When to Wear Racing Flats in Training

Audio Transcript

Coach Dylan: Hi everyone. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you have a question you like one of our expert coaches the answer in an upcoming episode, you can submit it at runnersconnect.net/daily.

We love to help you train smarter and faster. Please don’t hesitate to ask what ever has you curious. Here’s today’s question.

Terry: I’ve always used very lightweight race flat shoes for track workouts. This often leaves my feet feeling beaten up the next morning so, I usually wear very cushioned shoes for the recovery easy run.

A friend suggested that I centrally reverse this and use the hocus shoes on the track to prevent foot damage but I’m skeptical. What’s your advice?

Dylan: Thank you for submitting your question Terry. Racing flats do take more out of you because of the nature of their make.

Many of them are lower heel to toe drop shoes and they are generally low cushioned and ride flatter. This allows the foot and muscles to have more control and as a result you feel much better running faster.

While you can run fast from the drop in the weight and the increase control dynamic, you will take a greater hit on the impact forces your muscles absorb. Because it’s less of a shoe, and especially if you aren’t used to running in racing flats, they will make your lower extremities as your calves and your feet feel more sore and tired, following these runs.

These shoes also ware much faster than a traditional shoe, so it may be time to replace them if you have had them for an extended period of time.

My first takeaway from this is if this isn’t a recurring issue, I think that’s a good reason to potentially search for a racing flat that has a better feeling ride to it.

I wear racing flats and I have recently moved to a more cushioned approached to a flat. To give you an idea, I run with the Adidas Boston which, in my opinion, is a great shoe for distance training and training fast.

It’s light, responsive, and it just provides a great feedback when running at a quicker pace.

It also has a traditional heel to toe drop and quite a lot of that material to not leave me in a wheelchair the next day. I’ve also had a lot of success with the Nike lunar series as well as the new balance Zante.

Again, both options are more cushioned but still provide a very light feel so that we feel good when we’re running fast.

Now your friend recommends a Hoka shoe which is traditionally known for having a higher platform and being a much more cushioned shoe.

My take on this is that you could go that direction as Hoka makes a racing flat that is not a standard as their traditional models in terms of cushioning, but it still has a nice feel for running those faster workouts.

This can potentially relieve some stress on your lower extremities. However, it is important to note that while the Hoka shoes are cushioned, cushion doesn’t always mean you’ll have less stress.

Hoka shoes just relay impactive forcers higher up your chain. Now that would be not so much of a problem for the majority of people, but I thought it was an interesting fact to put out there.

My initial thought on this is that you could make a compromise here. While your friend recommends a shoe that may represent the opposite of what you’ve currently been training in, I would recommend that you simply look for a flat and provides more cushioning for those higher speed workouts on the track.

But it still gives you enough response and control that allows the shoe to feel comfortable and ride well throughout the entire workout.

I think this would be a good start for you. I would go to the running store or look online and try on a bunch of pairs of racing flats that provide a little extra cushioning there.

It may not be worth it after every single-track session to feel like you’re being beat up the next day. Ideally, we want to feel that we got a good amount of work in, but we don’t want to have any rule left over residual fatigue left in our cabs or feet or something that’s going to take a long time to recover from.

Ideally will find a racing flat maybe more that made mid-grade cushioning. Maybe not as far as the Hoka or something like barefoot running.

You want to find something in the middle that’s going to give you a nice responsive feel and nice cushion so that you can perform your workouts and your harder efforts and feel good and you can race well and train well too.

Find something that’s not going to leave you overly tired and having to spend extra time recovering and taking a lot more care of tight beat up muscles.

That’s my advice for you and I think that’s a good option of where you can go to find something that’s a little bit more cushioned and allows you to still feel good and feel fast.

Terry, I really appreciate you submitting your questions today. I hope you can take a lot out of this podcast episode and you could potentially find something that will work good for you.

Thank you all for tuning in today.

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