Is the Battle Over Nike’s Vaporfly Ruining Running?

Outside Podcast

Sports, Wilderness

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2020

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Over the past few years, the sport of running has been upended by a debate over shoe technology. It all began in early 2017, when Nike announced a prototype called the Vaporfly that was billed as improving a runner’s efficiency by 4 percent—a claim that was hard to believe until that spring, when Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge came seconds away completing a marathon in under two hours. The running community’s reaction was swift, with many claiming that the shoe wasn’t a breakthrough, it was a cheat. A lot has changed since then, with records at numerous distances being obliterated while other shoe brands look to duplicate the Vaporfly’s success, even as they call for new Nike prototypes to be banned. Today, even with the Olympics and other major athletic events postponed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the sport of running remains upside down, with the focus still on shoes instead of on who’s wearing them.Outside editor Chris Keyes speaks with our Sweat Science columnist, Alex Hutchinson, about how we got here and what it all means for the future of the sport.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Hydroflask,
0:04.0	makers of the new Trail Series Bottle, which lets you go farther with less weight.
0:09.0	My name is John Cupid, I'm Director of Design at Hydroflask.
0:14.0	John led one of the teams designing the Trail Series.
0:17.0	Step one in their process was talking to customers to see what they wanted in a new bottle
0:22.0	made specifically for hiking and backcountry adventures.
0:25.0	You know, the first thing that we do with every project is we try to better understand our users.
0:33.6	Hydrophlask is known for their stainless steel bottles
0:36.3	that keep liquids cold for up to 24 hours
0:38.7	or hot for 12 hours.
0:40.3	They're also extremely durable. Customers told John and his team that they love those features,
0:45.0	but also that there was one thing they'd like to see improved,
0:49.0	if possible.
0:50.0	During the conversations with them, what we learned was that they would like a lighter product.
0:55.0	Then there was the improvement that people didn't realize they needed.
1:00.0	We were watching people use our inline bottles out on the trail.
1:04.0	You know, their hands are slippery from sweat.
1:07.0	Sometimes they're holding the bottles along the body rather than the carry strap,
1:12.0	just to have a different hand position.
1:15.2	And that's something we noticed.
1:17.6	John and his team took all that back into the lab and came up with the Trail Series bottle,
1:22.0	the lightest weight vacuum insulated bottle on the market.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Outside Podcast, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Outside Podcast and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.