How much faster do light shoes make us?
When race day comes around, it’s always nice to have little things that you can do to run faster without actually having to be more fit. I think for most of us, it’s logical that if our shoes are substantially lighter, we’re going to require less oxygen to run at a given pace.
However, what doesn’t seem as clear is whether all the effort we put in to losing very small amounts of mass (like 100g) predictably improves our running economy (how efficiently we translate the oxygen we bring in into forward movement).
Taking 2lbs off our shoes will clearly be great for our running economy, but is it worth it to strip down to a flat vs. a light training shoe? And if so, how “worth it” is it?
