320
congratulations. 
Because this is it's, it's it's 

1340
01:00:43,320 --> 01:00:45,520
awesome to see. 
And this is a a topic that I'm 

1341
01:00:45,520 --> 01:00:51,040
sure dominates everything from 
college teams to run clubs and 

1342
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:52,840
and people everywhere. 
Yeah. 

1343
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:56,560
Thank you so much, Chris. 
All right, that's a wrap on 

1344
01:00:56,560 --> 01:00:58,800
today's episode. 
Thanks for listening, for the 

1345
01:00:58,800 --> 01:01:01,800
time, the curiosity, and for 
making this show part of your 

1346
01:01:01,800 --> 01:01:04,880
routine or your run. 
A big thanks to our producer 

1347
01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:07,720
Jasmine Fair and to everyone 
behind the scenes who helps make

1348
01:01:07,720 --> 01:01:10,920
the Sidious Mag Podcast happen. 
If you enjoyed today's episode, 

1349
01:01:10,920 --> 01:01:13,840
a quick five star review on 
Apple Podcast or Spotify helps 

1350
01:01:13,840 --> 01:01:17,040
people find this show and we 
read every single one. 

1351
01:01:17,160 --> 01:01:20,280
You can find 
muchmoretrackandfieldcoverage@sidiousmag.com

1352
01:01:20,280 --> 01:01:22,640
and you can follow along across 
all of Sidious Mag social 

1353
01:01:22,640 --> 01:01:24,120
channels. 
We'll see you next time. 

1354
01:01:24,360 --> 01:01:25,400
Thanks again for listening.