As a young girl, Marisa Howard dreamed about becoming an Olympian one day. But her focus was on another Olympic sport, gymnastics. She had no idea what the 3,000-meter steeplechase even was.

She also had no idea she’d be a mom when the dream actually came true.

Over the last two decades, Marisa, 31, has gone through numerous highs and lows, near-misses, injuries, a lack of sponsor support, and joyful life changes—most notably giving birth to son, Kai, in 2022. But the steeplechaser from Boise, Idaho, never let go of the dream. Relying on her faith, a strong family support system, and the frugal but full life she shares with her husband, Jeff, the dream came true on June 27 with a third-place finish in the steeplechase at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon.

After chipping away at her craft for three Olympic cycles,  Marisa ran the race of her life—finishing with a 15-second personal best of 9 minutes and 7.14 seconds—to earn a spot on Team USA.

Her dream of running for Team USA in the Olympics officially materialized on August 4 when she lined up to race in the prelims of the 3,000-meter steeplechase in Paris. She ran with the lead pack in her heat as long as she could, but with two laps to go she slid to seventh and finished in that position in 9:24.78, missing the chance to advance to the August 6 final by two places and about seven seconds.

“I think it just becomes a lot more real when you see people that have been kind of knocking on the door for years and finally break through. It’s like, ‘Wow, we’re human and we can do it.’ Dreams do come true,” Marisa said. “I was six or seven or eight years old when this Olympic dream was born, and I plan on competing until he’s that age, hopefully, to show him what it’s like to do hard things and chase your dreams. I think it’ll be cool in 10 years when I show Kai these videos and be able to tell him, “Look at what Mommy did when you were two.”

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In between making the team in late June and arriving in Paris in late July, Marisa’s life returned to normal—as if being a mom with a 2-year-old is ever normal, or at least consistent, on a day-to-day basis. That month included rough bouts of stomach flu for her and her son, the continued day-to-day management of Kai with Jeff, juggling workouts with childcare help from family and friends, reestablishing normal sleep patterns for everyone, and of course, finalizing travel plans to get the family to Paris.

It all came with a humbling reminder of the perspective that has been the bedrock of Marisa’s postpartum revival as an athlete.

“The day after I qualified, we were driving back home to Idaho and we were all tired. Kai was exhausted and screaming in the car, and I told my husband, ‘He »ćŽÇ±đČőČÔ’t care that I’m an Olympian, he just wants food and sleep and, really, I’m just mom,’” she said. “It’s humbling—there’s nothing more humbling than taking care of your sick baby—and I think as a parent, we’re humbled every single day, and we come up short sometimes despite doing the best we can, but I’m thankful that there’s grace and forgiveness. I think it makes those high moments so much sweeter.”

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Don’t Call it a Comeback

Marisa is part of a new wave of elite runners that aren’t putting their family plans on hold due to their career, and one of several moms who competed at the U.S. Olympic Trials. Stephanie Bruce raced the 10,000 meters just nine months postpartum after giving birth to her daughter, Sophia, in September 2023, while Kate Grace ran strong preliminary and semifinal 800-meter races to advance to the final of that event just 15 months after giving birth to son, River, in March 2023.

Elle St. Pierre gave birth to her son, Ivan, at about the same time, and returned to racing six months postpartum, finishing seventh in a speedy 4:24 at the Fifth Avenue Mile in New York City. That was just the beginning for St. Pierre, who broke the American indoor record in the mile (4:16.41) in January then won the gold medal in the 3,000 meters at the indoor world championships in Glasgow in March. At the Olympic Trials, Pierre won the 5,000 meters and placed third in the 1500, qualifying for Team USA in both events, even though she declined the Olympic entry for the 5,000.

After Howard gave birth to Kai in late May 2022, she began doing pelvic floor therapy along with general strength training and some easy jogging. By the time she started running in earnest that fall, she was surprised at how quickly her aerobic fitness came back to her.

“What’s really surprised me is that I’m able to run paces that I never hit before pregnancy with the same amount or less effort,” she says. “My aerobic engine has just gotten so strong. You do see women come back stronger, but it’s a wide range of how long it takes them to come back. ”

When she returned to the track, she was aiming for a top-three finish at the 2023 U.S. championships to qualify for the world championships in Budapest. She made it to the final and was in third place with two laps to go, but just didn’t have the closing speed. However, she did get the Olympic Trials standard by clocking a near-PR of 9:22.73, demonstrating she was just as fast as her pre-pregnancy self despite limited training and two years away from racing.

By late 2023 and early 2024, Pat McCurry, Marisa’s coach since college, was able to add more volume and intensity to her training, setting up what he thought would be her best season yet. And while Marisa admittedly didn’t race as well as hoped in her races before the Olympic Trials, McCurry knew she was capable of great things.

“She was on a different level once we got back to that base fitness post-pregnancy, and I think that’s what’s paid off in massive fitness dividends,” said McCurry, who has coached Marisa on Idaho Afoot training group since 2015. “The racing didn’t look amazing from the outside. The training was spectacular. We were doing things in training since January that we’ve never done before—just the level of intensity and volume we were sustaining was stellar.”

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Bootstrapping It

Marisa picked up running at Pasco High School in Washington, and carried on with the dream at Boise State University. There, she also met Jeff Howard, a Boise State runner who held the school record in the 10,000 meters. But more important than their common athletic passion, they shared the same Christian values that were the foundation of her life. They married in the summer of 2013 just after he graduated. He eventually took a job as a high school teacher at a nearby school, while she blossomed into a three-time NCAA Division I All-American for the Broncos, notching a runner-up finish at the 2014 NCAA championships and fourth-place finish the following year as a senior.

After she graduated, she picked up a small sponsorship deal with women’s apparel brand Oiselle and set her sights on the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials . She got injured and missed the trials that year. But Howard and her husband bought a house in Boise and started their family life in earnest. That added stability, along with the guidance of McCurry, who she began working with in 2016, allowed her to dig deeper into training and continue to make progress in the steeplechase, lowering her personal best to 9:30.92 at a race in Lapinlahti, Finland.

The Oiselle sponsorship evaporated after about three years but that didn’t seem to matter. She and Jeff were living frugally and loving life, especially because, by then, most of their family had moved to Boise. Marisa had two aunts who had lived in the area before she went to college, and Jeff’s parents moved to town shortly after they were married. Marisa’s parents, and later her best friend, Marianne Green, also picked up their roots and relocated to town.

The ensuing years brought a variety of highs and lows—several near-miss fifth place finishes at U.S. championships, a silver medal at the 2019 Pan American Games, a few injuries that delayed her progress, a  breakthrough eight-second PR in the semifinals of the 2020 Olympic Trials, and, of course, welcoming Kai into the world in 2022.

What makes Marisa’s situation especially challenging is that she’s run competitively without a traditional sponsor since 2017, more or less collectively bootstrapping the dream on her husband’s high school teacher’s salary and working part-time as a schol nurse and as a coach. (She will officially join the Boise State staff as an assistant coach after the Olympics.) She often stays with friends when she travels to races and says she’s grateful to the meet directors who have flown her out to race, put her up in hotels, and also paid her to pace races.

She also earned USATF Foundation grants and in 2022 was the recipient of a $10,000 grant to offset child care expenses from a program sprinting legend Allyson Felix organized through Athleta’s Power of She Fund and the . Marisa competed at the 2024 Olympic Trials as part of the , which provides a small quarterly stipend, running apparel, and shoes to about 40 athletes in all disciplines of track and field.

“We’ve found ways to make it work. We drive used cars, and we refinanced in 2020, so thankfully our mortgage is very low,” she says. “So really a lot of my expenses are just shoes, a little bit of travel, coaching fees, gym fees, and things like that. But it does add up. But thankfully we live well within our means and are able to do it. As I’ve said before, the Lord always provides.”

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Getting It Done

But even with that support and her continued progress, Marisa entered the Olympic Trials as a dark horse contender to make Team USA. And that’s despite knowing that Emma Coburn and Courtney Frerichs, the top stars of the event for the past 10 years, were sidelined with injuries. She hadn’t run great in her races leading up to the trials, and her confidence was waning, McCurry says.

“I felt like not having a full contract [from a shoe sponsorship] had kind of eroded away at some of her confidence, and she was starting to have a little bit of imposter syndrome at races,” says McCurry. “We just had a really firm talk where I was like, damn it, you’re better than this,” he says. “Not we, not the training, you, Marissa Howard, are better than this.”

That pep talk was just what she needed. It helped remind Marisa about her bigger purpose, just as much as packing diapers, toys, and pajamas for Kai did before she and Jeff made the eight-hour drive to Eugene for the Olympic Trials.

In her semi-final heat at the trials on June 24, Marisa ran aggressively and finished second behind Gabbi Jennings in 9:26.38. After the race, she said she was looking forward to the final, but, for the moment, was most interested in making sure Kai got to bed on time.

Running with purpose and caring for her son emboldened her for the final, where she ran with conviction among the top five before moving into the lead briefly with a lap to go. In what was a thrilling final lap, Val Constien retook the lead and sprinted to victory down the homestretch in an Olympic Trials-record 9:03.22, followed by a surging Courtney Wayment (9:06.50) and a determined Marisa (9:07.14) as the top nine finishers all set new personal bests.

 

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“My husband and I talk about competitive greatness: You want to rise to the occasion when everyone else is at their best. So it’s like, gosh, I was able to do it! I think a lot of it for me has always been about having my priorities in place. I’m a Christian first, and then a wife, and then a mom, and then a runner. And I think if I keep those in that line, that’s where I see success,” Marisa says.

“I’ve sat next to gold medalists and other high-level athletes in chapels before U.S. championship races and they’ve told me, ‘I’ve won that gold medal and it »ćŽÇ±đČőČÔ’t fill that void in my heart.’ And just knowing that a medal or success isn’t going to change you, ultimately, you have to be secure in who you are. So just remembering where my priorities lie helps to kind of keep me grounded.”

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The post This 31-Year-Old Runner Is a Mom and an Olympian appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

You just spent months building the fitness necessary to complete 26.2 miles. It’s tempting to want to keep the momentum going post-race—until you head out for your first run and start asking yourself, to Des Linden nine days after setting the Master’s record in the Chicago Marathon, “Errrm, where did all that fitness go?”

After a big running event, you don’t want to just hop back on the hamster wheel. Respecting the post-marathon recovery period is crucial to making long-term gains, and most runners will benefit from at least one to two full weeks off from running. That may sound interminably long (it’s not, and even more of a break can be beneficial, too), but here’s why your body needs that time-out in order to come back stronger.

Don’t Rush the Comeback

Unfortunately, just like the only true cure for a hangover is time, you can’t fast-forward through the post-marathon recovery period.

“People think they’re just recovering from that one day, but that’s not it,” says Toni Kengor, co-founder and full-time running coach for . “You’re recovering from the last four months or so that lead up to the marathon. I think people underestimate the physical and mental fatigue that occurs in that process, and that your body and brain need some time to just relax.”

Sore muscles are one of the major ways your body waves a white flag post-race, but being able to comfortably walk downstairs or sit on the toilet without holding onto the sink »ćŽÇ±đČőČÔ’t give you the immediate go-ahead to get back to training. You may not be able to feel the recovery process after a certain point, says Laura Norris, a certified running coach, strength and conditioning specialist, and exercise scientist based in Colorado—but you better believe it’s still happening.

“ shows that a marathon triggers a systemic inflammatory response,” explains Norris. “In the hours and days after completing a marathon, various inflammatory biomarkers such as creatine kinase (an indicator of muscle breakdown), c-reactive protein (an acute inflammatory response), troponin (which indicates acute damage to cardiac muscles such as heart), and lactate dehydrogenase (another indicator of tissue damage) are all elevated.”

RELATED: Your Step-by-Step Post-Marathon Recovery Plan

Translation: Your whole body—including your musculoskeletal system, nervous system, respiratory system, cardiovascular system, and endocrine system—are all impacted by the highly stressful bout of prolonged exercise, says Norris. “You can’t rely on a metric from a singular system (say, less soreness in your muscles) to ensure that all systems are fully recovered,” she adds. “More than likely, soreness will subside within a few days, but that does not mean that other systems are ready for exercise again.”

In fact, it can take up to four weeks for your body to fully recover physiologically from “massive aerobic exercise,” older published in Free Radical Biology and Medicine determined. And that »ćŽÇ±đČőČÔ’t even address the mental aspect of training and racing. “Your life has been dictated by this event for four months or so, and that’s on top of life stressors as well,” says Kengor. “That’s so mentally demanding, it’s important to give your brain time to relax post-race.”

Do You Lose Fitness by Taking Time Off?

Sorry to say it, but, yes, you’re probably going to lose a little fitness during the post-marathon recovery period. A loss of cardiovascular fitness and endurance starts to happen after as little as 12 days of no exercise, a 2020 published in Frontiers in Physiology found.

But your body needs that break, because runners aren’t meant to maintain peak fitness all the time. “Most marathon training plans push you into functional overreaching before the taper,” explains Norris. “If you jump back into hard training too soon after the race, you could risk reaching the point of non-functional overreaching or overtraining.” And that can lead to fatigue, declining performance, and a host of adverse health outcomes.

Fitness progress isn’t a linear journey; you’ll have periods where you’re increasing volume and intensity, followed by periods of de-loading or down time, says Kengor. Those rest or recovery periods—which allow your body to make the necessary adaptations to the stress you just put it under—are what allow you to continue pushing your limits.

“It’s similar to how we slow down to speed up,” Kengor explains. “A lot of people don’t trust that until they try it for the first time, and then they see the positive effects and wonder why they weren’t always doing it.”

You worked so hard to get to peak fitness, and the fear of losing it is understandable. But you’ll return to those high levels of fitness more quickly post-race than it took for you to reach them pre-race, older published in PNAS determined.

“Most runners return to their fitness baseline in a week after a marathon—even if they take that whole week off of running, has shown,” Norris says. “Even if you were to barely run for a few weeks post-marathon, fitness loss would not be significant. It takes a full six weeks for significant changes in musculoskeletal adaptation. Taking one to two weeks off post-marathon will not induce significant losses of fitness.”

How Long Until You’re Fully Recovered?

Every runner responds to a big physical undertaking differently. Most runners should plan on a minimum of 7 to 10 days off of running post-race, says Kengor. Yes, you might feel antsy, but before you jump the gun, remember that this is generally how long the pros take—Linden just happens to have a trail adventure in Japan on deck. Case in point: Last year, Aliphine Tuliamuk about taking a two-week break after the New York City Marathon, and Lauren Thweatt about taking three full weeks off after the Chicago Marathon.

But a “break from running” »ćŽÇ±đČőČÔ’t mean no exercise at all! “Exercise is a part of post-marathon recovery,” says Norris. “In fact, once you get past the initial rest phase immediately after a marathon, the blood flow from exercise will help you feel better sooner. It’s a fine balance of not rushing back, but also moving soon enough to help your body feel good.”

RELATED: A Deep Dive into the Science of Marathon Recovery

Low-intensity activities like short walks, yoga, Pilates, and even light swims or gentle cycling lasting less than 45 minutes can be great for your body during that first week or 10 days post-race.

From a running perspective, the key is easing back into things. After two weeks post-marathon, Norris recommends re-introducing easy 30- to 45-minute runs. At three or four weeks, you should only be at around 50 to 60 percent of your pre-race average training volume. “I personally don’t even introduce any workouts until after at least four weeks,” says Kengor. Upping your intensity too soon also increases your risk of injury, adds Norris, but “by then, the musculoskeletal system should be able to tolerate harder effort and increased mileage. This may seem conservative, but the athletes whom I’ve implemented this with have long-term development and a low rate of post-race injuries.”

And if you feel terrible—à la Des Linden—on your first run back, that’s not only due to significant loss of fitness. “Instead, the necessary time off may result in some dampened neuromuscular activity and slight reductions in blood volume, which may make a couple runs feel temporarily harder, but both will rebound within a few sessions,” says Norris. “You may also feel bad because you are still recovering on a cellular level, or because your mind is still rebounding from the mental strain of training and racing.”

The guidance above is generalized. If you go out for a run and it feels forced, it’s OK to stop and/or extend your break, says Kengor. “I think people need to learn to pay attention to how they’re feeling mentally on those initial runs back because I think that’s an indicator of where you are in the recovery process. When you’re mostly recovered, your legs may not feel the freshest they’ve ever been, but it shouldn’t feel like a slog.” To reach that point, you may need more time than the runners you follow on social media, and that’s OK! Running will be there when you’re ready.

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After watching Tigst Assefa’s and Kelvin Kiptum‘s mind-blowing, world record-setting performances in Berlin and Chicago, you might think of them as superhuman. Or you might wonder if their shoes, the brand-new Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 and the upcoming Nike Air Zoom Alphafly NEXT% 3, are to thank for huge margins these athletes ran over the previous world record holders—and whether that advanced footwear technology would benefit you in your next marathon.

The truth is, while Assefa and Kiptum won the genetic lottery when it comes to optimizing endurance performance, they likely also respond super well to super shoes. However, not everyone responds in the same way to shoe technology, and not all brands and models provide the same performance boosts. Before you shell out $250 to $500 on a shoe that promises to make you faster, it’s important to consider whether it’s actually the right option for you.

How Do Super Shoes Affect Your Performance?

Before you can question how a super shoe might impact your performance, you have to understand how they work. First, “a super shoe is going to have new foam that’s more compliant and resilient, or springier, and it’s going to have a rigid moderator, like a carbon plate,” explains , Ph.D., a kinesiology professor at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas.

If a shoe meets those parameters, there are three ways in which it can affect performance, says , a lecturer in exercise physiology at Loughborough College in the UK. First, they reduce the energetic cost of running, which allows athletes to sustain a higher running velocity; they also enhance critical speed (i.e. your maximum sustainable steady state) during heavy exercise; they also provide enhanced durability through preservation of running economy when the muscles are in a damaged state, meaning those last few miles of that marathon might not feel as difficult.

RELATED: The Super Shoe Revolution Continues. Here’s What the Latest Research Says.

The main benefit is in running economy, though. “If you improve economy, you reduce the oxygen cost and the energy cost to run at a given speed,” says Joubert. “In turn, you should be able to run faster at the same physiological intensity.”

That does translate to improved speed—but it’s not a one-to-one translation. “A general estimate would be that you get about two-thirds of the economic benefit translated to velocity improvements,” says Langley. “So if you were 3 percent more economical, you’d be 2 percent faster.”

Not All Super Shoes Are Created Equal, and Not All Runners Respond the Same

The OG super shoe, the Nike Vaporfly 4%, was shown to improve running economy (at paces between 5:22 and 6:54 per mile) by an average of 4 percent, a 2017 published in Sports Medicine determined. But individual results ranged from 1.59 to 6.26 percent.

With the publication of more research on super shoes—including a 2023 published in Sports Medicine done on Adidas footwear that claimed performance changes vary from a 10 percent drawback to a 14 percent improvement—the idea that people could range from “non-responders” to “hyper responders” emerged.

A non-responder would be someone who sees no benefit from super shoes or has their running economy negatively affected by wearing them. A low responder would be someone who sees a 2 percent or less boost in advanced footwear, and a super or hyper responder would be someone who experiences a 6 or 7 percent increase in running economy, says Langley. “Assefa and Kiptum may be in the percentage of outliers who experience a higher performance benefit from super shoes, however, without testing them we can’t definitively know.”

OK, let’s not get too wild here. “The term hyper responder has gotten blown out of proportion,” says Joubert. The Adidas study, for example, had a number of variables that “may have blown out the range of individual responsiveness more than really there.” The range of about 1 percent to 7 percent found in the original Nike study is consistent, says Joubert. “In our research, we’ve found about a five percent swing, not a 20-plus percent swing.”

What shoe brand and model you wear will affect the increase in running economy, too. Compared to the ASICS Hyperspeed, which was used as a control shoe, the Hoka Rocket X increased running economy at a 6:00 mile pace by 0.08 percent, the Brookes Hyperion Elite 2 by 0.53 percent, New Balance Fuel Cell RC Elite by 1.37 percent, the Saucony Endorphin Pro by 1.48 percent, the Asics Metaspeed Sky by 2.52 percent, the Nike Zoom X Vaporfly Next % by 2.72 percent, and the Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next % by 3.03 percent, according to a 2022 from Joubert, published in Footwear Science.

People running at slower paces will see less of a benefit, Joubert’s more recent , published in 2023 in The International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance found. Those running at an 8:03 mile pace saw a 1.6 percent boost in running economy, while 9:40 milers saw just a 0.9 percent increase, on average—and, as a result, they’re likely to see less of an improvement in speed, says Langley. (Unfortunately, researchers don’t really know why yet, although Joubert hypothesizes that at slower speeds, runners aren’t loading the foam or flexing the stiff plate as much as at faster speeds.) “And one thing that stood out is that people who are less economical to begin with had bigger improvements in economy,” says Joubert.

The negative effects on running economy at a certain pace, at least, seem limited. “If you look at the well-controlled studies on the Vaporfly, pretty much everyone gets a benefit,” says Joubert. “It might be 1 percent versus 7 percent, but that’s not negative.” He found more negative responders at the 8:03 and 9:40 paces—but still less than 20 percent of the participants.

How Can You Tell Whether You’ll Respond to Super Shoes?

Super shoes have taken over the running world, but their ubiquity »ćŽÇ±đČőČÔ’t guarantee a performance boost. Unfortunately, “there’s not any real research that addresses that question of what makes someone a high or low responder yet,” says Joubert. It’s up to you to figure out whether advanced footwear boosts your performance or not.

Without going into a lab, one of the easiest ways to gauge how a super shoe may affect your performance is through your rate of perceived exertion, on a scale of 1 to 10. “If you’re humming along at marathon pace and things feel easier, you feel like your effort is reduced, that’s a good sign the shoe is going to be useful for you,” says Joubert.

RELATED: Super Shoe Showdown: The Best Racers Head-to-Head

You can also look at heart rate. It’s not a perfect metric, but if you hop on a treadmill in one pair of shoes for 10 minutes at marathon pace and record your average heart rate, then rest and do the exact same thing in a second pair of shoes, “that can be a practical way of determining which shoe helps you better utilize oxygen,” says Langley.

At the end of the day, though, it »ćŽÇ±đČőČÔ’t matter what physiological benefit a shoe provides if it’s not comfortable or if you feel awkward running in it (a lot of super shoes have strange geometry that takes some time to get used to). Increased footwear comfort is also associated with improved running economy, a 2023 published in the European Journal of Sport Science found. Whether it’s a super shoe or not, says Langley, “if it feels comfortable for you, that’s probably going to be the best shoe for you.”

The post What Does It Mean to Be a Super Shoe “Hyper Responder?”  appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

On September 24, 2023, Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa obliterated the women’s world record in the marathon by two minutes and 11 seconds, clocking an astonishing 2:11:53. And she did it in the brand-new Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1, a groundbreaking supershoe Adidas announced just 10 days earlier.

RELATED: Tigist Assefa Shatters the Marathon World Record in Berlin

The main selling point of the Evo 1: It weighs just 138 grams, or 4.9 ounces. That’s 40 percent lighter than any other racing supershoe Adidas has created, 25 percent lighter than the Nike Vaporfly (which is 184 grams, or 6.5 ounces), and 32 percent lighter than the ASICS and (both of which are 204 grams, or 7.2 ounces).

In running, lighter equals faster—a notion the sport has finally started to move away from in terms of body size, but one that absolutely still applies to gear, as Assefa proved in Berlin.

Adding 100 grams per shoe impairs running economy and performance, a published in 2020 in the journal Frontiers in Physiology confirmed, reinforcing dating back to the 1980s. The inverse is also true: “For every three and a half ounces you remove from a shoe, you get about a one percent improvement in running economy,” says Matthew Klein, a professor of Physical Therapy at West Coast University Center for Graduate Studies and founder of Doctors of Running. Improved running economy »ćŽÇ±đČőČÔ’t directly translate to faster speeds; it just means you can maintain a harder effort for longer.

“Lighter weight is always going to add to performance, as long as you don’t sacrifice some other area of shoe performance,” explains Geoffrey Gray, founder of , an independent shoe research lab.

Clearly, in Assefa’s case, the Evo 1 did not sacrifice any performance elements. Adidas cut serious weight by using a different manufacturing process to create a bouncier, lighter version of their Lightstrike Pro foam; replacing Continental rubber on the outsole with a much thinner rubber that has no tread; and slimming down the upper to a translucent shell.

Are Ultralight Running Shoes for Every Runner?

But just because Assefa had an incredible race in the Evo 1 »ćŽÇ±đČőČÔ’t mean this type of ultralight shoe is right for all runners. Other Adidas athletes wore the new shoe in Berlin and did not break any world records. “I do think this shoe is going to be important for certain people, but I don’t think there will ever be a shoe that works great for everyone,” says Gray.

It’s sort of like how different runners respond differently to carbon plates. When the original supershoe, the Nike Vaporfly 4%, was first introduced in 2017, it improved running economy (at paces between 5:22 and 6:54 per mile) by an average of four percent, but the individual results ranged from 1.59 to 6.26 percent, a published in Sports Medicine determined. And slower paces will see less of a benefit, published in 2023 in The International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance found; runners clocking 8:03 miles saw a 1.6 percent boost while 9:40 milers saw just a 0.9 percent increase, on average.

RELATED: Still The King, Nike Vaporfly 3

Similarly, a lightweight shoe can mess with your biomechanics in a way that will make sustaining a certain effort harder. Given the weight and the stack height of this particular shoe (which is 39 millimeters in the heel and 33 millimeters in the forefoot), “I’m assuming it’s going to be very soft because the foam is going to be very low-density,” says Klein.

He’s not wrong. It’s not like a spring; it’s like a foam pad or trampoline. “It requires controlling your landing with every step,” Klein explains. “If you can’t, all of your energy, instead of going forward, is going to be going off to the side and your intrinsic muscles will have to work really hard to make sure you’re stable on the platform and able to adequately absorb that impact.” Translation: Your quads, hips, and ankles are going to be toast long before you get to the end of the race.

You also have to understand how to use a shoe like this, and, at this point, Adidas isn’t leaving a lot of room for trial and error. A shoe is a tool, and you may not have the capacity to use this particular tool, especially without practice.  “Not anyone can drive in a Lamborghini,” says Klein.

The Lamborghini analogy is on point in several ways: For one, at $500, the Evo 1 is the most expensive supershoe ever released. And Adidas says it’s only good for one marathon and a familiarization period (the company »ćŽÇ±đČőČÔ’t specify the exact mileage), making it essentially a single-use shoe—not great from a sustainability standpoint. Finally, only 1,000 pairs will be released, which puts it out of reach for the vast majority of runners, even if they could afford it.

Fortunately, there are more shoe options than ever that are designed to meet the different experiences of the wearer—and they’re all getting lighter, too, says Gray. “We’ve been collecting data for 13 years now, and we’ve seen the average weight of a men’s size nine running shoe decrease from 10.2 ounces to 9.1 ounces,” says Gray. “Cushioning, durability, stability—all of these things are getting better at less weight.”

The Supershoe Evolution Continues

The Evo 1, however, is an important step in the evolution of supershoes. “What used to limit us was a balance of weight and cushioning—there was only so light you could go before you start sacrificing cushioning and things started to suffer,” says Klein. “This shoe is kind of like a proof of concept—Adidas is saying we’re able to combine super lightweight with super cushioned, and now they’ve just got to develop it to a point where it becomes more accessible.”

But remember: Even at 138 grams, this isn’t the lightest shoe that’s ever been made for performance running. “Not even close,” says Gray. “But it’s an opportunity for brands to rethink the materials they use and how a shoe is constructed, and that kind of outside-of-the-box thinking is absolutely going to create more innovation.” And innovation means more options and more opportunities for every runner to find a shoe that works best for them.

The post When It Comes to Running Shoes, How Light Is Too Light? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Running is tough on your body. With every step, you’re subjecting your body’s soft tissues to a crazy amount of force (over and over
and over), which can cause microtears in your muscles that lead to lingering aches and pains if you don’t recover properly.

It’s no wonder so many coaches, trainers, physiologists, and physical therapists say foam rolling should be an integral part of your running regimen. Foam rolling can help you loosen up pre-workout, decrease pain and recover faster after a run, and generally keep your muscles more mobile so you can get the most out of every mile.

Weirdly enough, the science hasn’t quite caught up to the popularity of the practice. Most studies on foam rolling have been small, and haven’t determined exactly how effective foam rolling can be. But a 2020 of the scientific literature determined that foam rolling may reduce muscle stiffness and increase range of motion before training, and can reduce delayed onset muscle soreness and potentially optimize recovery from training. Win-win, right?

As researchers try to catch up with runners, foam rolling remains one of the easiest prescriptions for most maladies (not injuries, but the kind of tightness and tension you feel a day or so post-run). Here’s why you should spend just a fraction of the time you log on the road or treadmill draped over a foam roller, and how to use a foam roller properly.

How Foam Rolling Works

Foam rolling is a form of self-myofascial release. To understand that, you have to understand what your “fascia” is. “The fascia is a sheath of connective tissue that covers all your muscles,” says Sarah Bair, an athletic trainer for the Brooks Beasts Track Club. It also covers all your organs, bones, joints, and tendons, keeping everything where it should be.

Your fascia is kind of like webbing, and when it’s healthy, it’s flexible and moves smoothly over your muscles. But injury, overuse, and inactivity can cause it to get stiff or or form adhesions that get in the way of it doing its job. Your fascia can also contract and expand separately from the muscles it surrounds, and if a specific muscle is tight or sore, chances are it will cause tightness in the surrounding fascia as well—both of which can have ramifications throughout your body. It’s all connected!

By keeping that fascia nice and elastic, “you allow your muscles to reach its full range of motion without restriction,” says , C.S.C.S., a board-certified sports physical therapist. But if that restriction (i.e. tightness or tension) is bad enough, it can actually mess with your body mechanics, adds Malek. Think about it this way: If your quads or hamstrings are tight, it can decrease the range of motion around your knee—which prevents you from opening up into a full stride and nailing your most efficient running form.

Plus, if you’re not able to achieve your full range of motion within any part of your musculature (whether that tightness is in your fascia or a particular muscle), “your body is going to compensate in some way to achieve that range of motion,” says Bair. Say you don’t have a full range of motion in your psoas (the muscle that extends through your pelvis to your femur and is responsible for flexing the hip joint and lifting the upper leg towards the body), you might bend your back to compensate with every forward step—and end up with lower back pain, she explains.

One more thing: Because your fascia has nerves that make it almost as sensitive as your skin, foam rolling is also a way to trigger your central nervous and prompt your body to chill out, says Bair. “By applying that pressure and working through it, you’re telling your brain to relax itself, which relieves that pain and stiffness.”

OK, let’s go back to that term “self-myofascial release.” Release is pretty self-explanatory, and “self” just means you don’t need an expert to apply this technique. There are all kinds of who practice hands-on myofascial release, but the beauty of a foam roller is that you can DIY that same technique at home—and, if you do it right, get the same benefits. It’s like having a personal masseuse on hand, minus the pricey bill.

How to Choose a Foam Roller

There are a range of foam rollers of all shapes and sizes available; most are made of a type of foam called EVA and come in varying densities—hard, medium, and soft—depending on how much pressure you want when you roll.

If you’re new to foam rolling, Malek recommends starting with a longer, lower to medium density roller. “That will help you develop a tolerance to foam rolling while getting used to the mechanics of doing it safely and properly,” she says. Once you’re more comfortable and aware of your body’s response to foam rolling, you can progress to a higher density foam or more textured rollers with bumps or ridges, adds Bair.

Those thick, round foam rollers are best for large muscle groups, such as the quadriceps, iliotibial band, calves, and hamstrings, says Melanie Strassburg, physical therapist and assistant clinical director at New York–based . And a good, basic roller should be versatile enough to hit the most important areas for runners (including the shoulders and upper back, says Malek—important areas to roll pre-workout if you spend the majority of the day sitting).

If for some reason the standard, cylindrical roller isn’t accessing the areas in your body that you need it to, you might want to explore other shapes like a ball (which can get into the small muscles of your feet or deeper into your glutes), a peanut (which is like a foam roller and ball in one and protects your spine while rolling out your back), a massage stick (which allows you to apply pressure in a different way), or even a vibrating version of any of the above.

What You’ve Been Doing Wrong

Ever laid on a foam roller and thought “ahhhh”—not in a good way? There’s this idea that foam rolling “hurts so good,” but it’s not a “no pain, no gain” sort of practice. “It’s normal to feel a little uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t feel painful,” says Malek. “If it hurts to the point where you’re resisting any pressure on the roller—whether that’s by unweighing yourself or tensing the muscle itself—that’s a red flag.” Remember, the point of foam rolling is to release tension, not cause it.

Speaking of pain, avoid rolling over injuries. “With [something like] a muscle strain, going directly over the area will increase inflammation, increasing tension in the area of injury,” Strassburg says. Avoid bony protuberances, ligaments, and tendons as well; it won’t feel good, and there are no benefits to hitting those areas.

And don’t rush through foam rolling. Yes, it sometimes feels like something you just need to check off your To Do list to be a healthy runner. But “if you really want it to do its job, take your time with it,” says Malek. “You should be moving about one inch per second. Think of it like yoga pace versus HIIT pace.” Part of how foam rolling works is by using your bodyweight to apply pressure to the soft tissues while you roll; if you’re speeding through a quick routine, you’re not giving your fascia and muscles time to absorb that pressure as they sink into the foam roller

How to Use a Foam Roller Properly

It seems pretty straightforward, right? Place foam roller on floor, lay body on top of it. Not quite. To start, “pick a muscle group and find a position where both legs feel comfortable on the roller; that will help disperse some of the pressure,” says Bair. Then, find the meaty part of the muscle. For example, to roll out your quadriceps, you’d lie on your stomach and place the roller under your thighs. For your hamstrings, you’d place the roller under the back of your thighs while in a seated position.

Once you’ve found your starting point, “do about five to ten broad muscle rolls—hitting the bottom, middle, and top—to scan the area for any tight spots,” says Bair. Found one? Transition to one leg (if that feels OK to you) and move through a few different ranges of motion to help actively release the muscle. “If you’re rolling your calves, think about pointing and flexing your foot,” says Bair. “If you’re rolling your quads, bend and extend your knee.” Go through those motions five to 10 times while you’re paused over that tight area.

Is there a certain amount of time you should spend on each muscle? That 2020 found the best amount of time to achieve the flexibility the optimum dosage to achieve the flexibility benefits of foam rolling to be a total 90 to 120 seconds. A published in the International Journal of Research in Exercise Physiology, on the other hand, found that a total of 60 seconds of rolling had an effect. Most trainers recommend at least 30 seconds per side.

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And in terms of whether rolling pre- or post-workout is better, “evidence seems to justify the widespread use of foam rolling as a warm-up activity rather than a recovery tool,” according to a published in 2019 in Frontiers in Physiology. However, the more recent review noted foam rolling’s positive effect on DOMS and deemed it a potential recovery method. So do both!

If that’s asking too much, Malek prioritizes pre-workout rolling. “If you have to choose stretching or foam rolling, 100 percent foam roll plus a dynamic warm-up,” she says. “That’s going to make everything feel more mobile, which will make your stride a little better.”

Can’t do it immediately before or after a workout? Your muscles and fascia will still benefit if you do it earlier or later in the day—just don’t skip it!

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Go for a run on a brutally hot, humid day, or log some miles at a higher elevation than you’re used to, and it feels like you’ve suddenly lost weeks of fitness progress. Heat and altitude put your body under a serious amount of stress, which translates directly to your performance. Knowing what to expect—and how to adapt—can help you deal with the new stressors and keep training smart.

Not Enough O2

Physiologically, both scenarios cause similar adaptations, and both involve oxygen. In the heat, your body is actually diverting oxygen from your working muscles to help cool you down; at altitude, you’re straight-up just operating with less oxygen in the air. 

“When you’re exposed to heat stress, your body upregulates these things called heat shock proteins,” explains Lance Dalleck, PhD, an exercise physiologist and researcher with the High Altitude Exercise Physiology Program at Western Colorado University. “Those heat shock proteins help you produce more blood plasma volume and preserve another protein called hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha, or HIF-1-alpha. And HIF-1-alpha is something that your body upregulates when you’re exposed to hypoxia, or deprived of oxygen at altitude.”

The increase in blood plasma volume caused by heat adaptations makes it easier for your body to keep exercising while dumping heat more efficiently, explains Dalleck. And in a hypoxic situation, your body produces more red blood cells and increases the capillary density in your working muscles, making it easier to deliver oxygen to those muscles.

Adaptation Timeframes and Strategies

What’s different, though, it’s how long it takes versus altitude. “You can acclimate to heat in about 10 days,” says Dalleck. “At altitude, we’re talking about three or four weeks.” 

Of course, everyone adapts on a different timeline. But anyone who’s new to either of these scenarios needs to adjust their training to account for the extra stress. “Research consistently demonstrates that upon acute exposure to altitude there is a 10 to 20 percent reduction in VO2max,” says Dalleck.  

Your VO2 max is how efficiently your body uses oxygen—so it makes sense that it would decline in a scenario with less oxygen. “It can feel like you’ve suddenly been detrained or aged five to 10 years!” he says. To compensate for that, Dalleck recommends slowing your pace by 45 seconds to a minute per mile, or cutting a run short by a mile or two. 

You don’t just need to slow down while adapting, you need to spend more time recovering—within workouts and between them. “If you’re doing one-mile repeats and you would typically take four minutes rest in between, add another minute or two,” says Dalleck. Your body needs that extra time to recover when there’s less oxygen (especially at altitude). 

You’ll also need to add an extra day of recovery to what you would normally take in between hard workouts. “You may need to rewire your thinking so you’re not doing a traditional seven-day training week, but one with eight or nine days to account for that extra recovery,” Dalleck explains. 

Eventually, you’ll recoup any reduction in pace as you acclimate to your environment. But it’s important to leave that extra recovery time as long as you’re training at altitude. “Your body is still in a hypoxic environment, so you always need to account for that,” says Dalleck. 

And because altitude can your sleep quality (due to an increase in resting heart rate) and gastrointestinal distress, managing your sleep, stress, hydration, and nutrition are super important. “You just have less margin for error,” says Dalleck, “so you have to be really mindful that those other stressors can contribute to overtraining or overreaching.”

Tracking Insights for Better Training

One of the ways you can stay on top of how heat or altitude affects you is through your activity tracker. The has two features that can better inform your training when you’re under heat or altitude stress: VO2 max and the Pulse Ox Sensor. 

Your VO2 max is a big indicator of your cardiovascular fitness, and it can be affected by heat and altitude. When you’re running on a hot, humid day, hot, humid day, your heart rate spikes as your body works to shunt extra blood flow to the skin to cool you off; that makes a workout that may be easy on a cool day feel a lot harder cardiovascularly.  

The Garmin can sense this too, and calculate how much it is affecting your performance. “Using weather data like temperature and humidity, wind speed, the Garmin can actually detect when you’ve had enough exposure to the heat during your training that it’s making a difference on your physiological adaptations,” explains Joe Heikes, the lead product manager for Garmin’s fitness watches. A little sun will pop up on the VO2 max screen, and within the widget you’ll find a percentage that tells you how heat-acclimated you are at a given point.

At altitude, you may notice a nosedive in your VO2 max. Under your Training Status on the Forerunner, you can see whether your ability to perform at your current altitude is increasing, maintaining, or decreasing—guidance that can come in handy when preparing to race at a certain elevation. That dip in VO2 max is also totally normal, and it takes about 21 days for you to get back to where you were before, says Heikes.

The Pulse Ox sensor, on the other hand, measures the oxygen level in your blood, which also makes a good tool for measuring altitude acclimation. As altitude increases, the level of oxygen in your blood can decrease; as you acclimate, the percentage will rise. It can also identify altitude-induced disturbances in your sleep, says Heikes—which may explain why your workouts are suffering.

Every runner notices how much harder it is to workout in the heat and altitude; these tools can provide more insights and guidelines as to how these external factors are affecting you internally. And the more you know, the better you can train and the better prepared you’ll be on race day. 

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