3 Takeaways from Tigist Assefa's New Marathon Record The first takeout from the excellent marathon performance is that the official time of 2hr 11min 53 is wrong. The image above clearly shows Assefa pressing the stop button at 2:12:10, I'm surprised that no one else has noticed that. The time was so fast that this will still be a world record even after the timing controversy subsides and the time is revised downwards. Next, she used the new £400 adidas super shoes. It's widely reported that the shoes she was wearing were the adidas Adizero Pro Evo 1 shoes. These have similar performance foam and carbon to other super shoes except the adidas trainers are significantly lighter than all the competition. Whatever you might think about the merits of foam or carbon, lighter shoes are definitely faster - and that's according to physics rather than according to me (other things being equal). Finally, I was trying to make out what her watch was. It looks like an old, red Garmin Forerunner 225 but I'm not sure. What do you think? Either way, it wasn't any of Garmin's latest, greatest tech which just goes to prove that performance kit that makes a difference tends not to be electronics. Women's World Record Progression (Marathon) The Women's record shows sporadic fairly notable drops in the finish time since the 1960s often reflecting standout individual performances such as those by Paula Radcliffe that stood intact for over a decade. However, I would say that 26-year-old, Assefa's demolishing of the record truly stands out as an unbelievably good achievement. Not only is the improvement from the previous record significant at over 2 minutes but it comes at a time when women's long-distance running is properly competitive. Made even more impressive by the fact that she was originally an 800m runner at the Rio Olympics where she finished 20th OK, Berlin's course has demonstrated itself to be a great one for world records but you have to wonder how much of this record also comes down to the shoes (and the Garmin). Good female marathon athletes have obviously been around for many years now but so have earlier supershoes like the Nikes. Maybe the adidas PRO Evo represents an almost literal leap forward in running shoe tech? What else could make such a difference? Thoughts below. Buy the adidas shoes See the details of what an eyewatering £400 can buy you at adidas.com https://the5krunner.com/2023/09/15/adidas-adizero-pro-evo-review/ https://youtu.be/NWHgG7J4PW4
