 Wow, I know I'm sick. We're sick. Hi! I love, I'm just gonna go get three easy in. It was all my fault. Fine, Mike, was it beautiful? It was beautiful. Hi. Hi, Mama. Hi. Recovery day, recovery shoes, and the ultra torrents, and just using that zero drop. Hopefully, to my advantage, I think it helps stretch out the Achilles and the calf and the soleus on easy days after I had two hard days kind of back to back over the last two days. So nice, easy three miles, 5K today, nine minute pace per mile. And yes, the keyword is a little longer today. It's a little longer. We're gonna go with mechanical. Mechanical is the keyword for this vlog, and I will tell you more about that here in a little bit as to why mechanical is the keyword. I'm excited to read your comments today. Yes, we're entering the fray a little bit. We're entering the fray, and I've been thinking about this topic for about a month now, just trying to formulate where I come down in the discussion. Let's not have an argument. Let's have a good old discussion, because guess what? At the end of the day, we love each other, and yes, we love running shoes. Oh baby, all right, almost back home. All right, I'm off to a few quick errands, and I do have a quick question though before diving into today's topic. For everyone on Strava that is outside the United States, does Strava automatically convert my runs and everyone else's runs into more global running from miles to kilometers for you, and same for the elevation gain? Does it convert the feet into meters so that you don't have to do it like in your head? I'm just curious to hear how Strava works for everyone internationally. Does that make sense? Let me know down in the comments, I would appreciate it. Okay, and then we're almost back to the studio to dive into today's topic. Shout out to my mom for this table. It's like a standing desk that I can use now for live streaming, I'm setting up right now. And so anyway, it's just gonna help with overall organization in the studio. Thank you mom, it was an extra desk for her and I'll use it, put it to use everybody. All right, come on. Should carbon fiber plates be banned from running shoes? That is the topic for this vlog, and listen, let's keep it civil down in the comments, share your opinion, I love the dialogue, we can go back and forth on this. And listen, I didn't realize when I purchased the 4% flying it six months ago that it was such a hot topic in the running world. And yeah, there have been some professional runners and amateur runners that are attempting to qualify for the Olympics that have discussed this very topic and how they will, basically, they will not be using a carbon fiber plate, whether it's the carbon rocket, whether it's the 4% flying it, and they give their rationale and reasoning. And so, sure enough, over the last month, I have been mulling this topic to discuss with all of you. And, but before that, Reebok, did you know, this little trivia, did you know that, and it's a little debated, I've heard that Brooks came out with a carbon fiber-esque plate in the late 80s. I don't know if that's actually true. If you are a Brooks fan, maybe you have a little more information on that. But the Reebok Graphite Road, is that the name of it? I'll double check that. The Reebok, yeah, I just confirmed it. The Reebok Graphite Road came out in the mid-90s and basically they had a midsole, or sorry, through the midfoot, a carbon fiber plate. Again, very early stages of the carbon fiber plate game. After the Reebok shoe, Adidas came out with what they called the Propulsion Plate, the Propulsion Plate in the late 90s. And then there was a little bit of a lull for about 10 years, all the way up to 07. When, believe it or not, the triathlon world, Zoot is popular with triathletes, Z-O-O-T. And they came out with a shoe, with a carbon fiber plate. In 2007. And then, gosh, 2012 in the Olympics was a big year in London for the beginning of testing with carbon fiber plates. And then fast-forwarding again to 2017, basically, with Kipchoge making his attempts at breaking the two-hour barrier in the marathon. That's when the steam really began to pick up with, of course, the Nike Vaporfly 4% flying it. Kipchoge is from Kenya, and he's a Nike athlete. And so, in my opinion, that attempt by Nike to send an athlete under two hours for the marathon, definitely, like everybody was watching, in the Brooks, Mizuno, Asics, Soccany, New Balance, whoever you wanna throw out there, I guarantee you, the executives, or at least the people in charge, like in charge of shoe design for running shoes in those companies was like, okay, what's going on here? And they have to think about economics. They have to think about economics in order to compete and survive. All right, there's a little brief history on carbon fiber plates. And if you have any corrections or addendums to that history, definitely let me know down in the comments, and we can do some more research about carbon fiber plates. Okay, are you ready for my opinion? Here it is. My full opinion on carbon fiber plates. They're okay. They're okay. I've been thinking about this, and I was like, huh, gosh, maybe it is like cheating. You know what I mean? And I had to think about it for a little bit. But here's where I come down on why carbon fiber plates are okay. There is no outside energy source that is impacting the mechanical energy that is provided by the carbon fiber plate in the shoe. Meaning there's no hidden battery, that we know of, no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. There's no hidden battery in the midsole that is causing the carbon fiber plate to like flex an extra, you know, half a percent to give you that extra spring in your step. There's no little tiny engine, like engine in there rotating to help you propel you forward. Okay, I'm ranting here. Or think of it this way, think of it this way. Baseball players, you know how most of them wear elbow guards now when they're batting or many of them do, I shouldn't say most. Imagine if that elbow guard had some sort of spring in there that was triggered when the baseball player started to swing his arm and then a spring went off and it was of course triggered by a outside energy source and it caused the batter to swing harder or faster. That would be considered in my books cheating or if you wanna connect it to drugs and injecting yourself with EPO. That is an outside, I'm just gonna say energy source that yeah, that is cheating. And another way to look at this, what is the difference on a molecular level from a carbon fiber plate to a midsole to an upper? What is it at the end of the day and I don't have the periodic table memorized, it's a material, okay? And think of- And maybe I'm stretching this a little too far but think of the barefoot runner who won the Olympics, I think it was the 1960 Olympics, Abibi Bikila from Ethiopia. If you're following that logic that you shouldn't be able to use a, yeah, that you shouldn't be able to use a carbon fiber plate in a running shoe, then I think you would have to tell Bikila that he's not allowed to use a shoe in an attempt to run a faster marathon because that would be adding a material to your foot. I don't know if that logic makes sense but I was just thinking about that right now. All a carbon fiber plate is a material that is extracted from the earth just like a lot of foam and rubber on all running shoes. All it is is a material, you know? And I don't know all the science but like oil or wherever this material is coming from within the earth, it's extracted and put into a shoe and we get to reap the benefits of that material. And so that's where I fall down is that as long as the, as long as there is no outside energy source that is propelling any shoe forward, even if it was like tiny little wheels on the bottom, like that would be cheating. If there were tiny little wheels on the bottom of a running shoe and it was powered by solar energy, yeah, that would be cheating. Am I making sense here? Am I making sense here? I hope I am. At the end of the day, we're all trying to run faster. I believe that Nike is really onto something. I think Hoka is really onto something. And guess what? I've heard rumblings that the Razer 3 might be on deck next for a car. And I think it makes a lot of sense. Probably like this shoe, it has similarities to the Nike shoe as far as overall feel. Not exactly. I know that's a little bit of a stretch but I think a carbon fiber plate in the Razer 3 could be coming down the pike. And I've also heard about Brooks is in the process and they've been developing something for a while now. So listen, it does come down to economics. It's for a lot of these big companies at the end of the day. I'm okay with carbon fiber plates being in running shoes again, because it's a material just like an upper. That's, it's that simple. It's that simple. It's just a material. Yeah, gosh. And if you, all right, you ready for it? Question of the day. What is your opinion on carbon fiber plates? And listen, be, be, don't let my thoughts and opinion impact yours. Really think for yourself and you might need to take an hour or two or all day and come back later tonight if you're watching this in the morning and give your opinion because guess what? I really had to wrestle with it for a little bit. Like, wow, yeah. Is that fair? Is it cheating to wait to use it? But that's where I've fallen down. No outside energy source to impact the mechanical energy in the shoe. Okay. And again, I'm not a scientist. So if you are a scientist, feel free to, you know, correct my terminology down below. All right, we're getting ready for the live stream. I love you guys. Tomorrow's gonna be a big mountain day. Come back for that. And what, ah, I love it. I love it. It's so fun to discuss all of this with you guys. See beauty, work hard, and love each other. See you tomorrow. All right.