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Wearing Adidas super shoes in the Berlin Marathon, Ethiopian Tigst Assefa smashed the world record by a whopping two minutes.
Her performance was all about margins.
Super Shoes
Tigst Assefa ran the September 24th Berlin marathon in 2 hours, 11 minutes, and 53 seconds. Ahead of the second place runner by almost 6 minutes, she also “obliterated” the 2019 Chicago Marathon record of 2:14:04. For the race, she wore a $500 single-use Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 1 v2 that weighs less than 5 ounces. The super light shoe has a forefoot “rocker” that reputedly “triggers forward momentum.”
In the men’s race, the winner, Eliud Kipchoge, wore a Nike super shoe. Not quite sure which shoe, Runner’s World thinks that it was a prototype of the Nike Alphafly Next% 3–an updated version of their Next% 2. His time was two hours, two minutes, and 42 seconds.
I think these are the Alphafly Next% 3:
Our Bottom Line: The Margin
Whether it’s their shoes or running times, elite runners are always at the margin.
For us too, most of our everyday decisions occur at the margin. Defined as the line where we do something extra, the margin is where we decide to snooze for 15 more minutes. The margin is where we accelerate to 10 miles beyond the speed limit or enjoy that additional scoop of ice cream. Indeed, when we eliminate all of its complexities, economics is all about how much extra we produce and distribute to satisfy our needs and wants. And yes, that means it is always at the margin.
The newest versions of the jaw dropping sneakers that elite runners wear are also always at the margin. Those sneakers, race after race, get something extra that accelerates their speed. It could be the arch or the the ounces they slice off. Then, from there, the margin of victory is the minutes and seconds by which they exceed a record. For Assefa, her margin was 2 minutes. But also, she beat her own previous time by a margin of 4 minutes.
My sources and more: Thanks to WSJ, here and here, for alerting me to the Adidas sneaker. Meanwhile, Runner’s World, here and here, had more of the story.
Our featured image Assefa’s Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 from Adidas. Also, we should note that parts of today’s post were in a past econlife.
