The 2023 NFL Week 9 Roundup | Pumped Up Kicks
There’s something funny underfoot in the world of marathoning and it’s playing out imperceptibly before our very eyes. IN a world where we’re used to daily headlines of yet another world-record-breaking feat (an 8 foot 7 Canadian zucchini from just last week, for instance), I suspect we as a society have become amused and quickly fatigued with news of yet another astonishing accomplishment. The records that are falling left, right and sideways in the world of marathons, however, reside in a breathtaking category unto themselves. Finishers in last month’s Chicago marathon and this past weekend’s signature New York City varietal are bursting through the final tape with sweat-imbued grit and commanding dominance as race times creep ever-closer to the once-unthinkable and forever-elusive sub two hour mark. It took 94 years for record marathon times to plummet from 2:55:18 (American Johnny Hayes as the London Olympics in 1908) to 2:05:45 (Moroccan Khalil Khannouchi) at the London Marathon in 2002. Two minutes and forty seconds were erased from Khalil’s then-record over the course of the ensuing 12 years between 2002 and 2014 to land at 2:02:57 (Kenyan Dennis Kimetto). Between 2014 and 2018, no world records were established. Since 2018, runners are suddenly slicing gobs of time from Dennis’ once-remarkable time. 24 seconds better in 2018 (Kenyan Eliud’s 2:01:39 at the Berlin Marathon), 54 seconds better in 2022 (Eliuid again in Berlin) and a whopping 90 seconds by Chicago a month ago (Kenyan Kelvin Kiptum’s 2:00:35). It’s thought the law of diminishing returns applies to runners in that the human form can’t possibly evolve fast enough to sustain a 13mph pace. News of marathon records appearing at a considerable clip of late seem to dispel such convention. And that’s precisely where the controversy kicks in. The one thing uniting Eliud, Kelvin and many other elite top finishers: the deployment of so-called super shoes. Whatever your thoughts on technological assist in modern sports, these super shoes are ushering in an era where sub two hour marathons will become par for the course in pushing marathon endurance — and expectations — to levels once thought unthinkable. The shoes are ugly as sin, incredibly wasteful, cost a pretty penny and have become a white-hot lightning rod of polarization in the staid world of running. What price the soul/sole of a sport?
The debut of the super shoe can trace its roots back to 2016. That’s when Nike introduced to curious looks it’s Vaporfly 4% running shoe. Developed painstakingly over the course of two years (under the code name Project Breaking2), Nike leaders sought to feature the vanguard of the company’s R&D prowess in working to push the extreme limits of human performance. Unlikely teams of engineers, material scientists and fashion designers were cobbled together to prototype a shoe that optimized running efficiency and biomechanics. The Vaporfly was born and introduced to instant notoriety. It featured a revolutionary combination of a midsole-mounted carbon fiber plate encased in ZoomX, a highly responsive lightweight foam boasting of industry-leading cushioning and responsiveness. It was a minimalist shoe that belied its superpower hidden within. The unreleased prototypes were put through their paces at the 2016 Olympics, disguised as commonplace Zoom Streak 6 models. The three medaling podium finishers all wore Vaporfly shoewear. That’s when Nike knew they were onto something. Early the next year in 2017, the Vaporfly 4% (the 4% denoting the average increase in running times) arrived to clamoring hands and meteoric fame. For the lucky few who could get their feet into a pair (production constraints with the new technology limited supply), anecdotal tales of personal-best records falling by the waste-side went viral. And a legend was born. So too, controversy, as the introduction of a shoe with what’s essentially a spring, pushed the envelope of where the line of mechanical aid resided. NO matter. The shoe went on to spawn a cottage industry for Nike amid countless iterations in the years since. The carbon fiber blade technology that the company developed expanded much faster than the running world’s governing body, World Athletics, could keep pace. When it belatedly did after a raft of quizzical fallen records, in 2019, it did so in an obtuse manner. World Athletics developed Athletic Shoe Regulations, a loose collection of even-more-loosely-enforced principles defining performances in athletics as “achieved though human endeavor over technology.” Quote unquote. The regulations stated that soles can be no thicker than 40mm and may come with only one “rigid structure” such as a carbon fiber plate. Additionally, for any shoe to be approved for use in a World Athletics-abiding marathon, the shoe must be available for purchase by competitors and must have been on the market for a minimum of a month prior to any sanctioned event. The regulations, rather than reigning in the use of the assisted technology, actually worked to make the Vaporfly 4% the de facto standard. A runner could rest on principle and refrain from running in the shoes, but they’d be at a distinct disadvantage in choosing purity over sensibility. And so an arms race was seeded.
The Vaporfly 4% led directly into Vaporfly 4% Flyknit which itself was joined by the Vaporfly Next% in 2019 that featured Vaporweave, an innovative and more water-resistant upper addressing one of the few drawbacks of the Vaporfly 4% series (its porousness). Band extensions arrived during the pandemic with Nike’s chunky-soled Alphafly Next % series. With prices beginning in the mid $200s, Nike owned and cleaned up in the niche market where credibility in the marathoning world was spelled N-I-K-E. It didn’t take long for competitors to catch up and play leapfrog to the micro-industry Nike authored. Adidas introduced just last week to shock emojiis its Adizero Adios Evo Pro1, a leveled-up ultra-supershoe that comes with a supersized price tag of $500, nearly doubling Nike’s Alphafly2. The manufacturer touts its Adizero as the fastest running shoe on the market. The shoes boast of carbon fiber EnergyRods (World Athletic who? Athletic Shoe Regulations what?) embedded in the midsole, displacing Nike’s so-yesterday plate technology. The midsole itself is constructed of non-compression foam that is carefully sculpted and molded of an industry-first proprietary TPA/EVA blend that incorporates crushable microscopic air bubbles into its composition. All of these characteristics add up to a shoe that weighs in at just 5 ounces (for comparison’s sake, an apple is about 5 ounces). It’s said that shoeboxes the Adizeroes ship in feel empty and surreal at retail. In fact, its 40% lighter than any shoe Adidas has ever produced and 25% lighter than anything from Nike. The results speak for themselves. Ethiopian long-distance runner Tigst Assefa smoked the Berlin Marathon’s women’s record in September inking a time of 2:11:53, knocking 2 minutes off a time that had stood for years. She wore Adizeroes. And just this past weekend, Ethiopian runner Tamirat Tola broke the course record in NYC (2:04:58) sporting Adizeroes. Adidas will only make 1,042 pairs of the shoes, sending prices for the impossible-to-find footwear soaring on the aftermarket. OH one final thing. The Adizero is only good for ONE use. The sole is so delicate and lightweight that it begins breaking down just as soon as you make your first stride. At $19.23 a mile, something to consider. Not to be outdone, Nike is said to be developing as a response with its much-anticipated AlphaFly 3. The shoe is expected to iterate on what has proven so successful over the years beginning with its eponymous Vaporfly series. It’s also expected to include some form of Adizero’s chief defining attributes. A price cresting $300 is expected when the shoe is released in January.
See? I toldja something funny is underfoot in the world of marathons. Nike forever altered the dynamics of competitive distance running with its “innovative” introduction of the Vaporfly seven years ago. The design and engineering of the technology proved so difficult to emulate that it took Adidas until this past Fall to mount a response. The results really speak for themselves and embroil runners in an interesting quandary. Wherever you stand on the philosophical debate as to whether the technology employed by Nike and Adidas is akin to mechanical doping and physical aid, you’re forever left behind if you choose to cling to principle. If everyone is sporting Adizeroes and AlphaFlys, do any other shoes exist? If you’re NOT regularly breaking personal best records, then you’re slowing down. It’s a maddening dash to the finish line by any means necessary. Not to diminish the incredible strength training runners work months and years and lifetimes to hone, but when all of a sudden world record times fall with each marathon on the competitive running calendar, something peculiar this way comes. How do you define purity of sport? Running’s sanctioning body, World Athletics, aglow with banner headlines pasted across the internet, is looking to address grumblings from traditionalists and is “actively looking into the matter.” In the meantime, the goofy-looking footwear that are all but impossible to find have become the de facto standard in competitive running today. They’ll set you back $500 per race but will push you forward in minutes or increments thereof. And isn’t all that matters? Perhaps, but on a wholistic level, maybe not. Marathoning has never looked more different than it does today. Whether that’s good or bad depends on your perspective. But when marathon record times drop like 8 foot 7 Canadian zucchinis, the only explanation is funny business. Try that on for size.
So we’ve officially crested the half-way mark in the Season (already!) and January playoff contenders are beginning to take shape. Inversely, top teams in April’s Draft, too, are making themselves known. The week began with enormous expectations for rookie QB Will Levis and his Titans as they traveled to Pittsburgh to announce that once is NOT an accident. Turns out, TEN’s sensational Week 8 was just an aberration. Will Levis, while producing healthy yardage in the air, couldn’t quite seem to connect in that electrifying way of his he made so famous just a week before. PIT’s DEF, for its part, had a heavy hand in bursting TEN’s make believe bubble of panacea. A 16–20 loss to Steel City resulted. ON Sunday morning, both KC and the Dolphins journeyed all the way to Frankfort to show Germans how Americans yawn. A listless 21–14 Chiefs WIN was highlighted by a slower, quieter, less immediate KC offense that might have been chalked up to jetlag on Earth2; injury and age on Earth1. The team’s excellent DEF managed to turn the lights on a suddenly diminished MIA where that team’s offense led by QB Tua Tagovailoa is turning to mush in real time. The narrative that the FINs can win BIG against weak teams and lose crucially against elite ones is hardening. Their Frankfurt loss sharpens the point.
Vikings at Falcons was a remarkable matchup in that all expectations were lights-out for MIN’s 2023 season, what with QB Kirk Cousins’ grievous Achilles injury last week. Panicked, the Vikings acquired Joshua Dobbs from the Cards and weren’t even expecting to play him since he’d literally arrived from Arizona on Wednesday. He didn’t know names nor did be practice with any of his receiving core. But he studied a playbook designed for another QB nevertheless. Backup QB Jaren Hall started for MIN but suffered a concussion on just the game’s second drive. So IN comes Josh and an auspicious debut resulted, to coincide nicely with the team’s 31–28 takeaway from ATL. Everyone loves a Cinderella story like that. Just like the one playing out in Houston where rookie CJ Stroud is making waves and gaining instant credibility as an MVP candidate with the number he’s throwing up on the board. With TB visiting, CJ threw for 470 yards and 5TDs in an outrageous show of offensive force. CJ in just Week 9, armed with 284 yards per game, ranks just behind Kirk Cousins and Tua Tagovailoa in passing yards per game. Texans fans look on in wonder at their new franchise QB. For added measure, Texans FTW 39–37. Sorry Baker Mayfield; you put up a good fight for the Bucs. Lastly, any review of the week that was wouldn’t be complete with talk of the Ravens who absolutely demolished the Hawks, 37–3. So suffocating was their home victory that the 7–2 team the outgained SEA nearly 4–1, earned 29 first downs (to SEA’s 6) and had control of the ball for 40+ minutes. Toss in rookie RB Keaton Mitchell, OBJ and an MVP-caliber Lamar Jackson and you have the makings for a Charm City Christmas easily spilling over into January and beyond.
Lastly in our round robin, the Browns shutout the featherless and flightless Cards 27–0 (no surprises there), the Packers easily slung away the Rams 20–3 and the Saints did to the Bears what the Bears did to the Commanders in Week 5 — WON — and by a healthy margin. Speaking of WAS, Much has been made of their WIN (20–17)on Sunday and while yes, they collected a W, is was at the expense at the terrible, horrible Pats. I suppose there’s some measure of pride in winning to a bad team but what’s worse, the result could have easily been reversed. The Raiders with interim coach Antonio Pierce put the hurt on the Giants, 30–6, who lost QB Daniel Jones to a torn ACL. At 2–7, more par for the course for the listless team. The Jets similarly floundered to the Chargers just last night, 6–27, as the Bengals soared past the broken Bills and Philly remains unstoppable with the League’s best record (8–1) finishing up the Cowboys in a masterclass display of brawn, ingenuity and might. Making for a completely intolerable Eagles fan for the moment. Facts.
