We've seen world records in the mens and womens 5k, 10k, now women's 1500m. also indoor men's 3k.
We just had 13 guys break 13 minutes in one strategic 5k TODAY.
Some world records were so DRUGGED UP that they are still hard to beat.
I'm happy to discuss any of my assumptions. Which of my assumptions are wrong? I acknowledge forgetting about supershoes on the track in 2016-2018 affecting the 10,000m, and the 10,000m never being an all spiked up race pre-superspikes (racing flats often used) like the other events, but that doesn't affect the meat of the analysis. My piece presented in the first four posts has nothing to do with world records or what happens in any particular race.
Not need to look at any individuals or any particular races is the point of looking at the 1000th performer. Superspikes provide some amount of assistance, a more to good responders, less to weak responders and none to possible non-responders, so the people get shuffle up or down and in and out of the list, but overall, the top 1000th runner in the superspiked 2022 year is substantially faster than the 1000th fastest runners in the each of the pre-superspiked years 2012-2018.
I don't think there are drug use trends affecting the 1000th performer in those events over those years either at the same time. Unless you are trying to saying the vax made people faster? I mean, that does coincide with those years, so I can't really rule it out by data alone (but can by logic).
17 of the top 100m all time athletes in the 1500 have come in the last 2 years................11 of the top 50................despite increased drug testing...........................
Top 100 male 1500 runners? I count about 15 on that list from 2021 and 2022, so close enough to your 17. What are you insinuating? Secret new drug gone wild? I'm arguing that the World Athletics data shows that even at the 1000th performer level on the yearly list level (not the top 100 all-time level), there was a big jump, and it coincides with supershoe usage. What is it that it coincides with in your opinion?
I kind of assumed this was the case. Faster the pace (shorter the distance) I think you're already close to maxing out the stride length. Maybe there is very little room to length the stride even with the propulsion off the plates. As the distance gets longer and pace gets slower, plates offer greater benefit due to energy return and thus be able to run at the same stride length using less energy. That enables the runner to either increase the stride length a tiny bit or go longer distance with same stride length.
We've seen world records in the mens and womens 5k, 10k, now women's 1500m. also indoor men's 3k.
We just had 13 guys break 13 minutes in one strategic 5k TODAY.
Some world records were so DRUGGED UP that they are still hard to beat.
I'm happy to discuss any of my assumptions. Which of my assumptions are wrong? I acknowledge forgetting about supershoes on the track in 2016-2018 affecting the 10,000m, and the 10,000m never being an all spiked up race pre-superspikes (racing flats often used) like the other events, but that doesn't affect the meat of the analysis. My piece presented in the first four posts has nothing to do with world records or what happens in any particular race.
Not need to look at any individuals or any particular races is the point of looking at the 1000th performer. Superspikes provide some amount of assistance, a more to good responders, less to weak responders and none to possible non-responders, so the people get shuffle up or down and in and out of the list, but overall, the top 1000th runner in the superspiked 2022 year is substantially faster than the 1000th fastest runners in the each of the pre-superspiked years 2012-2018.
I don't think there are drug use trends affecting the 1000th performer in those events over those years either at the same time. Unless you are trying to saying the vax made people faster? I mean, that does coincide with those years, so I can't really rule it out by data alone (but can by logic).
You make the claim that the benefits decrease the faster the pace, which insinuates that the top pros get a lesser benefit. Evidence shows the top pro runners have improved tremendously with the shoes.
It has nothing to do with pace, it has to do with DISTANCE or LENGTH of race. Of course the longer the race, the slower the pace. But on average a 2 hour marathoner and a 3 hour marathoner will both get a 4% increase in performance. 4% of 3 hours is a bigger number than 4% of 2 hours, but it's the same proportional benefit regardless of the pace.
You don't factor in that the athletes can train harder because of the shoes and still recover better. Most of the benefit of the shoes is allowing harder training, not the small % of extra energy return in the race.
I'm happy to discuss any of my assumptions. Which of my assumptions are wrong? I acknowledge forgetting about supershoes on the track in 2016-2018 affecting the 10,000m, and the 10,000m never being an all spiked up race pre-superspikes (racing flats often used) like the other events, but that doesn't affect the meat of the analysis. My piece presented in the first four posts has nothing to do with world records or what happens in any particular race.
Not need to look at any individuals or any particular races is the point of looking at the 1000th performer. Superspikes provide some amount of assistance, a more to good responders, less to weak responders and none to possible non-responders, so the people get shuffle up or down and in and out of the list, but overall, the top 1000th runner in the superspiked 2022 year is substantially faster than the 1000th fastest runners in the each of the pre-superspiked years 2012-2018.
I don't think there are drug use trends affecting the 1000th performer in those events over those years either at the same time. Unless you are trying to saying the vax made people faster? I mean, that does coincide with those years, so I can't really rule it out by data alone (but can by logic).
You make the claim that the benefits decrease the faster the pace, which insinuates that the top pros get a lesser benefit. Evidence shows the top pro runners have improved tremendously with the shoes.
It has nothing to do with pace, it has to do with DISTANCE or LENGTH of race. Of course the longer the race, the slower the pace. But on average a 2 hour marathoner and a 3 hour marathoner will both get a 4% increase in performance. 4% of 3 hours is a bigger number than 4% of 2 hours, but it's the same proportional benefit regardless of the pace.
You don't factor in that the athletes can train harder because of the shoes and still recover better. Most of the benefit of the shoes is allowing harder training, not the small % of extra energy return in the race.
There is no evidence that shows work. Stop.
Tim C ran 3:28 with the shoes and 3:28 before.
Jakob ran 3:31 before shoes as 18 year old. He ran 3:28/29 last year worn the shoes as a 3:29. We have people have times on record pre-super shoes. This 100% defeats any argument.
Someone touched on this, but a key confounding variable is the proliferation of high stack, carbon plated super shoes (dragonflies are not carbon plated) being used in training. If mid-level runners who were injury prone now stay healthy all season and put in more miles, mid-level times will go down.
That being said the shoes obviously provide some benefit. And it is amplified the farther the distance.
You make the claim that the benefits decrease the faster the pace, which insinuates that the top pros get a lesser benefit. Evidence shows the top pro runners have improved tremendously with the shoes.
Those two sentences can both be true. 0.3 seconds per lap at 55 second pace is a lesser benefit than 0.5 second benefit at 60 second pace, which is a lesser benefit than 1.0 second at 67 second pace. But 0.3 seconds per lap improvement on a 3:30-low can be 3:28-high - a tremendous improvement at the top end despite the smaller benefit. At the top, every little bit is incrementally a lot harder, and 1-2 seconds goes a long way at the top. At sub-3:30 last year, you had 4 guys, but just 10 seconds slower, you have 200 guys.
It has nothing to do with pace, it has to do with DISTANCE or LENGTH of race. Of course the longer the race, the slower the pace. But on average a 2 hour marathoner and a 3 hour marathoner will both get a 4% increase in performance. 4% of 3 hours is a bigger number than 4% of 2 hours, but it's the same proportional benefit regardless of the pace.
It has to do with pace because the shoe can't tell if someone is running 60 second pace feeling like he can do one lap or 8 laps. The shoe's superfoam compresses and rebounds based on the forces applied and removed from it. It can't tell if you are tiring or feeling good. That's a key assumption that I made, based on physics, to say that 1:50.83 800 pace for the 1000th yearly performer is like 3:28.88 pace for a top runner in what the shoe can do for the runner because they are the same exact pace. The thing that makes the forces possibly slightly different on the shoes is that the population of top 1000th 800 runners might be a different weight than the population of 3:28.88 runners (but Jakob isn't smaller than 800 runners...).
You don't factor in that the athletes can train harder because of the shoes and still recover better. Most of the benefit of the shoes is allowing harder training, not the small % of extra energy return in the race.
People could train harder in softer shoes before supershoes too. Run fast track work in HOKA Cliftons? Workout times would be noticeably slower than track work in super shoes or super spikes, but the training effect should be the same if the effort is exactly the same. Getting hung up wanting workout times to look better? I get it, a lot of runners do, so maybe it makes it mentally comfortable, more confidence inspiring to do so. But keep in mind, almost all the lab testing efficiency benefit studies are and were based off of just switching from one shoe type to another, no training difference involved. And that's where the original Vaporfly averaged 4% more efficient, and the Next% a tiny bit better, and the Alphafly a bit better than than the Next%.
You make the claim that the benefits decrease the faster the pace, which insinuates that the top pros get a lesser benefit. Evidence shows the top pro runners have improved tremendously with the shoes.
It has nothing to do with pace, it has to do with DISTANCE or LENGTH of race. Of course the longer the race, the slower the pace. But on average a 2 hour marathoner and a 3 hour marathoner will both get a 4% increase in performance. 4% of 3 hours is a bigger number than 4% of 2 hours, but it's the same proportional benefit regardless of the pace.
You don't factor in that the athletes can train harder because of the shoes and still recover better. Most of the benefit of the shoes is allowing harder training, not the small % of extra energy return in the race.
There is no evidence that shows work. Stop.
Tim C ran 3:28 with the shoes and 3:28 before.
Jakob ran 3:31 before shoes as 18 year old. He ran 3:28/29 last year worn the shoes as a 3:29. We have people have times on record pre-super shoes. This 100% defeats any argument.
There is much evidence that the shoes work. 11 of the top 50 times in world history are from the past 2 years!
Jakob doesn't often go for fast times, he is like Mo Farah who is more concerned with winning. Jakob ran his PR in the Olympic Final, slowing down at the end to celebrate.
Many of the top 50 were known dopers - Kiprop and Lagat are #2 and 3. Makhloufi is #10. El Goerrouj was definitely doping too.
The error in your analysis is right there: "that can only be explained." If you haven't ruled out other possibilities, then other things could explain the results.
The error in your analysis is right there: "that can only be explained." If you haven't ruled out other possibilities, then other things could explain the results.
I've put up the analysis of some World Athletics data. I think it's pretty obvious that the analysis is picking up the superspike phenomenon, but anyone can propose alternative explanations for discussion. Discussion is open and welcome.
The main question if you are looking for alternative suggestions is, "What affects almost everyone that ends up in the top 1000 across 800m/1500m/5000m/10000m that changed between 2018 and 2021/2022?” No, not everyone started doing double thresholds. But even if everyone did, that wouldn't affect the 800m. Also, I derived from the data the table at the bottom of my third post of "superspike benefit" at different paces. I explain that table as being an image of the mechanical properties of superspikes - that they have rebound characteristics that favor the relatively slower paces. Alternative explanations should make sense with that small, but noticeable improvement at 55 second pace changing incrementally to large improvement at 68-72 pace.
Good stuff, zzzz. Here's my hypothesis. The slower the pace from that of a sprint, the more the foot contact-phase forces shift from forefoot-centric to include midfoot-rearfoot involvement, allowing the athlete to benefit more from the midsole super-foam, which is where the real magic of the super shoes derives. The 2018 study by Hoogkamer demonstrated that the energy return derived from the superfoam compression forces is about 50x greater than that from the carbon fiber plate bending forces.
I put those four points in Excel, and the log(benefit) vs. pace is highly correlated. The best fit line gives: 55 pace: 0.3 second superspike benefit per 400 56 pace: 0.4 second 57 pace: 0.4 second 58 pace: 0.4 second 59 pace: 0.5 second 60 pace: 0.5 second 61 pace: 0.6 second 62 pace: 0.6 second 63 pace: 0.7 second 64 pace: 0.8 second (or 0.7 second in the lesser benefit/data picking cheat option in the 10,000) 65 pace: 0.8 second 66 pace: 0.9 second 67 pace: 1.0 second (or 0.9 second) 68 pace: 1.1 second (or 1.0 second) 69 pace: 1.2 second (or 1.1 second) 70 pace: 1.3 second (or 1.2 second) 71 pace: 1.5 second (or 1.3 second) 72 pace: 1.6 second (or 1.4 second)
I didn't really make it clear that the starting pace for the table above is old spikes, and that makes a difference down at slower end. So this is easier to interpret:
To make it easier to interpret the impact on different track events, here are tables for the old spike/superspike conversion. I recalculated these from the regression line on the graph in post #4, so not based on the rounded benefit above. Remember that this the is collective benefit based the World Athletics male population and benefits to individuals and possibly women (will do that later) may vary.
The most massive effects are for the slower runners and longer events, and particularly the slower runners in the longest events (down to 72 sec 400 pace at least). So, the average, non-elite high school boys in the 1600/3200, non-elite college guys in the 5000/10000, etc.
And that's why I included 2 mile in the previous post ahead of Ingebrigtsens WR attempt. Maybe I was the only one not surprised by the magnitude of his WR? Superspikes likely saved him about 3.8 to 4.0 seconds so he would have taken 0.5 to 0.7 second off the WR even in old spikes.
Very interesting. As Devil's advocate, how would the 2020 "lockdowns" have impacted the 2021-2022 data? i.e. Could some of the improvement be credited to runner's training their collective assess off in 2020?
Not sure why people weight this so high. The argument is contingent on the incremental benefit of just training being substantially greater than what would have been a normal track season. I don’t see how a few more months of base phase, versus a normal track season, could drive the significant step change in times across all ages, genders, and geographies. In other words, I don’t think this idea survives a simple sanity check.
Very interesting. As Devil's advocate, how would the 2020 "lockdowns" have impacted the 2021-2022 data? i.e. Could some of the improvement be credited to runner's training their collective assess off in 2020?
Not sure why people weight this so high. The argument is contingent on the incremental benefit of just training being substantially greater than what would have been a normal track season. I don’t see how a few more months of base phase, versus a normal track season, could drive the significant step change in times across all ages, genders, and geographies. In other words, I don’t think this idea survives a simple sanity check.
Additionally, this is also voided by the fact that the trend in fast times has not only sustained but accelerated. There is zero reason to believe that everybody is still running unreal times in 2023 because they had 5 more months of base training in 2020.
