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NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - When does technology become cheating?
It's a question some runners are asking about Nike’s new running shoe.
The sneaker is helping athletes get to the finish line faster.
To plod through the heat and humidity required a certain amount of dedication, most often displayed by a certain kind of runner.
While the journey toward those dreams may represent the goal, for these devoted amateurs, a new Nike shoe has promised to help its wearers reach those dreams more efficiently.
"It's going to eliminate some of the extra flection that your foot is doing," said Yana Polikarpov.
Jack Rabbit Senior sales associate Yana Polikarpov held Nike's new Vapor-Fly sneakers, which was released on Thursday and has been selling out quickly. Thanks to its promise to improve a runner's efficiency by four percent.
"The carbon fiber plate's been used in running for ages. It's usually a component of sprinting shoes,” said Polikarpov.
With the Vapor-Fly, Nike layered a curved piece of carbon-fiber with foam in a distance shoe for the first time, as part of its campaign for a Nike runner to run the first sub-two-hour marathon.
Critics suggest that bounce and spring offers runners an unfair advantage-- an undefined offense according to the governing body of international athletics --- and one other shoe manufacturers seem destined to attempt to imitate and improve upon.
Pheidippides ran the first marathon likely barefoot on dirt and rocks after defeating the strongest army in the world. He also died afterwards, according to most accounts, but the need for a so-called good shoe vs. a great shoe vs. a really great shoe varies depending on the runner you ask.
“I don't really necessarily buy that. I think it all comes in the training,” said one runner.
If the morality of one's running shoe fails to concern them, the price of the Vapor-Fly may dissuade some more casual or thrifty runners.
It retails for $250.
"You have to invest in a good pair of shoes. And I think it's worth spending the extra money.”