[sjeohp]

> Meb Keflezghi, winner of both the Boston and New York marathon, that he's not built to run. He's a prime example of a heel striker [1], though slightly less prominent in his later years.

Trained hard and overcame the limitation for a time? I did say there are exceptions.

> More generally, in [2], a study of elite level runners in the half marathon, found that at the 15km point the top 50 was comprised of 62% rear-foot strikers, 36% mid-foot, and 2.0% fore-foot strikers.

Reflects that heel-strikers are more common.

From a quick search:

1,991 runners were classified by foot-strike pattern, revealing a heel-strike prevalence of 93.67% (n=1,865). A significant difference between foot-strike classification and performance was found using a Kruskal-Wallis test (p < 0.0001), with more elite performers being less likely to heel-strike.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4801105/

[pg314]

> I did say there are exceptions.

You said: There are rare heel-running sportspeople but running is not their competitive strength.

Do you agree that Meb Keflezghi's competitive strength is running?

The study you link to mentions multiple studies that say that 75-80% of elites are heel-striking. Would you call that rare?

[sjeohp]

No, I think his competitive strength is probably mental fortitude, but that's just speculation.

We're splitting hairs now.

The numbers tilt steeply towards toe-striking at the competitive end, because toe-striking has a higher technical floor and ceiling.