Super Shoes and the Marathon: How Technology Moved the Record Book

For most of the twentieth century, marathon records fell slowly and predictably as training methods, nutrition and depth of talent improved. Then, in the late 2010s, the progression changed character. Times dropped in a way that many coaches, athletes and statisticians linked at least in part to a new generation of running shoes with thick, soft foam and a stiff carbon-fibre plate. This guide explains what changed, what the sport did about it, and how to think about marathon times set in different technological eras.

What a "super shoe" is

The term is informal, but it usually describes a road racing shoe with three features: a very thick midsole of a lightweight, resilient foam; a rigid plate, often carbon fibre, embedded in the midsole; and a curved, rocker-like shape that helps roll the foot forward. Laboratory studies, including a widely cited 2017 analysis of a prototype from one manufacturer, reported that runners used measurably less oxygen at the same speed than in conventional racing shoes, with average improvements of around four percent in running economy. Individual results vary, and not every runner benefits equally, but the effect was large enough to attract the attention of the sport's rule makers.

To put a four percent change in context, a marathoner running 2:05 who saved even a fraction of that would improve by minutes, not seconds. In a sport where the world record had been trimmed by a few seconds at a time, that was a different order of magnitude.

The sub-two-hour attempts

In May 2017, a project run by a sportswear company staged an attempt on the two-hour marathon at the Monza motor racing circuit in Italy. Eliud Kipchoge ran 2:00:25. In October 2019, he ran the distance in 1:59:40 on a flat course in Vienna with a rotating team of pacers and a pace car projecting a laser line on the road. Neither performance was eligible as a record, because of the rotating pacers, the vehicle and the way drinks were delivered. They nonetheless demonstrated what was physiologically possible under ideal conditions, and they helped publicise the shoes.

The official race record list, meanwhile, continued to drop. Kipchoge ran 2:01:39 in Berlin in 2018 and 2:01:09 in Berlin in 2022. In Chicago in October 2023, Kelvin Kiptum ran 2:00:35, which was ratified as the world record for the distance. In the women's race, Brigid Kosgei ran 2:14:04 in Chicago in 2019, and Ruth Chepngetich ran 2:09:56 in Chicago in 2024, becoming the first woman to finish a marathon in under two hours and ten minutes.

You can see the full progressions in our men's and women's marathon rankings.

How the rules responded

World Athletics, the sport's governing body, concluded that shoes should not provide an advantage that could not be reasonably available to all athletes, and that they should not give assistance beyond cushioning and energy return from the foam. In response, it introduced limits. For road events the maximum sole thickness is 40 millimetres, and a shoe may contain only one rigid plate or blade. Shoes must be available for purchase on the open market, with development shoes allowed only for a limited period before they must be released. Rules of this kind are periodically revisited as manufacturers test the limits, so the current specification should always be checked in the federation's own documents.

These restrictions did not roll back the improvement. They capped it. Shoes that comply with the rules are still markedly better than those worn a decade earlier, and the record book now reflects a new baseline.

Is it still the same record?

This is the question that records always raise: should a time from the 1980s and a time from the 2020s be compared as equals? There are several honest answers, and a good ranking should let you hold more than one of them.

• Official answer. A record is a record. The rules at the time allowed the equipment, so the mark stands, and every mark ratified under those rules is valid.
• Statistical answer. Improvement can come from many sources at once: more runners worldwide, professionalisation, better pacing, better courses, better fuelling, and better footwear. Separating them cleanly is not possible with the data we have.
• Historical answer. Runners from earlier decades were running in thinner shoes on cinder or poorly measured courses. Their times cannot be adjusted into modern ones with any precision, but the context should be visible.

The same pattern appears in swimming, where body-covering suits changed the record book for a short period, which we cover in the polyurethane swimsuit era.

Beyond the elite

The technology did not stay with elite athletes. Race organisers and analysts have noted that average finishing times at large marathons moved faster in the years after the shoes became widely available. That suggests the effect is not limited to the fastest runners, though it is hard to separate from the broader running boom and changes in who enters races.

What to look for when you read marathon records

1. Check the date. A time before roughly 2017 and a time after it were set in different equipment environments.
2. Check the course. Rules require courses to be certified and to limit drop and separation, but flat, fast courses such as Berlin and Chicago produce the fastest times.
3. Check whether the mark is ratified. Exhibition runs and pace-assisted attempts are not on the official list.
4. Remember that this is an ongoing story. Records can fall, and rules can change.

For how ratification works in general, see How a World Record Becomes Official.