At marathon duration, half of one percent is still more than 36 seconds even for the top finishers, over a minute for a lot of people faster than you or I will

At marathon duration, half of one percent is still more than 36 seconds even for the top finishers, over a minute for a lot of people faster than you or I will ever be. That's more than enough to affect placement, e.g. more than the difference between men's first and second in all but one of the last ten Boston marathons. And that's all besides the fact that a genuine statistical analysis does show a 3-4% difference. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/18/upshot/nike-vaporfly-shoe-strava.html?module=inline https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/18/upshot/nike-v... It's cool that you don't see better footwear as cheating. Others do, and that doesn't make them "poor journalists" (which Amby Burfoot wouldn't be anyway since a guest editorial isn't supposed to be journalism). Personally I haven't made up my mind yet. I'd hate to see shoes evolve to the point where they encourage a gait that's no longer what we think of as running, but the carbon-fiber "spring" in these shoes seem well short of that and I'm not sure where to draw the line. When we do get closer to that line, I'm inclined to look at data and listen to people with more domain knowledge, not just shrug off any opinion with which I disagree and insult its proponents.