A TALE OF TWO WORLD RECORDS
The traditionalist critics argue: if previous records were set without this level of technological assistance, then we are not comparing apples to apples.
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The traditionalist critics argue: if previous records were set without this level of technological assistance, then we are not comparing apples to apples.
The past few weeks have been nothing short of historic for the running world — and the two records that defined this moment could not be more different in what they say about the sport we love.
The first belongs to Sebastian Sawe, who finally broke the two-hour barrier in an official marathon race. He did it wearing the Adidas Pro Evo 3, widely reported as the lightest supershoe ever made at just 99 grams — an engineering marvel so refined that it seems to defy physics with every footstrike.
No one can reasonably diminish what Sawe achieved. The fitness, the discipline, the suffering compressed into those two hours — that is entirely his. But the supershoe conversation followed him long after he crossed the finish line.
The traditionalist critics argue: if previous records were set without this level of technological assistance, then we are not comparing apples to apples. Even a 1 percent efficiency gain — which researchers have suggested these carbon-plated, foam-stacked shoes may provide — is enough to rewrite history. At marathon pace, one percent is not a rounding error. It is the difference between a legend and a record-book entry.
My own view is that resisting technological progress in sport is a losing battle. It would be absurd to mandate rubber flats and call it a fair comparison to what runners endure today. Every era of athletics has had its innovations — from synthetic tracks to optimized nutrition to compression gear. The supershoe is simply the loudest one.
Where World Athletics chooses to draw the line is a legitimate debate, but that debate should not overshadow the athlete who wore the shoe, trained for years, and still had to run two hours of near-perfect race.
And yet — that debate, however legitimate, is not the bigger story of these past weeks.
The bigger story, for me, is Rachel Entrekin.
Entrekin did something at the Cocodona 250 that still gives me goosebumps: she not only won the overall race outright, beating every male runner in the field, but she shattered the course record previously held by Dan Green — 58 hours and 47 minutes — by more than two and a half hours, crossing the finish line in 56 hours and nine minutes.
That’s over 250 miles of punishing Arizona trail. That’s 12,200 meters of elevation gain. She moved through all of it faster than any human being ever had.
I watched footage of her crossing the finish line — strong, smiling, and luminous in the way only someone who has been through something harrowing and survived it can look. There was no performance technology controversy to tell. Race photos show her wearing what appears to be a minimalist trail shoe from Canadian brand Norda.
This is what makes ultrarunning’s relationship with technology so different from road racing. At 250 miles, on broken mountain terrain, over two and a half days of continuous pounding movement, the shoe becomes almost irrelevant.
What carries you is what cannot be engineered: pain tolerance, decision-making under exhaustion and sleep deprivation, and the stubborn ability to just keep talking yourself out of quitting.
Entrekin did not just win a race. She dominated one of the most punishing events on earth — faster than every man who started alongside her.
That, for me, is the headline.
