The Vergecast · Tuesday, September 8, 2026
According to Alex Hutchinson, the recent advancements in marathon running, including breaking the two-hour barrier, are largely attributable to the introduction of 'super shoes' starting around 2016-2017. These shoes feature a thick, resilient foam sole and a stiff carbon fiber plate, though the exact scientific mechanism by which they improve performance remains a subject of debate among scientists.
“And the short answer is, shoes got really fast. It was the shoes. Um, the introduction of a new design, what we now call super shoes, started showing up in races in 2016, became available to the public in 2017. The most noticeable feature is a stiff carbon fiber plate in the sole. And they made runners a lot faster.”
“Uh, I can't give you definitive answers because nobody agrees on that. It, it remains, you know, 10 years after super shoes came out, nobody exactly knows how they work. But the definition that shoe scientists use for what constitutes what they call advanced footwear technology is: you've got a thick sole on the bottom of the shoe, a very thick sole. That sole is made out of super light, super resilient foam. So you can have a thick layer that's not heavy, but when you press it down, like when you land, it bounces back and kind of pushes you forward. And embedded in that thick midsole is a stiff carbon fiber plate. Which, depending on who you listen to, is might be springy or is just providing stability. Um, you can run tests and say, okay, what happens if we take away one of those features? Uh, the shoe still works.”