Transcription
[Music] Hello rubberminded people. Welcome to episode 40 of Mr. Rubio used to run the running warehouse podcast featuring Connor Bllelock and I am Mr. Rubio, Joe Rubio. Uh we are the co-hosts of this fine adventure right here. And just to start out, if you're not into geek stuff, like really geeky running shoe stuff, just get out. You got to get out right now because it's gonna be bad for you.
Um, what's been going How's your running going? Let's start with that. Let's start. Yeah, we'll start easy. Um, running is going good. We're uh we're back in the swing of cross country season. We're starting to think about racing. We're starting to get a little bit more. I mean, the intensity is still not there yet, but we're slowly making progress. We're we're kind of like just accumulating accumulating some cash, you know, getting those reserves.
I think we have a bucket and we're putting little drops of rain in it. Yes. With a goal to be filled up to the top at the end. And you've been doing a good job keeping everyone in line cuz it it you can get excited at this point. can especially have young gentlemen with a lot of testosterone that just need to be reed in a little bit. But anyways, any plans today? Today is National Cheeseburger Day.
Yeah, I think we're going to definitely eat a few burgers on my end. I think you you gave me the discount of the day. What do we have? We got a double cheeseburger at McDonald's for 50 cents using the application. So, um on my Do I smell a McDonald's sponsorship sponsorship in the works? Perhaps. I'm working on that. Yes. Okay. We got a couple clowns there. Anyways, Ronald McDonald, my running, I decided, okay, let's try getting back in shape. So, I did a fart lick the other day.
Did you? Yes. Day before yesterday. And how did that go? Uh, it was painful. Running hurts. And, uh, I couldn't run yesterday. I was too sore. What kind of paces are we looking for? I have no idea. Yeah, I did a minute on, minute off. Okay. Times six. Okay. And it was just faster than my normal jog. And that resulted in a lot of uh DOMS and it was even delayed. Yeah. Yes. Okay. DOMS for th those don't know delayed onset of muscle soreness. Yes. This was immediate onset of muscle soreness. Yeah. I am something like that.
But um today we're going to dive into something. It's a new uh episode we're going to call uh in the weeds. I like it. Uh and it's not even going to be as in the weeds as it could be. It's just touching the weeds, smelling the weeds, but beginning to get into the weeds. Yeah, cuz we did a little bit of research to prepare for this and some of the experts I talked with, I'm like, I'm not going to be able to get that. We're going to have to bring them on in the future, but I think we'll give a really good starting point. And we even talked about midsoles in some of the earlier episodes. I think we had a history of midsole. I think this will be a nice step up from that episode. We can get a little bit deeper. We can go into a lot of the changes we've been seeing because there's so many evolutions constantly happening.
Yeah. And if you didn't pick it up by this point, we are going to talk about midsoles. Ah, and got ahead of myself. Yes. you got a little ahead of yourself, but um so I being the old person of the room, we'll start with like a history of midsoles and so forth where he started and then we'll continue with a dis discussion of where we are going from here. Mhm. To gez easy to here. So then nothing with the ray. No. Yeah, that that is the ray. What is it? 4 and a half ounces or something like that. I think this thing is not 4 and a half ounces.
Um, but anyways, so um before at the very beginning of running shoes and this goes back to the guy down the hall, uh Crawford Lindsay ran uh for Princeton in the 60s and his shoes were actually fitted by the original founder of New Balance. And what they were was a slab of rubber glued to a dress shoe top, right? And it was called I forgot, but it had these little razor blades. And so the razor blades acted as a cushioning of some sort. So that's where it started. Now, do you know where the midsole actually was invented, where it came from? I have no idea.
Uh, a gentleman by the name of Bill Bowererman. Remember him? Classic, one of the founders of Nike. But before that, he worked with AS6, right? And what they did was they put a lighter rubber and then an extra padding of rubber under the heel. Mhm. For added cushioning and to relieve some of the pressure on the Achilles. And that was the thinking at the time. So that was the very first midsole, right? And cuz you you remember like some of those videos, some of the movies with Bererman working and like adding those little pieces and you don't really realize that that was the start. Like you always think that these films have been around forever, but that was pretty revolutionary in the early '7s.
It was Yeah, that was the early '7s. And then the next big breakthrough was EVA. Yeah. And I don't even know what EVA, ethylene, vinyl, acetate, some crap like that. But basically, it's a molded process. Uh, initi initially it was just a slab of this rubber, a foam, I guess it was, right? It wasn't really a rubber. It was a foam. And you cut out the shape of the shoe and you glued it to an upper. And the first shoe was in 1975, the Brooks Villanova.
The first the first like mass market. Yeah. With a EVA. Yeah. And uh so what that was is the reason it was called EVA is because a gentleman by the name of Marty Lori, one of the right he was ranked number one in the world in 5000, one of the first American kids to break four minutes of the mile, uh started a company called Athletic Addict, which is where I used to get my shoes back in the 70s. And anyways, he worked with Brooks on inventing the shoe with the EVA midsole. And uh Mr. Lori went to Villanova High School or Villanova College, which is where the Pope is from. And um don't do not fact check that. [Music] No, he did. Villova went to I mean the Pope went to Villanova. Oh, did he? I'm not making this up. No, but he didn't run at Villanova. I made that up. We gave a little Yeah, I made that up on a previous podcast. Uh so Mario Lori and worked with Brooks and they invented the first uh EVA midsole which was in 1975 the Brooks Villanova and that pretty much was it until 2013.
Okay. So 1975 to 2013. The only thing that really changed was people like AS6 put this uh I don't know if it's like a cassette you call a cassette or a coffin or something like that but basically inserts like they had a gel insert. Nike had air insert. Everyone had some sort of insert, but basically it was EVA throughout and then in the high impact areas of the heel and the forefoot or at least in the heel you had an additional material. Yeah. And I mean in very rare instances over the years we saw some small um you know we saw some PUS and a lot of that stuff I think now more recently is more uh relevant with some of these new compounds we can get into. But really the big thing with EBA was the different processes you could do to create it. So obviously you talked about those earlier days with like those more like cut and buff type and then compression molded EVA.
That was a big that was a big deal. And how how I like understand the compression molded EVA design process is like you take uh an expanded piece of EVA foam and you put it into like this heated metal mold, add compression, add pressure and you get the shape. And compression molded EVA is going to be the majority of shoes we see today. Yeah, it's been it, you know, we've seen other forms like injected molded EVA, which is more of like how I expl I heard explain toothpaste toothpaste getting like shoved into a mold. Um, but the compression mold has been around forever. It's still around. It's consistent. Uh, it gets the job done.
Yeah. I mean, it it it's for just a regular shoe, it's fine. It provides I mean, even right now you have compression molded EVA that's um I think even the Clifton is still compression molded EVA. I don't think I don't think it's a blend. Yeah. I mean, I the the most recent one they're starting to do but I I think it still is that classic Yeah. compression molded EV. The thing the problems with it is tends to be heavy and is greatly affected by by weather. So it'll it'll the cushioning properties in cold can change from 30 to 40% lose you can lose that much cushioning on the shoe. They they become bricks when it's cold out.
And in the grand scheme of things you say they're heavier. They're really they're really pretty light. Yeah. But it's just now we've seen these newer foams that are showing that you can get much lighter. Much lighter. And the thing is, if you compare uh EVA with um I remember the the Puma Easy Rider from the late 70s and early 80s, and that thing had a PU, a polyurethane midsole, and that thing was about I don't know, it was 20 ounces or something like that. Plus, it had a really thick uh cuz Waffle was in at the time, these really thick round waffles that the thing would never wore out, but it weighed a lot. I would say at least 16 ounces.
Yeah. which is double what four times what one of these kind of things were for very very heavy and when we look at energy return weight durability EVA does everything pretty well and I think that's part of the reason why it's been used for so long is because there wasn't really a need to change it because it's inexpensive and it does the job. it does the job and the but the the thing is is that if you if you wanted if you wanted lighter weight you gave up cushioning right right that's just the way it was so We made something, you know, pretty low profile. If you look at racing flats at the time, they had the Mizuno Universe and that was in just like this like and that was 2010. I think it was not long ago. No, it was 3 ounces. 3 and a half ounces, but there was nothing underneath your foot. And as you can imagine, when you run on that, you're pretty beat up afterwards.
So, what happened in 2013? Adidas introduced the boost material, which was TPU. I believe it was TPU. And so TPU stands for thermoplastic polyurethane and it's a type of PU. So I think that's going to be a common theme today is when we talk about all these midsoles, how a a good friend of ours, Jeff Gray, told us you got to think of these midsole compounds as like cake batters. Every brand has their own batter, their own recipe, and then there's different processes that you can use, different ovens that you can cook them in. Um, so TPU is going to be a type of PU, right? And I believe that was beads, right? Yeah. So in the boost in the boost situation, it was a beaded compound. And something that I also didn't realize was boost was a super critical midsole. Now supercritical process, we'll get into that a little bit later, has come a long way over the years, but that really was that first mainstream and it was a little bit heavier in the instance of T uh the TPU um with boost. But yeah, that was almost that first introduction of it.
Yeah, I think we we might just go into what a super critical process is. Okay. So, it's actually a process. Yeah. So, people say it's a super critical foam where Okay. So, basically what they do is they take a uh a bas a gas nitrogen or nitrogen or CO2 for the most part. Um and they heat it up and put it under a great deal of pressure and it turns into a liquid. You combine that with a liquid uh foam and then when it cools the gas turns back into a gas so it provides more little air pockets so it makes it lighter and uh bouncier or I guess I guess softer.
Yeah. And we we hear a lot of different terms for these either a lower durometer, a lower gravity, but you want to think of it as like more air pockets in there that makes it a lighter almost like a like a packing peanut. Yeah. And so there's two basic two uh I guess measures. One is compliance. So I think of as ply like uh toilet paper multiply. It's soft. And then resilience is a bounce. Yeah. And so what you get with this process is you get lighter weight, you get more softness, and you get more bounce. So that's all good stuff. Stuff that you couldn't get previously.
Yeah. And this super critical process, you think of it more recently because we hear about it a lot in the last couple years, but this has been going on what Sketchers did it in 2014. Yeah. So Sketchers did it in 20 or they started going through the full process in 2014. And I even heard that when Sketchers was in the factories in Asia trying to figure this all out because it was very complicated and they they weren't really able to get it just right in the beginning. It was it was said that this type of process has been being used since the 50s or 60s. This was the first application in shoes and um Sketchers was trying really hard to make it work and they had heard that Brooks also had some sort of super critical foam in the works. So they were like we got to get this done quick. Little did they know Brooks is very slow to get things to market. So they had quite a lead. But this has been going on. Um, this super critical process isn't necessarily a new thing. No, it's been going it's been it's been a what a manufacturing technique for quite a while.
Um, the thing is is uh I believe sketchers use CO2 and CO2 and nitrogen. No, I think it was primarily CO2 and they and they patent it which is why everyone uses nitrogen now because they have to pay a patent fee to Sketchers if they use if they use CO2. That's possible. Yeah. So I'm sure uh sketch uses both CO2 and nitrogen but everyone else you read it's nitrogen infused. So nitro foruma right Brooks has their you know glycerin max is nitrogen infused everything's nitrogen infused except Sketchers which has CO2. Yeah. Yes. I'm pretty sure that's right. [Music] Yeah. You know no one's backing. Yeah. Exactly. No one seeing if the Pope ran track. And I think that's another thing is like we already talked with Sketchers team and a couple others who really know this stuff. So it'll be interesting to see the the history behind the scenes because when I talked with them there was so much like cool things and uh like again in these early days it was so hard to do and they weren't even sure if it was going to work. So when Sketchers like unveiled this to some of the early people, so they showed some early hyperburst super critical EBA shoes to Runners World, I guess Runner's World was maybe a little even unsure if this was actually the future. And Sketchers was like, "No, this is it. Every shoe is going to have this in the future." And I think everyone was a little weary at the time.
I know. You know, Sketchers has a bad rapid, you know, it's like, you know, when you have ads with Kim Kardashian, I mean, what do you want? So, but anyways, I mean, they were way ahead of their time. Yeah. You know, and it the next big breakthrough. I mean, we just go back real quick to TPU. So, again, big breakthroughs from Adidas. And, uh, they they had this this beaded foam. And with the TPU, the the benefit of it was it was extremely durable. It had very good energy return, but at the time they just weren't able to figure out how to get it lighter, right? And it was soft and it was soft and uh then like I think that will move us forward and we'll we'll go to the next future but know that TPU at this point it maybe wasn't light but we're able to change foams and make different iterations with things we'll get into later with ETPUs and ATPUs that just continually evolve that foam the whole thing and and it was I mean they used Adidas tried to use uh their boost in racing shoes But it was only small amounts because the stuff was so heavy.
Well, the marathon world record was done with a boost shoe. And even though it was a little heavy, I think the runners were finally understanding that you can get this energy uh performance benefit which is fantastic. And then in 2016, were you in LA watching? It was we were both Yeah, we were there and watching the Olympic trials in the marathon seeing like Gayen Rup and uh uh Craig and you know I mean it was it and it was a clear advantage that these people cuz at the time you did not see stacked racing shoes that wasn't a thing and no one knew. So we looked at their feet and I remember seeing Gayen Rup's feet. He was wearing a streak upper. Yeah. Um shrieks at that time were very thin and it was a very big shoe and the only thing we could think of at that time was Gayen's injured. he needed a special shoe. But then we started seeing it on other athletes, other Nike athletes feet, and we're like, maybe there's something else. Shellane ran in it. Yeah. I mean, right. It was uh it was a a thing. And they all ran very well. And they all ran very well. And then in 2017, the Vaporfly Vaporfly 4%. And uh which Kimchigible breaking two hours in the Vaporfly Elite. So that was the the custom version of the Vaporfly 4% and it was also it was 50 ms and it had three plates. We don't so we don't have any verification of that. So I I've heard different stories but theory it was a it was a special version that was customized to his and then World Athletics came along and said no no no we're not going 50 me 50 mil we're going to keep it at 40.
Yeah. But there's workarounds on on that too. Sure. But this was the introduction of a pee based foam. And the benefits of peeba um at the time were now way lighter, way bouncier. Um a very unique underfoot experience that you really couldn't find in any other shoes. And really the only huge b or disadvantages were they were expensive and they were hard to make. There weren't machines that could make enough. They were also squirly. Definitely a little more squirly. Yeah. But uh when people started running in those the 4% what they what they uh I guess made a correlation between softness and rebound. Yeah. So a lot of people had a hard time understanding that you could still have a firmer shoe and still get the rebound properties. Right. So two different things. You have compliance ply multiply toilet paper. So softness and resilience. That's the bounciness. Yeah. And that's the thing with pea. Pebba is the actual name of the material. Uh Pax is is like the I think the brand name for one of the manufacturers. Yeah. So Pax same is from Arka. Okay. And that's a French company [Music] maybe. Yeah I think so. Yeah. Okay. Don't fact check us. And then um in the industry I guess um a lot of this PEA is known as nylon 11. So, if you'd ever hear nylon 11, that basically means pee. It's it's used a lot in the factories. And we're seeing more and more of this today. Um, like we said, still the majority of foams are going to be EVAs, a compression molded EVA, but we're seeing more and more PEA foams. And it was an issue of it being expensive and not as durable in the beginning. That's all changing. The PEO foams are getting cheaper to make. We're getting more machines that can make these foams. Uh, and they're getting more durable. So, it's not necessarily like the early days of the Vaporfly was originally called the Mayfly because of its lack of durability. Of course, the Mayfly could only be used for what 100 kilometers.
Yeah. And the not to say the Pea doesn't lose uh, you know, resilience. Yeah, it does. But, uh, peak peak performance is probably still 200 200 km. 100 to 200. Yeah. I mean, it's still you can still train in it. Yeah. But as far as peak performance, it's probably around 200 km. But but um that's the main thing with with PEA is it's expensive. And I mean, the prices are coming down, but still pretty expensive stuff. Yeah. In in shoes, but you're starting to see it expand to a lot of different areas in in footwear, in running footwear. And I think with the introduction of PEA, it started getting brands thinking, there are more foam foam compounds out there. What else can we use? And I think maybe around 2021, uh, we started to see more like this in this this name TPE. And I didn't really know what it was at the time. I just figured another type of super critical foam that is bouncy. And TPE is a subset of a TPE. So with like TPU is a PU, TPE is a type of TPE. And TPE is a thermoplastic elastimemer. TPE is a thermoplastic polyester elastimemer. So better energy return um you know a little bit softer and uh had some similar qualities it seems to pea but just another recipe another formula that that brands are able to use right and you use it you if you hear something like ZoomX there's different formulas different cake recipes depending on what the end result is you want you want the shoe to perform like So you're not putting the Alphal uh foam in an everyday trainer So, the majority of ZoomX foam seen in the racing Nike shoes are going to be pea based compounds. And the the majority that are going to be seen in your trainers like your your Invincible, your your new Vomero, uh even some of the trail options are going to be TPE.
Yeah. And then we move on from that. Is there another one in there? Well, one other um Yeah. So, so I guess again there there are all these different iterations and I think maybe that the next would be to go into some of these new TPU styles. So, ETPU and ATPU. ETPU uh I've seen in a couple different foam iterations in certain shoes. Again, just getting lighter, bouncier, uh recipe of TPU. And then the the big one that we've been seeing recently and you're you're seeing it in some of the fastest shoes on the market, it's a TPU and that's going to be an alifhatic TPU. Alifhatic TPU and I think the first one that came out with that was the Nitro Elite 2. That was the first one at least that I remember on on more of like it was a popular version of it. And Todd, our friend Todd. Yeah. I mean some of the stats that that he has and the reason that Puma went all in on on alphhatic TPU um and this is compared to PEA uh it's 8TPU is 15% lighter 13% bouncier and 30% softer okay so it's softer bouncier and lighter and uh energy return on pea is about 85% energy return on on alphhatic TPU is 88% so It's It doesn't sound like a lot, but it's significant. Yeah. And the thing is is that it's to to make it properly, you actually get uh you make a slab of it first. Mhm. And then you have this process called CNC. And I forgot what it is. It's uh what that stands for, computerized numeric control or something like that. Yeah. B. But basically, it's uh it's a CAD machine that has like a Dremel tool. Mhm. So you program in how you want the thing, but you can't make like intricate designs. So this is the new A6 uh Meta Speed array. Yes. And has a elephantic TPU midsole, but you can see on the sides you're not getting a lot of, you know, just, you know, fun fun, you know, little graphics and stuff like that. You're what you're getting is a chunk of really light, really soft, really bouncy rubber. And just recently I learned that this was an ATPU. And when you get on your feet feet, you realize that there is something special there. Very soft, extremely lightweight. I mean, this is going to be the best weight to cushioning ratio shoe on the market. What is that? 4 and a half o with technically a little bit over 40 ms of stack. So, a really impressive shoe. And uh this this ATPU process, I guess, was taken from the car industry. Um and it's I guess known because of its ability to absorb energy and then bounce back. So that's why I'm guessing and also be light and be and of course be light and um, you know, Todd from Puma they they found a really good recipe for their ATPU and you bring up these numbers of 88 for for uh whatever Puma was using versus 85. I think the thing to realize about that is that is currently right now but we don't know all these brands are tinkering with their pebbas with their ATPU. So who which foam compound is going to end up being the winner? We don't know because we're really in an early stage right now of messing with these foams. So, um, talking with Sketchers, they said we're going to see 90% plus in the future. And that's we really can't get too much lighter. When you have a shoe like the Meta Speed Ray at 4 and a half ounces, I think it's possible maybe we could get a little bit lighter, but at the end of the day, a solid piece of material is always going to weigh something. So, at a certain point, it's going to be how much more energy return can we get out of that? But I have seen an 85 g stacked racing shoe from China. And you're right. 85 g times 3.5. What? Basically 9 * 2.5 is 927. Right around 3 O.
So I I think to that point, yes, we maybe can get lighter, but I think brands are going to have an easier return getting benefits through energy. Correct. Y cuz you make stuff too light and then it gets a little bit Yes. Yeah. it it there's the durability goes down generally when you make it lighter when what I heard was like the one of the hardest part is with making uh foam so light is actually making it so the foam can bond with the upper you know part of part of the issue with some of these foams is just being able to make sure they will be able to bond the materials and like stay together as one whole shoe right so that is another uh there's a lot of things in the back end where you say Why can't you do this? Why can't you do that? That there are reasons behind things, right? And the other thing to keep in mind is you have to have the compliance, the squishiness work in conjunction timing wise with the rebound, right? So, what happens is, and I experienced this myself, I was out running. I'd run in deep sand every once in a while and I had uh what you call the Neo Vista, which is a very, very bouncy shoe from Mizuno. And on the streets, very, very bouncy. But then when you get on the sand, there's nothing to return the energy. And the energy cost for me to run in the sand with that shoe was exponentially harder. Yeah. Because you didn't. And the same thing if you have a super soft shoe without the rebound that matches, you just sink into the ground and then that's it. Yeah. It's like running on soft surface, right? So that's the other part of the cake mix. Yeah. Is making sure that we have everything working in conjunction. Mhm. And it's interesting with this whole cake mix philosophy because you start thinking, well, what if you mix a chocolate cake with a vanilla cake? And I guess a lot of brands are are messing with that now. And of of course, we see things like um, you know, the endorphin pro which mixes the the power on PB with the HG foam. And you can do different layering, you can do blends, and you can do things. And I guess uh some of these work really well together and then some brands have found that mixing certain foams together are really challenging. So that's where kind of fitting these puzzle pieces together um is tough and that's where it's just going to take time to figure out what what is the best uh recipe.
Yeah. And the same thing happens with shoe design, right? you you change like a a what Evva type of foam and then you add a super critical foam with it and sometimes it works great and sometimes it just you go what happened here how'd this pass quality control cuz this thing sucks. Mhm. Yeah. I can name a couple shoes that aren't good that way, but I'm not not going to. We because we have a whole bunch in the warehouse we got to sell. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But um Okay. So then we've got um, you know, really the the only other like big recent one that I've been hearing about and it's more of a process but it's a non-compression molded process. So we talked about compression molded EVA. So the non-compression is that that part before, you know, you've got this big slab that's kind of expanded out and I guess foams in this process are very lightweight, very good energy return, really good uh really low like durometers. Um but the issues are they're not very durable and um, you know, I I think there is some complexities with this just kind of like cutting it out. So that's where these machines can come in where you can actually cut out exactly the shape that you want. And uh we the the big one is going to be the Adidas uh Aziz Adios Pro Evo foam. The the light strike Evo uses this process and like we've seen with that shoe, an amazing energy return, extremely lightweight, but like Adidas says, it doesn't last very long when you have that compliant and that kind of squishy of a midsole. um it it just doesn't seem to last long and it's hard to make these shoes. So, I think in the future we're going to see foams that are providing very lightweight designs, very good energy return, but it's not going to be for the masses. And brands might make 50, 100, a couple hundred pairs um for their pros, for the people that really want to like have the latest greatest F1 style shoe, but it's it it's not going to be something that can be mass-produced. No, it's it's really hard to scale. And just to give people an idea of of what this process looks like when you take a chunk, if if you guys know what a Dremel tool is, and I bring up the Dremel tool because John Luke, the guy who invented Hoka and the stack shoe, if you look at a picture of his first Hoka, which I'm sure we can find and put on the on the on the YouTube portion of the podcast, it looks really similar to the Ray in the sense of it's just a flat side. So he literally bought these gigantic chunks of foam and handcarved it using a Dremel power tool. Yes. I don't know if it was in his kitchen or in the garage or something, but basically he just shaping it himself until he got the design he wanted and that was the first Hocus was that and it's the same process. Now you're using a computer m and you're programming in the the size and the shape that you want and it comes out with the with the midsole. And that same process uh the kind of the old school Dremel was actually done in the early days of the Endorphin Elite 2 that you see now. So when we look at that shoe now, it's so soft and squishy. But that came out what in the last 6 months, last year. That shoe was actually on the feet of Jared Ward years ago when we went and trained with him in Provo. And he showed me the shoe and he said, "I just got this. You can't talk about it. You can't share it." But this was handcarved down and they Sakin is on to something really awesome. They just don't know how to make it for people. scale it. So they had like one for him and then I think they had one backup and I think they were maybe even a little worried if it would hold up. But um, you know, he was he was saying at that time that this is the future and it's finally here. It's here. Yeah. That's pretty amazing. And uh it's just hard to explain to we have a couple different businesses in the building, but when you show the tennis people the advancements that are made in the running shoe side and the lack of advancements that are made on the tennis side, it's just night and day. And the stuff is changing so fast. So so fast. I mean, this this AS6 model competes nearly headto-head with Adidas model, and this is $200 less expensive. So, the price is already coming down on something like this. So, I can't even imagine something this light, this soft, this bouncy uh 2 years ago at $300. It's $300, right? $300. Yeah. It's hard to imagine calling it a $300 shoe, a great value, but it is a great value. It is. Yeah. And I again I think it's going to come down to the individual person because I've I've talked with some runners, you know, that's been my race shoe the last couple months and I've talked with some other sub 230 marathoners that are absolutely loving the Ray. And then I talked with a couple runners that are more in the 3 and a half 4 hour range who wanted the latest and greatest and they said it's just it's not very stable. It didn't work with their stride. That that's the thing where when we get foams with this low of a durometer, you have to be a pretty efficient runner to get the maximum benefit out of it. And if you are pronating, that's not going to be the shoe for you. No, if you're pronating is not not your your shoe at all. You know, the other thing too is uh they're designed to work for someone that's putting significant amount of force onto the shoe to work best. Yeah. Um, and if you run, the faster you run, the more force you generate because you're putting more force in the ground to propel yourself faster. So, it has not so much to do with the weight, but how much how fast you're running. And that's I mean, I know you've talked about some really great 800 meter runners that they're putting so much force into their stride that they they really can't do high mileage. No, they can't do high mileage. So, someone like uh like Donovan Yeah. Donovan. Yeah. If you watch him work out, the amount of force coming, I mean, he's ripping up the track, literally ripping up the track. So, I saw him work out one day and the his back was completely covered in remnants of the track from his spikes ripping up the track and going onto his back. So, I mean, it's it's really impressive to see, but that compared to somebody running uh 12-minute miles on the street, there's no comparison with the force someone was putting on the on the thing. If you're running 12minute miles and you're running in a shoe like this, it's not going to it's not going to return the energy, it's going to be better, but it's not going to be nearly the the benefit that it is going to be for a faster runner, right? And uh I when I talked with our favorite Jeff Gray, you can see him on an earlier podcast of ours. Um he talked about um a Hoka employee back in 2011, Robert Pervy, and he said that uh he told him that in the past running shoes were all about added technologies. you know, we hear gel air and in the future it was all going to be about foams. And that was almost 15 years ago. And he was spot on with that. And I mean, I think moving forward, foams still have a long way to go. I mean, we've seen so much in the last couple years, but this is just the start, which is it's really cool. Yeah. It's it's fantastic stuff. We're just at at the beginning of it, and people are saying are thinking, you know, how how much faster can people get? Mhm. And you know, I kind of play around with stupid stuff in my head, but you know, a 4-minute mile back in my day, what is that worth now? I'm thinking a 351 mile, 351, 32. Really? You think it's that much? So, you start looking at at the number of people that broke four minutes of the mile on average. And then compare it to the same number. Now, you gain about 351 352 mile is about what you need to run right now. That equates to it. I mean, we're we're hearing behind the scenes some of these really fast college runners that are running 335, 336, and they can't even get, you know, they're lucky to get a gear sponsorship. But if you think about it, 335 is worth a 352 mile. Yeah. So that's like a college kid running four flat back in the day. Right. Solid for sure, but it's not, you know, earthshattering. Right. Right. And that's what we have now. It's just like, you know, you need to run 327, 328 to even be on the finals, right? Um Yeah. It's a It's really cool stuff. Yeah. But uh yeah, we're in a pretty good spot in the world where there's so much good stuff out there, but there are shoes that are just a slight cut above. Yeah. The problem is that those slight cuts above shoes are only going to work for a very very small sliver of society. Yeah. Um, but you know, if you got the money and you want to give it a go. Yeah. Yeah. So, we went through all the the main foam compounds, the main foam batters, um a lot of the the new processes, the what you're cooking these foams in. Is there anything else you can think of that you'd like to talk about in the foam space? Uh something whether it be past, present, or future? Um, I think I think a lot of people are listening to this. Most of have run in a super shoe. Mhm. But, um, these were returned and No, they they were I mean, and I had two other pair of shoes returned last week. One was a size 10 and a half Evo 1 and one was an 11 uh, Evo 1. And I gave them to uh Rick, who's the president of Tennis Warehouse. And the pair of 11 I gave to my partners, both tennis players, both size 11, to try in the parking lot because I don't even know if they were aware of something called a super shoe. But they all run and they ran in that thing and might they had I mean they were just going crazy just at the experience of the whole thing. So if you're listening to this and you haven't just try a pair. Yeah. Because it's it's it's crazy how how much of a benefit it is. And um the one thing that I will caution if you're thinking about doing uh any sort of training, these things do save your legs. But if you're running on soft surfaces with a plate, you need to be careful because your chance of stress related injuries goes up significantly. And soft is anything that's not the road. And if you want to learn a little bit more about that topic, what what should people listen to? Uh our episode number 39 with Dr. Omal Saxina. Yes. Great conversation. It is. If you're into that kind of weeds, like runner's health, particularly structurally, there's a lot of stuff there. Recovery techniques, shoe design, I mean, that one, it gets in the weeds. But if you like just like really cool behind the scenes, professional running recovery, that's the episode. Yeah. Some of the stuff on there is just crazy. Like I I hadn't thought about it, but now it's on my radar. Yeah. Yeah. And I think to your point that you just got to with some of your friends try out these super shoes, I think it's just a good reminder that one, there are so many super shoes right now with different geometries, different foams. And I just keep encouraging everyone I'm talking with, try them all out. At least get them on your feet cuz we're seeing that certain runners are just working better with certain shoes, certain geometries. And I I had a friend who uh reached out to me about a week ago. He's running in the Berlin Marathon. He's a 240ish uh marathon runner, a good college runner, and now getting back into running again. So, his fitness is coming along. He ran in the preupershoe era. So, he doesn't know much about it, but he's like, "Hey, I want to try to break 240. I want to start getting my times down again. What superhero should I wear?" He tried on the Vaporfly just because that's kind of the go-to and it worked, but he he had some small issues with it. And I said, "Well, have you tried anything else?" He said, "No." So, I gave him three shoes. He's a Kayano runner, very heavy pronator that were a little bit more stable. And he got them all on their feet. One was kind of stable, one was a little bit stable, and one was very stable. And the the kind of stable one, you know, the, Meta-Peed Edge, uh it it just wasn't nearly stable enough. And then he got the Endorphin Pro on his feet, which is a a little bit more inherently stable super shoe. He said, "I love this one. It fits my foot. It feels good, and I feel I feel confident in it." He said, "But it's not as light as the Meta Speed Edge. So, how much am I really going to be um leaving on the table by going the Pro?" And I said, "You know, we've seen a lot of data. We've seen a lot of stuff from pros that maybe they test better in certain shoes, but they're feeling more comfortable in other shoes." And I say and a lot of the anecdotal evidence is go with the shoe you feel most comfortable in. That's what runners seem to be running in. Even if the numbers maybe show slight differences. Yeah. The other thing too is if you over pronate and towards if you're out in the there for three hours. Yes. A a constant over pronation really fatigues you and so maybe you save a couple potential seconds by the lightness, but you the fatigue will take that away instantly. And I think that's a great reminder is a lot of these tests that we're seeing from brands saying, "Oh, you get this much percentage or you're this much uh more
"efficient in this shoe." They're tested in a closed environment on a treadmill. And it's usually not for two hours.
>> No, it's usually someone who's fresh.
Yes.
>> And testing, and that's, you know, I keep going back to John Luke, but that's what he used to do uh in the ski industry and also in the running industry is you don't test people when they're fresh.
>> You test them when they're, you know, they're they're dragging tired.
Yeah,
>> you know, and then you can find out if your your technology is actually helping minimize the the the effects of fatigue
>> or not
>> or is it making it worse, which is ideally not what you want to have.
>> Definitely.
>> Exactly. So, uh what do we have going on?
>> What else do you have to add in the in the foam space?
>> The foam space. Um not too much. I mean, I I think we got into the majority of it. The only thing I can say is I'm starting to get more shoes in um you know over the next year or two. And again, kind of what we keep saying throughout this podcast, this foam space is not slowing down.
>> No. And it's going into different areas like everyday trainers.
>> Yes.
>> And now you seeing this whole new category of of we call them super trainers.
Yes.
>> Right. It's it's like what the mega blast.
>> Yes. something that isn't necessarily designed to make you faster. It's just to give you a better long run experience. Once you're getting fatigued,
>> you get less fatigued towards the end. You're still going to get tired.
>> I think that style of shoe is going to be a really uh important shoe for the future. And I I know we can't talk about it specifically, but the shoe we saw two days ago that I put on my feet and when I got it on, I I'm I've tried on so many shoes that it doesn't take me long to know when someone has something special. And I got the first one on that had this new foam. I said it's okay. And then they said, "Okay, hold on. We got one more that is 100% of this foam compound, slightly tuned differently." And when I got it on my feet, I said, "That's it. That's what I'm looking for. It's that super foam feel.
>> Can we name the the brand?
>> We can name the brand.
>> Yeah, it's Sony. That shoe is
>> uh I would say if it was me, I probably would have made it a little bit more flashy.
>> Yes.
>> Uh less retro.
>> Uh really bring it to the table. Like this is innovation. Like this is the future instead of this is the past. But as far as just the foam, the weight,
>> uh the the cushioning,
>> I mean, you tried it on, it's it's awesome.
>> It's amazing. And I think that shoe got us thinking we need to learn more about this. So I did reach out. We we're going to talk with uh the head of foam development and at Sakin. So we'll have that call soon. So hopefully we can report back to the people. Some some behind the scenes foam for maybe the next episode or two.
>> Yeah. And the other cool thing is all these really high-tech foams are making their way into everyday training shoes.
they are
>> and they're being the the the batter is being cooked a little bit differently to provide you the type of uh experience that you need in an everyday training shoe.
>> Maybe layering the foam.
>> And then the other thing we're seeing is uh there's what we call traditional everyday trainer. So it's like the old school running shoes.
>> And I actually um had a I charged my car, you know, it's about a 10-minute walk away.
>> And uh we had a meeting with Sakin. So this is the day before yesterday. So, I was actually wearing a pair of rides.
>> Yeah.
>> And I usually wear stack shoes walking around, but the rides with more of a traditional, still not the old school traditional height, but lower uh firmer EVA midsole, just old school.
>> Way better for walking.
>> Yeah.
>> And also being a senior citizen, when I walk when I walk and run in stack shoes, I tend to trip a lot because I don't know why. I just have the certain height. You know, if I see a curb, I have it in my head somewhere that I need to lift my foot a certain height to clear that curb. Well, when you have all the extra foam on the bottom, it clips.
>> So,
>> and it is worth noting that Sakin with this new ride cuz earlier rides had kind of EVA blends. It now does use the same foam that was used in the Triumph before. So, Sakin actually is the one brand that in their standard daily trainer, they are putting a a pretty decent foam in it.
>> Um, but uh, yeah, I mean, we're starting to see that more and more. Sure, Hoka seems to continue to use the the compression molded, but a lot of these standard shoes, I I think they get forgotten sometimes because they are boring and maybe not the most flashy shoe, but you get them on and some of these current shoes, you know, I hadn't had a Ghost on in a while and I got it on and it's a pretty good shoe. Most people, especially, it's probably the number one shoe. If someone is newer to running, they say, "I need to start." I put them in a Ghost because it fits good, it feels good. You can't go wrong and it's a good starting point and then they can expand on from there.
>> But there is a new category of shoes that we call energized running. And that is a kind of shoe if you're a high school kid and running cross country,
>> perfect for that because you're running multiple paces, you're on track work, you're running hill reps, you're running long runs, you might even have to race in it. But it is what I would consider a modern interpretation of an of of daily trainer. It's something that if you're running, you're going to opt for that over a ghost.
>> Ghost is like someone who's walk like a lot what I do, walk, jog kind of thing.
>> Right.
>> Um and that's fine for that. But if you're running and running uptempo and running faster and like to do stuff like jump over things, you know that entertain. So it's going to be like the Evo SL.
>> Yeah.
>> The Rebel. uh to a lesser extent the Mach 6.
>> Mhm.
>> Um but even these new foams, you you bring out something like a a Vomero 18. And these new foams really uh improve the experience quite a bit. Not so much for walking, but for running definitely.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's the other part is, you know, over half the people that buy running shoes don't run in them. So, I would expect to see the popularity of things like the Ride for most people that are going into brick and mortar are buying them to walk in and they're kind of tiring of the the Super Stack shoes. Now, if you're running in them, you want the Super Stack experience cuz it's a way better experience to run in,
>> but not everyone's using the shoes to run in.
>> Well, good. Okay,
>> that's uh Yeah, I mean I I think now that that was that was a nice in-depth. We'll we'll have some more foam top coming.
>> Um, but we got to get this algorithm going. I think people need to see this episode. There's a lot of good info.
Okay, I will do something to help get the algorithm going.
Okay,
>> so I mentioned that these Meta Speed rays uh got sent back to us. And in the returns,
>> the idea is that you clean them, but you keep them in new condition so you can resell them. The problem is is it has a little blemish down here.
Okay. So, we can't resell it,
>> but I can give these away.
>> Oh, wow.
>> They are size 11.
>> Okay.
>> And uh they will go
>> I got something fun.
Okay. You got
>> So, I think if you are a size 11 runner, you want the latest and greatest. Leave a comment down below and whatever comment gets the most likes after, let's say, two weeks is going to get that pair.
>> And then either Connor or I will go out in the warehouse and ship it to you.
>> Yeah. We won't have you post your address, but we'll contact you and then, you know, you send us your address and we'll ship you a pair of shoes.
>> And there's one other thing we got to do cuz we got to keep this algorithm going.
>> Yeah. Yeah. What do we got?
>> We got to like, comment, and subscribe. And like we promised, uh, people who are doing this are going to win a free pair of shoes. So, we actually have the winner of the contest this week.
>> It's on the on our YouTube thing.
>> Yes. Okay. So, this this will be up on the screen right now, the winner. And that is for the person who proved that they liked, commented, and subscribed. And we're going to keep this going. So, we just got to keep doing it.
>> We have 130,000 pair of shoes in the warehouse. We got to give them all away.
>> And we got 100,000 plus subscribers.
>> Well, something that's kind of funny is my daughter uh is a a track athlete at Chico. And uh one of her first days at practice, one of the kids on the team said, "Your dad owns Running Warehouse, right?" And she goes, "Yeah." He goes, "Uh, can you get me a free pair of shoes?" She goes, "You don't understand how this works. Giving you free shoes doesn't pay for my college education." So, um, but we do have, uh, shoes to give away. And this is outside of that little blemish inside, these are brand new. They even have the tag. I have the box here. You get the whole thing.
>> And that's that is the shoe to have in 2025,
>> right? And what would be cool is if somebody's never tried these shoes before and and wins them and then takes them out for a little spin in the parking lot.
>> So, give us some crazy comments below. I I want to see something real crazy.
>> Yeah. And and you know the other thing too is if you comment, you make us feel good about ourselves. Right now we're not feeling too good about ourselves. Yeah. We need some strokes. You know, some positive reinforcement cuz you know we live in a negative environment here.
>> Cool.
>> Cool.
>> Sweet. You got anything else for us?
>> No. We're going to keep the training rolling. We got a lot of races coming up. Maybe some uh some uh continue to push that.
>> Exactly. But we are going to hunker down this next eight weeks and focus on training.
>> That's right. That's it. We got to just, you know, put deposits in the bank.
>> We're gonna get after it.
>> That's it. Exactly. Cool. Well, thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
>> All right. Peace out.
>> Till next time. Yep. [Music]