Thoughts about Eliud Kipchoge's world record and Breaking 2

I don't exactly recall when I first heard about Nike's Breaking 2 project, but what I do remember is watching a documentary about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2ZLG-Fij_4

What they basically did is take three Godlike runners:

Name	Nationality	Birth date	Age	Previous best marathon
Lelisa Desisa	Ethiopia	14 January 1990	27	2:04:45
Eliud Kipchoge	Kenya	5 November 1984	32	2:03:05
Zersenay Tadese	Eritrea	8 February 1982	35	2:10:41

Create optimal conditions and slap high-tech, state-of-the-art running shoes on their feet, in hopes of getting a sub 120 minutes marathon.

Quote from Wikipedia:

Nike developed a new running shoe called the "Vapor Fly Elite" for the attempt. The Monza automobile racetrack was chosen for a combination of its low altitude, calm weather conditions, and short lap length. In addition to the pacemaker vehicle, runners acting as pacemakers were positioned to shield the key athletes in an attempt to reduce wind resistance

The result was:

Position	Athlete	Nationality	Time
	Eliud Kipchoge	Kenya	2:00:25
	Zersenay Tadese	Eritrea	2:06:51
	Lelisa Desisa	Ethiopia	2:14:10

Despite the optimal conditions, Lelisa ran 9:25 slower than his previous best. Zersenay did beat his best time though by 3:50, and Eliud by 2:40.

Lelisa probably ran at an unsustainable pace, causing him to lose quite a bit of time so even with optimal conditions, he didn't beat his previous best.
Zersenay and Eliud did seem to benefit quite a bit from the optimal conditions. But how much did their shoes contribute? 

Thankfully, Nike had scientists do experiments in Boulder, Colorado to provide the answer! They found out that among elite runners there was an average improvement of 4%. And from what I could find from various running sites, Strava seems to confirm this. 
Nike has since released the prototypes the Breaking2 guys ran in to the public, and called it the Vaporfly 4%, because that's what these babies on average improve your running with. 
Needless to say, since Breaking2, I've seen these puppies on the feet of MANY runners.

Not being a fan of cushioned shoes, but still fascinated I did some research.

I took Kipchoge's time under perfect conditions (2:00:25) and compared that to his recent word record breaking time in Berlin (2:01:39). Because Eliud ran both in the same shoe, I can assume that the optimized conditions gave him a 1:14 advantage. So the rest must be the shoes right? 
Before you start screaming "Shut up and take my money!", try thinking about the next bit:

I took Eliud's previous best in Berlin 2:03:32, and converted that to seconds 7412. I divided that by 1,04 (4%), which gave me 7127. I subtracted that from his Berlin time (285) which I then converted to minutes (divided by 4, and ignored the decimals, then % 4) which gave me 4:45.

So that means that if Nike's claims about their shoes hold up, that Eliud should have ran the Berlin marathon in 1:58:47 without needing to improving his running at all just because of his shoes. 
But Eliud "only" ran it in 2:01:39 though... What the Hell Eliud?! Were you even trying? And don't get me started about Monza! With perfect conditions (which we concluded gave 1:14 minutes)  and anatomy-be-damned-technological-marvels on his feet (which should give another 4:45), he should have been able to run that in 1:57:06 (2:03:05 - (1:14 + 4:45) ), "only" managing 2:00:25 is an insult to the brilliant engineers that cooked up the Vapor Fly Elite.

In all seriousness, I think it's safe to say, that unless Eliud got considerably worse at running after consistently improving the last couple of years, that Nike's Vaporfly 4% (with more than a whopping 3 cm of foam under the heel) is not going to radically improve your running times (if at all). Afterall, it didn't do that for the three men they were designed for.
Anyone claiming the opposite, in my opinion basically says that Kipchoge's world record was only obtained because of his choice of shoes, and that he set a world record despite running a hell of a lot worse then usual. Which I personally think is an insult to the man's amazing running performance. 

Sorry to burst your bubble,but it would seem that hard work is still the only way to get faster and you can't buy a personal best for on average $ 250.