Nike VaporFly 4%

My latest additional to the racing flat family from Nike's elite racing collection.

Nike VF4% 10mm drop

Thanks to my good friend Dr. Derek Li that I got myself a pair of 4% to test out this crazily proclaimed the world fastest shoes 2:00:23 unofficial set by Kipchoge in the #breaking2 attempt. FYI the WR still stands by Dennis Kimetto's 2:02:57 in 2014 at Berlin with Adios Boost. Anyway Derek himself is a 2hr42min marathoner and is also a shoe geek which you can follow his frequent product reviews (http://runningcommentarysg.blogspot.com/)

All my running friends who owned 4% swear how much the shoes have improved their chances of their next personal bests and many awesome credible reviews from my fav. shoe bloggers are strong subjective testimonials for me to join the bandwagon. In fact VF4% is not even the most top tier in this collection's hierarchy:(1) VF Elites (2) VF4% and (3) Zoom Fly.

VF Elites and 4% basically are identical except the former is customized fitted for the elites. Both uses Nike's latest racing midsole foam Zoom X and carbon plate. Zoom Fly utilizes more affordable material like carbon infused nylon plate (as claimed in their official website). All three models have a pitch geometry of 10mm that is similar to Streak 6 but with higher stack height (meaning more thicker). I'm not going to repeat the tech differences which can be googled but I'm more curious to personally experiment racing with VF4% at Berlin in September and whether if the 4%'s concept is going to be beneficial to me. I'm primarily an ASICS Hyper Speed to Tartherzeal marathoner and shifting to a maximalist racing flat will be my first time. For maximalist shoes I have been using Hoka One One shoes like Clifton(s), Clayton v1 to v2 and Tracer but still prefer them for long tempo than pure races. The idea to have a high stack height light-weight racer does appeal to me as the extra cushioning may delay the onset of fatigue especially at the late stage of the marathon.

My friends have great testimonials of 4% but they did warn the foam's shelf life is very limited... really LIMITED to less than 200km +/- depend on the type of usage and runner's profile. Anyway here are 3 other racing flats in my shelf which I would classify them in the same tier due to certain attributes like weight and design.

Nike LunarTempo 2

ASICS GEL-DS Racer 11

Hoka One One Tracer 1

My final thought is that most VF fans discussed and talked about the foam technology and the upper i.e. but I'm more skew to discuss on the carbon plate that makes the FF flexibility much rigid than any of my racers. Coming closest to the same level of FF rigidity was my sold pair of old Adidas Takumi-sen (before the Boost version). It has this extended shank from midfoot to the 1st and 5th MET that is also can be found in ASICS Tartherzeal, DS-Racer, Adidas Adios and now the New Balance 890 v6. The key difference for Nike's developing team is how they designed an entire stiff carbon plate to align with the foot during running in order not to limit but enhance PROPULSION. VF series is a maximalistic concept speed shoes not meant for slow easy pace due to the plate underneath the foot unlike Hoka in general which has softer and more flexible FF that makes them more forgiving. To make it simple, you need to blend the plate at a higher force to generate the energy return (rebound), otherwise it's as good as running on a safety boot and inhibits windlass mechanism (google it). Below is the tech explanation about the VF's concept:

Do drop your comments and we discuss further from there. Cheers and hopefully there will be a 4% improvement for me in Sept :D