But I still agree with the general point. I have gone sockless in sprint and oly, but wore specific tri shoes for that which were designed to be softer inside for that reason (asics noosa tri). I’ve always worn socks in 70.3 and up. Even when trying to qualify for 70.3 worlds (where I think it came down to a handful of seconds).
I think the likelihood is the pros do it because those seconds matter. And it probably is true that someone like Blu is training it weekly if not more. If you watch his insta he was always doing brick sessions going straight into reps off the bike in no socks. So it’s likely there is a skin conditioning aspect.
Look very similar to mine, I suspect mine have similar mileage. I still wear them for my beer 5k race, so will likely get quite a few more k out of them.
Although they still feel ‘bouncy’ when I run to/from said race, they have definitely lost their magic at top end. Snagged a few PB’s in them so they can go out with their head held high
Can you remember when they came out and everyone was saying only for A*+ races as they are totalled as soon as you take them out the box
Seems that is categorically gone as a concept now and i regularly see them in training from all sorts. I’ve got AF which I don’t like as much as VF but for what I could sell them for I might as well just keep them and use them for training instead of just selling and having to replace anyway
That’s got me thinking actually. I only use my VF for best, and do the bulk of my mileage in normal pegs (for short, slow runs) and the Zoom Tempo Next% for everything else.
Maybe i should drop the VFs into the rotation and then either treat myself to some new VFs or AFs for Wales … or ‘borrow’ some from Nike for the race
I’ve slimmed my rotation down quite a lot lately:
Nike Air Zoom Pegasus 37 613.7
Nike Air Zoom Tempo Next % (2nd pair) 185.0
Nike Next 2s 127.5
Nike Pegasus Trail 4 183.0
I’ve been ‘treating’ myself to either using a pair of Next% or 4% on my long runs, got a fresh pair of Next2 waiting for Bolton. I wish you could still get 4%s, absolutely love them. Same goes for the ZoomFly2 actually, still got a pair of those on the go
I’m cobbling together two pairs of Tempos while I wait for the replacements as two pairs with decent mileage on have popped zoom pods on left and right shoes so can make up one good pair as back up.
Amongst my ‘regular shoes’ I’ve got 4 VF variants , 2x AF and an AF2 and that doesn’t even cover track, fell and trail races so they don’t even get exclusive dibs on races.
There’s no point me buying shoes for regular use when I’ve got so many that will never get through, especially considering many shoes have gone up in price so much they cost more than I’ve paid for these (never pay anywhere near full price) and figure even if the benefit is either run a long east run ‘easier’ or they provide a bit of boost for sessions either through extra speed or ‘less damage’
I’m still rotating other shoes in and out because not sure all carbon all the time is good? I like to rotate my shoes as much as everything as the small differences in drop, stack, stability etc helps the muscles of the feet get stimulated in different ways and make them stronger. A bit like always just doing biceps curls vs having a range of arm exercises. I do like my Nike tempos and I also really like NB v1 rebels with their sock like fit
