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Howdy!
Welcome to Lab Rat Rundown. I'm Dustin, aka that Lab Rat guy. I got tired of marketing hype and fluffy subjective reviews of high performance racing shoes, so I started testing them objectively in an exercise science lab. This site catalogs the personal case study testing I've done as my own lab rat, as well as summarizes larger group studies that my lab and other research labs have conducted on racing shoes.
My Story
My name is Dustin Joubert. I have a PhD in Exercise Physiology from Texas A&M University (2015). I was a faculty member in the Department of Kinesiology at Stephen F. Austin State University from 2015-2022 before landing at my current academic home at St. Edward's University in the great running community of Austin, TX.
I've been a life long runner and endurance athlete. I competed in cross country and track at Sam Houston State University and did triathlon competitively while at Texas A&M for graduate school. I have always had a research interest in endurance performance and my more recent focus has been on quantifying the benefits of so-called "super" shoes.
After publishing the first super shoe comparison study, I realized there was a great interest in objective running shoe performance reviews, independent of brand partnerships. I started an Instagram page in September 2021 with the goal of sharing such data. After some success there, I decided to start his website in September 2022 to better catalog the testing and reviews I have done and continue to do with the goal of also reaching a larger audience beyond Instagram alone.
Contact
I don't do brand promos like fluffy/subjective shoe reviews, the posting of sexy shoe photos, or the youtubes. I will however test and share the objective data for any shoe sent to me in a US Size 10.
If you are interested in supporting larger scale research initiatives through my university research projects, please feel free to reach out.