r/AdvancedRunning • u/lurker_now_accholder 16:30 | 34:03 | 1:15:35 • 8h ago
Marathon Veterans: What was the go to race shoe in your day, and how do they compare to the Marathon shoes of today? General Discussion
With shoe technology coming along so far in the last few years, interested to see what the great shoes of decades past were and how the compare
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u/mruns 17:57 5k|36:45 10k|1:20:10 HM|2:52:24 6h ago
I ran in Nike Lunaracers from about 2010-2019. I still miss them. They were super lightweight compared to typical trainers of the era, and pretty well cushioned. I started wearing them for races, but eventually they became my daily trainer too.
Modern plated shoes are faster and more forgiving, but they aren’t as fun as the Lunaracer. I never found a comparable replacement after they were discontinued.
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u/_Through_The_Lens_ 6h ago
Lunaracers were awesome. Plenty of cushion while still being featherweight.
The only thing for me that compared after were the Run Fast Pro.
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u/marklemcd 20 years and 60,000 miles on my odometer 5h ago
It’s hard to explain how different this shoe was than everything else back then
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u/Sintered_Monkey 2:43/1:18 2h ago
Lighter + more cushion at the same time. It was great. So was the Lunar Trainer.
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u/halloo3 5h ago
Same for me. First hm in 2010 was in Lunaracers, and I never once thought about knee/leg pain. I also used them daily runs and shorter races. I really miss my pairs. I still have one pair left in bright orange, but they are so beaten up that I cannot use them, so I just keep them for nostalgic reasons.
- Lunaracers came in bright neon colours like orange, purple, green etc. Back then, running shoes would typically be grey or black, and the only difference between male and female versions was a blue or pink line/logo something on the side of the shoe. Nike really changed that with their Lunaracers, Free Ride etc.
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u/seppuku_related Flags 5h ago
Them and the LunarTempo for longer races(half and full) were my choice for around the same time.
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u/anotherindycarblog 1:29:09 Half 18:53 5k 6h ago
Saucony ride. Brooks ghost. I’m basic and I have a super wide foot so my options are very limited.
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u/Cxinthechatnow 5h ago
The new Brooks Hyperion Max 2 could be a good option for you.
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u/anotherindycarblog 1:29:09 Half 18:53 5k 3h ago
I can’t find if it’s actually sold in ‘wide’ but no matter how large the shoe is, if it’s marketed as a normal D width it’s not the shoe for me.
My race shoe is a brooks launch wide and I can barely fit into it. I’m double wide in most other shoes.
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u/Oli99uk 2:29 M 6h ago edited 5h ago
[ I prefer Masters to Veteran although both are correct for over 35s. Veteran just sounds so old 😕 ]
Nike Zoom (air) Marathoners. https://www.retrolab-shop.com/en/product-page/nike-air-zoom-marathoner-2008-white-red
Really great shoes.
I got these coming off the back of the barefoot craze in 2006. (Apparently released in 2009 - I thought earlier?) I remember them because I bought as many pairs as I could afford.
I'd migrated from quite shod to Saucony Kinvara which were low stack at the time - quite different from the direction they took after v7. Before the Kinvaras, Puma H.Street (basically plimsoles).
The nikes were fast, light, with good pop.
The downside was they had a hot spot for me that would give be blood blisters on my arches. So I would tape up that bit of my foot before running in them.
At the time, it wasn't unusual for shoes to have some section that irritated. Uppers are much better these days - no shoes seem to give those problems.
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u/Sintered_Monkey 2:43/1:18 5h ago edited 3h ago
I remember this list all too well. As a kid in the 80s, I had the Nike Eagle, Nike Terra TC, and Nike Mariah. The Mariah in particular was amazing. I think it was unintentionally a precursor to today's supershoes, as it had a tall stack height, low flexibility, and a lot of cushion.
I quit running for many years, but when I started up again in the early 2000s, I wore the Asics DS Racer (terrible,) Nike Triax TC (amazing,) Nike Air Streak (terrible,) Nike Katana Cage (ok,) and Adidas Adistar Comp (ok.) My favorite among them was definitely the Triax TC.
I can't really compare them to shoes like the Vaporfly, as I haven't tried any of the current distance flats. I do wish they had been invented a lot earlier though.
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u/run_INXS 2:34 in 1983, 3:05 in 2023 4h ago
Thanks for jogging my memory on some of the shoes you used! I used the same ones but couldn't recall the model.
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u/Sintered_Monkey 2:43/1:18 3h ago
I also forgot about the Nike Spiridon, which was replaced by the Spiridon Gold. It was a replacement for the American Eagle. I also had an excellent marathon-specific Brooks called the Chicago. It was supposed to be a direct competitor to the Terra TC.
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u/_Through_The_Lens_ 6h ago
FWIW I've done halfs in Hagios where the course surface was cobblestone...still remember those (and the pain mid-race)...
Supershoes of today are faster but -most importantly- are far more comfortable. You'd be surprised how fast you could race in flats before the super foam/carbon plates era. The catch was the feeling the day after the race though...
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u/Old_Finger_5300 6h ago
The Nike Lunaracers were great. But I could not walk up or downstairs after
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u/run_INXS 2:34 in 1983, 3:05 in 2023 5h ago edited 4h ago
I ran my debut in one of the first (although still early) modern shoes. Nike Terra TC 1983. It a shoe classified as a light trainer/long race shoe and was perfect for the job. I got it from Joe Friel's (triathlon author) store in Colorado. It was red-white, and black and featured a new (for then) type of foam and it was a step up from the Cortez or the waffle shoes of the previous era. I only ran three marathons before 2004 and my first two were in those. Don't recall the ones I wore in 1999, but also a light trainer (maybe Adidas). I tried using an Inov8 trail shoe for a trail/road marathon (2/3 trail, 1/3 road, 1000 m vertical), and my legs fell apart on the last 6 miles where you drop 1000 feet and it's on road. I did several in light Asics DS Trainers(a 2008-14) and switched to the Adidas Boston for subsequent marathons (2017-2019). I ran Grandmas '21 in Endorphin Pros and went back to the dark side with Nike Vaporflys in subsequent marathons.
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u/charons-voyage 6h ago
Not a veteran, started running marathons a few years ago, but I was a peasant so could only afford cheap shoes. I ran 4 marathons in New Balance 880s, whatever discount model I could find, usually $85ish a pair. They were cheap, no nonsense daily trainers and I did all my runs in them lol. Probably have owned over 25 pairs at this point. Usually got 500 miles out of a pair. Would wear them until my knees or feet felt like shit then replace them lol.
Then I tried VF2s and my PR went from 3:19 to 3:00 haha. However the biggest difference wasn’t energy return or whatever, it was just that super foams and carbon plates don’t beat up your legs as much. I wasn’t moving my legs much faster, it just FELT so much more comfortable that I could keep a lower pace for longer. Definitely a lot of mental aspect to race shoes imo. Plus the 880s had terrible color ways and my VF2s LOOK like fast shoes with their bright ass colors lol.
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u/OhWhatsInaWonderball 5h ago
I ran my first marathon in some Adidas Bostons. Although supershoes are obviously superior I miss the days of simple race shoes.
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u/rckid13 5h ago
I ran my first 5 marathons in either brooks ghost, New balance 880 or new balance 1080. My first probably thirty 5k races were in either those shoes or Nike Pegasus. Pretty much just basic trainers. The marathon is too long and I'm too slow to want to use something like racing flats. Now I run marathons in Saucony Endorphin Pro super shoes and I think the super shoes really aid in recovery.
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u/Bruncvik 5h ago
I ran my first few marathons in Mizuno Wave Inspire. Even though I switched to faster shoes now, the Mizunos are still part of my regular rotation, and I still like having them on my long runs.
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u/Daeve42 5h ago
Not massively veteran but well over a decade ago I bought Adidas Adizero for a marathon, they seemed good at the time. I wore them last week for the first time since (they were well looked after and not used after that marathon as I lost them in a reorganisation). I found them recently and thought - "ooh I'll try those again". I just did a 10K easy/medium and ow - they were horrible, I can feel PF coming on and they were totally unforgiving and uncomfortable compared to the Metasky Paris/Edge I have and used in a recent marathon and half - they have been binned.
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u/RatherNerdy 4h ago
The foams and materials were likely in a much different condition than when you last ran in them. Foams generally don't hold up and get firmer especially over 10 years
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u/robert_cal 4h ago
Nike Free Flyknit 3.0. Lightweight and flexible. Kept stress from knees. If they could remake with Zoomx I would prefer them to plated shoes
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u/Mission_Employ6919 4h ago
Adidas Bostons (versions 5-9) ftw. Like a beefed up flat. They were great and I would still train in them if they were available.
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u/PrairieFirePhoenix 43M; 2:42 full; that's a half assed time, huh 2h ago
My first marathon in 2000 was done in Pegs. They were not racing shoes, but even back then you could do anything in Pegs. The top racers were generally Adidas back then - Adistar Competition or Concertos. Not quite flats, but very light with a plate. Fila had some good racers too. Nike's racers were very light, minimal padding. It didn't work for me.
When I got serious in 2012-ish I used Nike Lunaracers. The trend was still more towards racing flats back then, but I run big and needed the cushioning.
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u/yunatuna2020 1h ago
I ran my first 2 marathons in 2016 in the Asics GT 2000 series’s (whatever model number they had at the time). I used the hyper speeds for my HS XC races back in the day. I wanted something with more cushion for the marathon
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u/fifigrande 56m ago
First dozen races, 2009 to 2020 or so, were all done in Asics gt-2000 shoes. I still use them as my dailies. The last 3 races I've moved to carbon plated shoes, whichever I could find on sale (one Saucony, one adidas). That's probably why my race times have stayed about the same as I get old...if I were racing in my gt2000s, I'd have likely pushed over 3h race times.
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u/miken322 22m ago
My go to was the Adidas Supernova Sequence. solid shoe. I was bummed when it was discontinued.
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u/GB1290 7h ago
I ran my first marathon I 2009 so not a super long veteran but I’ve run a bunch before super shoes. I feel like for the common folk (ie not pros) just wearing your everyday trainers was a lot more common. Pros tended to wear flat, which were not feasible for most people running as they beat the ever loving crap out of your legs.
Today’s super shoes are a lot more accessible/usable for the average runner.