Chapter 4 - Gear and Gadgets

Flying legal eagle Adam Campbell gained a Guinness World Record for running the fastest marathon in a suit in a time of 2:35:51 at Canada's Victoria Marathon in 2012, eclipsing the record formerly held by Brit Paul Buchanan of 3:24:46, set in Dublin in 2009. Not known for their wicking propensities, a three piece is not the athletic clothing of choice for most. Modern sports technology has led to major advances in the type of clothing and running-related gadgets that are available to recreational and professional athletes alike. Absorbent materials like cotton, which becomes heavy, wet and clingy with perspiration, have been replaced with synthetic materials that help moisture evaporate quicker, although can still lead to runner's nipple without a liberal coating of Vaseline.

A well-known photograph of Dorando Pietri being helped across the finishing line of the 1908 Olympic marathon shows him wearing baggy clothing. Compression clothing for almost every part of the body has been developed since. Satellite navigation watches, nutrition bars, gels, miniature personal music devices, smartphones with downloadable applications and all manner of paraphernalia including bumbags, hydration rucksacks, Anti Monkey Butt Powder to avoid chafing and Shewees are now in many sports bags. It's a wonder how Pietri ever made it across the finish line. (Oh, that's right, he was helped and disqualified.)

Homo erectus was the pioneer of the barefoot running craze long before Abebe Bikila won the Rome Olympic marathon shoeless in 1960. His world record time of 2:15:16 stood as a barefoot record until 1978 when it was beaten by India's Shivnath Singh, in Jalandhar, in a time of 2:12:00. Other shoeless devotees are athletes Bruce Tulloh, Zola Budd and the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico highlighted by Christopher McDougall in Born to Run. Early runners were saved a few shillings, but over the past few thousand millennia the training shoe industry has grown to an estimated £3.2 billion. The now-omnipresent global sports goods titans have shoes designed to meet the complex needs of the 33 joints, 26 bones and more than 100 ligaments, muscles and tendons which make up the foot.

The runner is faced with a dazzling and confusing array of training shoes to meet intricate and different needs. Pronation, overpronation and supination running styles are catered for in minimalist, neutral, motion control, cushioned, barefoot or performance shoes for trail, track, road and every surface save the moon, although that is just a matter of time. Most manufacturers change their shoes with each new athletic season, often with little obvious change to even the most committed fan other than cosmetic. The super powers know that once within their fold, repeat business (as shoes are worn out and replaced) is as certain as death and taxes. Once the right pair of shoes is found, it takes an event of seismic proportions to persuade a runner to move away from them.

New runners should have their running gait expertly assessed and avoid buying shoes that look the best in the shop. That doesn't mean spending a fortune, but rather finding the right fit for their specific foot. A study at the University of Bern in Switzerland, published recently in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, assessed 4,358 runners. It concluded that athletes with shoes costing more than $95, with features such as extra cushioning, were twice as likely to be injured at some point than those with shoes costing less than half. One size does not fit all.

One of the most important advances for runners in the past 20 years has been the availability to the mass market of good quality, portable, accurate satellite-navigation watches incorporating all manner of data. They record the distance run, cycled or swum, time, average speed, route, calories burnt and heart rate, and even provide virtual running partners to race or train with. Runs can be uploaded and shared instantly via the Internet. Garmin was one of the first companies to grab a wristhold in the watch market in 1990 and has since produced market-leading devices. The name of the company is now as synonymous with speed and distance monitors as Kleenex is with tissues. By 2010, Garmin's early highly functional watches, which resembled small bricks, had been replaced by models such as the 110, which looks like, well, a normal watch.

Like the march of the penguins, runners can become focused on destinations and goals; they love numbers. Time, distance run, speed, elevation and descent are eagerly dissected and analysed. The target of a new personal best or finishing position in a race can detract from the joy of the journey. It's unlikely penguins on their treks will pull up and check out the views, but runners should. The use of GPS watches and the focus on the data they create can detract from the very thing an athlete enjoys in the first place, which is the simple act of pulling on their gear and heading out of the door for a run.

Watches and measurement devices play an important role in keeping the athlete honest in their ability. They should not, however, be allowed to detract from the beauty of an early-morning crosscountry run when most people are just waking up, or cause an athlete to become too fixated on the numbers to the detriment of the reasons that brought them to the sport in the first place.

A healthy balance between the use of all the top-of-the-range gadgets and running without any could lead to longer-term running careers for non-professional athletes. There will inevitably be periods when motivation drops. A blast of The Rolling Stones, as favoured by Phil Hewitt in Keep on Running, might make the difference between a six miler and another slice of pizza. Better still, put the miles in and have a guilt-free slice after the run. Another option is to run and eat pizza at the same time, as ultra running legend Dean Karnazes did at midnight on Highway 116 in Napa Valley, California, in the middle of a 150-mile-plus training run. He opted for a large with all the trimmings.

Rhodesian-based English runner Arthur Newton won the Comrades Marathon in Durban, South Africa, five times and set a host of records in races, including the 100-mile London to Bath race and other 24-hour events in the 1930s. His racing plans included the use of a large gramophone. Whereas a spot of swing from Satchmo might have helped Newton, for the next 40 years he would be in a minority of runners who could use music to their advantage. The Sony Walkman was the first portable personal music device to hit the masses and it transformed the way people trained. A bulky boxed cassette player strapped to the waist, it allowed a small number of songs to be listened to while running, allowing the user into imagine they were running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art like boxer Rocky Balboa, whilst pumping out 'Eye of the Tiger' for the fourth time. The development of the iPod and other small devices now allows a thousand songs to be taken on a run.

Studies have shown that upbeat music may help a runner clock faster times as they train to the beat, block out negative thoughts and experience increased blood flow, which helps to disperse lactic acid build up. On the flipside, another study conducted over a period of six years reported a 300 per cent increase in serious injuries to pedestrians wearing headphones. In 2007, the New York City Marathon banned the use of headphones through fear of injuries and most major races are now following suit.

776 BC	Competitors in the ancient games run barefoot
c.534 BC	An Etruscan attaches lower and upper parts of a sandal with metal tacks
490 BC	Pheidippides runs an ultra, picking up a few blisters
341 BC	Etruscan invention takes off
1830	An athletic shoe made from canvas and rubber is invented
1832	Wait Webster patents a design attaching rubber to shoes and boots (and creates the 'sneek thief', as the shoes were so quiet)
1854	Boots and shoes with spikes are developed
1870	John Boyd Dunlop invents plimsolls, later called Green Flash
1890s	Spiked running shoes sold by J.W. Foster & Sons (which later becomes Reebok)
1916	Keds trainer called Champion created with rubber sole
1924	Foster's supplies the shoes for the British Olympic team
1936	Adi Dassler supplies shoes to Jesse Owens
1948	Adidas formed by Adi Dassler and Puma by Rudolf Dassler
1952	Josy Barthel wears Puma shoes to win gold in the 1,500 m at Helsinki Olympics
1960	New Balance create a shoe with a wedged heel
1968	Tommie Smith wears Puma Suedes in 200 m at Mexico Olympics
1968	Smith and John Carlos remove their shoes for the medal ceremony
1971	Nike pays Carolyn Davidson $35 for her 'swoosh' design
1973	Steve Prefontaine endorses Nike and wears the company's shoes
1974	Nike launches its 'Waffle' shoe design
1975	Brooks uses EVA foam to lighten its shoes
1985	Asics introduces a gel cushioning system
2005	Vibram introduces FiveFingers shoes – mimicking barefoot running – and the rest try to catch up
2008	Haile Gebrselassie runs a new world record of 2:03:59 at the Berlin Marathon, wearing Adidas Daybreaks
2012	Usain Bolt runs into the history books at the London Olympics wearing Puma spikes
2017	Barefoot running takes over and the circle of life starts again

Rocking runners

• Sean Combs (aka Puff Daddy, Diddy, P. Diddy), 2003 New York City Marathon (4:14:54)

• Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), 2011 Los Angeles Marathon (3:53:00)

• Nick Hexum (311), 2006 Los Angeles Marathon (5:29:44)

• Björn Ulvaeus (ABBA), 1980 Stockholm Marathon (3:23:54)

• Ronan Keating (Boyzone), 2008 London Marathon (3:59:44)

• Mike Malinin (Goo Goo Dolls), 2000 San Francisco Marathon (3:23:56)

• Alanis Morissette, 2009 Bizz Johnson Trail Marathon (4:17:03)

• David Lee Roth (Van Halen), 2010 New York City Marathon (6:04:43)

• Joe Strummer (The Clash), 1982 Paris Marathon (allegedly 3:20).