Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by Consultant32452 » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 4:35 AM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #186

gascan wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> We seem to take it very much case by case. The principle is very consistent: You can't do something that gives you an unfair advantage over other competitors. Everything banned basically falls into one of three categories: - It would be prohibitively expensive for others to adopt the technology. This is why you have weight minimums for bikes, boats, etc. - Others would have to risk their health to compete. This is…

I think it's interesting that the Olympics banned certain swimsuits because they were "too good." I dunno how much they cost at the time, but a quick search on Amazon shows these swimsuits are $200-500. That seems a pretty low bar for Olympic quality equipment.

https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1286...

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

#232

Post by bootlooped » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 4:40 AM UTC

extralego wrote: post #209

macspoofing wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think it would be illegal to run this without disclosing that it's an ad.

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

#233

Post by ronreiter » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 4:42 AM UTC

Can someone please explain to me why this isn't a classic "correlation does not imply causality"?

This is not a randomized trial, which means that if there is a bias of "better athletes spend more on their shoes" then it can also explain the 4% increase of Nike Vaporfly.

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

#234

Post by Alex3917 » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #231

Alex3917 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We seem to take it very much case by case. The principle is very consistent: You can't do something that gives you an unfair advantage over other competitors. Everything banned basically falls into one of three categories: - It would be prohibitively expensive for others to adopt the technology. This is why you have weight minimums for bikes, boats, etc. - Others would have to risk their health to compete. This is…

I think it's interesting that the Olympics banned certain swimsuits because they were "too good." I dunno how much they cost at the time, but a quick search on Amazon shows these swimsuits are $200-500. That seems a pretty low bar for Olympic quality equipment. https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1286...

> That seems a pretty low bar for Olympic quality equipment.

IIRC the issue was either that you can only use them once, or else that they weren't widely available. $500 wouldn't be disqualifying on its own, e.g. a good 8+ shell costs around 40k.

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

#235

Post by adrianN » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 5:07 AM UTC

tylerhou wrote: post #205

hinkley wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Shaved legs provide a small advantage in the Tour de France.

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

#236

Post by Salgat » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 5:08 AM UTC

gascan wrote: post #127

not_a_moth wrote: post #94

Whatever happened to the whole "born to run" thing, which surveyed a lot of evidence that running shoes - recent inventions - cause injuries almost universally, that you're better off with totally minimal shoes if not no shoes at all.

The two concepts can coexist. We are born to run, but we are also born to dream of figuring out how to make ourselves run better.

We've also been wearing shoes for at least 10,000 years, and have possibly evolved to a degree to wear them.

> It is thought that shoes may have been used long before this, but because the materials used were highly perishable, it is difficult to find evidence of the earliest footwear.[8] By studying the bones of the smaller toes (as opposed to the big toe), it was observed that their thickness decreased approximately 40,000 to 26,000 years ago. This led archaeologists to deduce that wearing shoes resulted in less bone growth, resulting in shorter, thinner toes.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe

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

#237

Post by refoundglory » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 5:12 AM UTC

exhilaration wrote: post #114

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?

It's worth it. They run sales all the time, I've been paying $7.50/mo since January for a basic online subscription. There's enough new content every day that you'll never run out of interesting stuff to read. Just sign up for a free account and watch the promotional e-mails for a sale.

I uses to have a subscription, then I emailed them a complaint about hiring Bret Stephens for his disingenuous bullshit and they canceled my subscription - I was quite surprised.

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

#238

Post by adrianN » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 5:14 AM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #206

bluetech wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or it's a clue that we figured out that building a trap or using a weapon to kill an animal from greater distance burns a lot less calories.

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

#239

Post by justinator » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 5:24 AM UTC

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…

I have to say, running is a little more than a hobby to me, (obsession perhaps?). So I understand how runners think about running, and the gear they purchase for running.

There's literally NO WAY I'd buy a pair of shoes I can run in for 100 miles for $250. I wouldn't be able to NOT think about every mile just costing me $2.50.

Call me frugal, but that's two pairs of any other shoe, and I can run in those for most of the summer.

A $250 pair of shoe is nothing but a luxury item for an extremely simple pastime. It's absolutely marketed to make you first feel inferior, then offer a solution. You always lose out when you fall for marketing.

Even with these shoes (provided these shoes do what they say they do), there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who can run faster than me, even if they all wear flip flops. I would be embarrassed to even consider purchasing shoes that promise to make me faster like these are marketed to do.

> This is the "Why go to that expensive restaurant?" argument all over again.

I mean, I guess so: "expensive" doesn't mean, "best". It just means, "expensive". The food may be good, or people pay because of the exclusivity the price creates. I'm not really about that sort of classicism. I like good tasting food too, but you know what I learned to do?

Cook.

To be a better a runner, I decided to run. Running taught me a lot about keeping things simple, and to get rid of the b.s.

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

#240

Post by justinator » Sat, Jul 21, 2018, 5:28 AM UTC

sgc wrote: post #212

retsibsi wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't run competitively, but in the gym I feel like spending on better shoes takes away a false limit due to inappropriate technology. Unless you are running barefoot, I can see how a runner might feel the slower number is just false due to an arbitrary limitation. There is a decent chance, if you can afford it, that these shoes might help you progress faster as well. In the end it's all about how effectively your…

> I don't run competitively, but in the gym I feel like spending on better shoes takes away a false limit due to inappropriate technology.

Explain to me how, in a gym setting there are, "better" shoes that "take away a false limit due to inappropriate technology" What does that mean?

Honestly, I thought the best shoes to use in the gym were just a pair of All Stars. I would use the weight room barefoot, but they yell at me too much.

Are you talking about Oly Shoes? 'cause those just counteract a mobility problem. Kinda better to solve that mobility problem. But thinking that's cutting edge technology is garbage. It's just a raised heal.