Nike Vapor Fly update

Nike Vapor Fly 4% update...

Wired has an interesting follow up....see https://www.wired.com/story/do-nike-zoom-vaporfly-make-you-run-faster/   Additional research/statistical analysis from George Wu, a researcher  who has written several academic studies of runners presents the following data analysis (see below) showing marathon runners experienced a less significant slow down between the first half and second half of their race when wearing Nike Vapor 4% shoes giving them an advantage of approximately 4.46 minutes (less time lost than runners in other shoes).

Now this study may be confounded sampling bias that is by better runners wearing Nike Vapor 4% shoes (or a placebo effect of running in the latest Nike shoes) but the data is in line with a possible 4% improvement in running economy. That is somewhere around 10 seconds a mile or 15 Watts to most regular runners.

I  ordered a pair today and will update this post as soon as I get some data.... My plan is to run alternating miles at a fixed heart rate with and without Nike Vapor 4% shoes and post the results. My experiment of one person will not be very scientific without O2 measurements and may be hard to interpret but I can measure my exact power output using the Power2run App  and frankly if I see a 4% improvement placebo effect or not I will take it. 


What can I expect if the Nike Vapor Flys improve my running economy by 4%... I will expect to see a 10 second or 15 Watt improvement in each mile run in Nike Vapor Fly 4% shoes..... To Be Continued.....




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