Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 304 posts

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#201

Post by bmj »

mathgladiator wrote: post #185
lojack wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But better bicycles are OK UCI has lots of rules around the size, geometry, and weight of equipment that can limit how much better you can make a bike. They even explicitly don't allow new innovations without their prior approval. Manufacturers find ways around the rules but to a large degree better bikes are actually not OK.

This is strange to me and basically says the engineers are not allowed to compete...

This is similar to the limit imposed on various motorsports. It's not that engineers aren't allowed to compete (they most definitely do, within the limitations imposed by the sport's governing body)--the rules exist to level the playing the field a bit between teams and companies with radically different budgets.

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#203

Post by notatoad »

mathgladiator wrote: post #185
lojack wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But better bicycles are OK UCI has lots of rules around the size, geometry, and weight of equipment that can limit how much better you can make a bike. They even explicitly don't allow new innovations without their prior approval. Manufacturers find ways around the rules but to a large degree better bikes are actually not OK.

This is strange to me and basically says the engineers are not allowed to compete...

The engineers can compete in engineering competitions. A bicycle race is not one of those.

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#204

Post by macspoofing »

chairmanwow wrote: post #199

What a phenomenal piece of journalism. If anything, I think a piece like this can expose the limits of statistical analysis to the unfamiliar. They made a very thorough analysis of something rather boring, all without making untrue statements about the limitations of each approach. I enjoyed this a lot.

Either that or a brilliant piece of Nike PR masquerading as journalism. Doesn't Nike also sell $400 basketball shoes that make you jump higher?

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#205

Post by tylerhou »

hinkley wrote: post #190
jartelt wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being 3 or 4% more efficient on race day is a HUGE advantage. Maybe not every elite runner wants to have to wear these shoes to compete?

In cycling people are risking lifetime bans to get a 5 or 8% power advantage. Which is doubly amazing because speed goes up with the square root of power due to drag. I’d wager that 3% for a runner is a bigger deal than 6% for a cyclist.

Drag doesn't matter as much at higher levels of cycling, because teams will draft off one another to save energy.

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#206

Post by macspoofing »

bluetech wrote: post #175
meotai wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the author of that research paper that that book is based on doesn't run marathons barefoot. He said humans aren't meant to run 26.2 miles nonstop barefooted.

Have you heard of persistence hunting? Here's is a short documentary from the BBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o It is believed to be one of the oldest hunting techniques, and so would indicate that humans are in fact meant to run long distances. According to Wikepedia, the runner runs for "about two to five hours over 25 to 35 km (16 to 22 mi)".

The fact that the rest of humanity didn't bother with persistence hunting may also be a clue that we weren't designed for that either.

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#207

Post by tylerhou »

sethammons wrote: post #180
pg314 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regular distance running is punishing on your joints, even if you're a forefoot runner with perfect form. The studies I'm aware of (e.g. [1]) point in the opposite direction: runners have a lower risk of osteoarthritis, potentially because they have a lower BMI. As an avid long distance runner myself, if you have any evidence to the contrary, I'd be very interested to read it. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubme…

I did not see the original source, but this secondary source shows that running is the second most injurious sport, right behind football. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3724624/How-running-...

I would be skeptical about any claim supported by a Daily Mail link. I couldn't find any references to the study they "cited" on Google Scholar, either.

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#208

Post by tzs »

gascan wrote: post #124
SurrealSoul wrote: post #54

Articles like this make me want to get a NYTimes sub, excellent reporting on something mundane with enough statistics to make it worth the read. If we ban shoes now, will we ban other augments in the future? Will this stunt the progression of such human performance augmentations?

We seem to take it very much case by case. Running efficiency augments are controversial. Drugs are verboten. But better bicycles are OK, and football players can wear eyeblack and grip-enhancing gloves. The closer a sport is to pure human performance, though, the more sensitive we seem to be about it. Perhaps out of a sense of continuity through the ages. Yeah, we train better than Athenian athletes. But we still ru…

Since your comment has spawned a lot of responses bringing up examples of how various sports have dealt with equipment innovation, this seems a good place to post this article, "The Boat That Almost Was" [1], about a project to design a better boat for the America's Cup yacht race.

[1] http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/3541/1/Clauser.pdf

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#209

Post by extralego »

macspoofing wrote: post #204
chairmanwow wrote: post #199

What a phenomenal piece of journalism. If anything, I think a piece like this can expose the limits of statistical analysis to the unfamiliar. They made a very thorough analysis of something rather boring, all without making untrue statements about the limitations of each approach. I enjoyed this a lot.

Either that or a brilliant piece of Nike PR masquerading as journalism. Doesn't Nike also sell $400 basketball shoes that make you jump higher?

Having worked for Nike on ads and in the publishing industry (on branded print content), I am very comfortable saying this is 100% an ad. If it weren’t, it simply wouldn’t be run, because that would justify future Nike ad $$$ to competing publications so as to not clump too much branding in one outlet, a tell-tale sign of a deal. It takes a unique very scenario for a pub like NYT to just hand something like this to a company like Nike; nothing about this even moves that needle. I am similarly comfortable asserting the rough draft was written by Nike in-house, simply because their people have this stuff falling out of their heads already. NYT leading this would cost multitudes in efficiency.

Re: Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster

#210

Post by retsibsi »

ccmonnett wrote: post #196
justinator wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, a 4% off a crappy marathon time is still a crappy time. I would save your money.

People train months (and years) to take minutes off their time, especially as their times get lower and the returns diminish. 4% of 3 hours is more than 7 minutes! That could be equivalent to tens of hours on the road. $250 is a _great_ investment at that rate. This is the "Why go to that expensive restaurant?" argument all over again. When it's your hobby, and it's important to you, the thought process behind the pu…

But surely the reason people value a 7 minute reduction so highly is because of what it represents -- a successful effort to get fitter and/or mentally tougher. If you're simply 'buying' that reduction, what is the point, unless you're at the level where other benefits (public glory, sponsorship) are within reach?
Post reply on HN