Chasing Performance Gains

Dedicated runners get to a stage where even a 2% improvement is difficult, if not impossible. How best should we seek that 2%?

- David Ng

Running can be so simple. An innate activity from when we first learned to walk. Yet as dedicated runners, it is sometimes anything but simple. As we seek to improve our speed and perhaps chase a PB at our next race, the modern marketing-centric world with its’ social media tentacles can complicate our thinking. When you overlay the ever-present reach of those tentacles with the science of running, confusion is a legitimate milestone, but let’s avoid it being the finish line.

A recent provoking article I came across that focused on shoe technology and the public data set of crowd-sourced running enthusiasts, who metronomically upload their running logs (and shoe choice history) was the catalyst for this article. Whilst in some ways it was ultimately a combined pitch for a running Saas application and a marketing leader in the sports and lifestyle sector, if you only have one leading product or service to sell in a new season, then that is an understandable focus. The thrust of the article was the potential 4% improvement you may gain in wearing this new shoe, given the dataset.

IS 4%... OR EVEN 2% IMPROVEMENT REALISTIC?

When Usain Bolt broke the 100m world record in Beijing, he ran 9.58 secs, improving his prior record by 1.14%. For the 200M record, Bolt’s best improvement was 0.57%. In the sprinting stakes, FloJo’s 10.49 record in 1988 versus the prior record of 10.76 meant a massive 2.51% improvement. Whilst the overhanging questions on the quantum of improvement still persist, in part because of the time still being a record from the pre-WADA days, the percentage improvement compared to the prior record is an interesting benchmark that highlights how tough a 2% improvement really is.

But sprinting, with its shorter distances is not the same as distance running you say as the base time is lower! Is this so?