Race shoes when training in stability runners

kingQuez

Hi Folks,

This may be a silly question; any time I've seen race shoes they always seem to be for neutral gait. I've been in new balance 768s and more recently saucconey hurricane 12s, which are stability shoes (afaik). Am I asking for an injury if I try out racing shoes?

The hurricanes rip the feet off me when running with no socks, and I've heard that the kinvara/mirrage/a4s are all very comfortable when worn with no socks. I assume the fancy zoot triathlon runners are also for neutral runners; I'd expect them to be the 'ideal' runners given they've been designed for running without socks.

On a related note... what sort of advantage do people see from racing shoes (as opposed to regular training runners)? I can do a 38min 10k race, or 40mins off the bike in a triathlon. At what point does the kit matter (I know its a lot faster than this, but curious all the same).

Cheers!

KQ

RacoonQueen

Saucony fastwitch might be worth a shot, never worn them sockless myself but have seen them used in tris so would assume others don't have an issue. They're very light and have some support in them. Haven't tried the 5's but it has a lower heel drop than previous models so it's probably even more suited as a racing shoe now than before. The adidas tempo is another racing shoe with support thats popular with triathletes. People will suggest brooks st5, brooks are evil though, don't get them.

Zoot released some stability shoes a couple of years ago and they didn't seem to go down to well in the states at the time, reviews of the seem to have picked up though. Any zoot shoes I've stood in shops drooling over are usually very minimalist. Off the top of my head the zoot ovwa and zoot ultra tempo(they have other 'ultra' shoes as well but I think they're nuetral) are stability shoes, they have a coupe more but the ovwa and tempo are the ones more commonly seen on this side of the atlantic. Zoot shoes seem to have a very narrow toe box though so if you've wide feet they might not be a good option.

Most people find the difference in weight with shoes makes a big difference on race day. I wear racing/lightweight shoes for all my runs, wouldn't wear the lunaracers much and they're my lightest shoe bar the hattoris, wore the lunaracers for the national half last week purely because they're my lightest shoe and clocked up an 8 minute pb. The lighter shoes tend to encourage midfoot striking which is probably what makes up any difference timewise. A lot of people would argue that you shouldn't wear the light shoes too much in training as you won't notice the advantage on race day if you do. One of the amphibian king guys might be able to explain the advantage - I think it's all in peoples heads that the lighter shoe makes them run faster to be honest.

I can't wear anything heavier than fastwitch/kinvaras myself feels like I'm dragging around 10kg bags of potatoes in 8oz lunarglides. :eek:

thirstywork2

Im going to be evil and suggest the Broks St5
Asics ds racer,saucony fastwitch I find very little rebound.


Mizuno do the elixir which is a perfoarmance shoe with a touch of support.

sconhome

I'd second thirsty's suggestion re the Brooks ST5. Fastwitch is a lovely shoe but is a distinctly different fit to the Brooks (Saucony narrower than the Brooks)

A lot of people in stability shoes Saucony Omni / Hurricane, ASICS 2160 / Kayano etc would be capable of using the Brooks ST5 over 5km without creating too many issues. Over 10k you're going to have to do a bit of acclimatisation to ensure you are not creating / aggravating injury.

Without going into biomechanics and heel to toe differential ( a separate reason for racing shoes) a lot of the basic theory behind racing shoes is the lighter weight allows a saving of energy expenditure. If you are lifting 100g less per leg lift and your stride is 1.20m (average) thats 8,300 strides per 10k or the equivalent of lifting 830kg.

How many calories do you need to move a mass of 830kg?

This is why most people who switch down from a heavier training shoe see a big difference in a lighter race shoe. You either use the 'spare' energy to run faster or you will finish the race fresher.

Its hard to predict how you will react to changing the shoe, it'd be best to try them on and do a short run to get a feel for them.

kingQuez

Brilliant, thanks for the info folks. I guess its time to think about raiding the piggybank, I'd never worked out the maths of how much less weight you'd lifted over the course of a race... suddenly small weight savings seem significant