Too many World Records being set —- not happy

Yes everything should be limited, no brainer here. I'm a traditional moral person ya know? I focus on ethics and ethos of the sport, not some WR, PB or NR. These things don't matter, it's the process that matters duh! Kinda no brainer for me not sure why the rest don't see it. Guess they are too corrupted....

Oh so you do observe that too just like me? Cheers to that, we are in the same boat. If this is the way to make T&F the top sport in the world, Seb Coe would do anything and everything to make a buck ya know? I for one dislike such notions because I find it trivializes the sport which you correctly are feeling and observing right now. We humans have a conscience and we know something is damn wrong with the sport if WRs are set not only every day, but every 5 years no less!

I would say the sport is in good hands only if all running WRs at least, I don't know about throwing and jumping, are set at intervals of 5 years with uncertainty of plus/minus 1 year. While I would define the safe improvement of all the same WRs for distances 800-10000m to be no more than 5 seconds combined with an uncertainty of plus/minus 2.5s.

average folks watching this will love this. average people will care if the deluge turns out to be armstrong era cycling and we have to erase the records. average folks are not going to care about the shoes or tracks. that is inside baseball.

what sport in the world if it had its maradona-klinsmann era or magic-bird era or jordan era would be pouting about well maybe part of it is shoe tech. you wanna pull that, what would jesse owens do in post-segregation america with modern training and shoes and such? do we really believe everyone was physically slower back then? they ran on dirt or cinders in worse clothes and shoes.

to me it's like indycars getting faster and faster as the tech improves, and what people want to see is how fast. tell me the shoes hurt feet or something. don't pout they make it fast. we still haven't caught up to flojo and the doped eastern bloc folks in some races so it can't be that fast.

to follow through on the "indycar" point, your real issue is you hit some equipment or limit that hurts people. like indycar struggles with relevance because they hit a point where if they get much faster on ovals like texas people get physically ill. that and part of their audience is people who love loud gas engines right as the tech shifts to electric.

or like cycling after you have watched armstrong chase some dude down on a mountain that's what you expect even when they try and clean it up.

last, the people comparing it to swimming, again, inside baseball. swimming folks ponder that. in terms of a general audience the phelps, ladecky, etc. era has been golden for them.

When are you physics-class dropouts gonna figure out the shoes are cover for you-know-what?

As long as you think it's the shoes, you won't talk about you-know-what.

Bouncy shoes can not make you run faster. Physically it has nothing to do with running pace. All that really matters is your feet match your pace in the other direction when they hit the ground, and apply minimal braking force.

also, to me part of it is that DL usually has some WR every few races in recent years anyway. some fast >800m race or record in monaco every year, etc. what usually happens is at this point of the year it's usually some post worlds who cares race despite nominally being the final.

and also this time you got folks who were primed for budapest just days ago but it was hot, who if they are still in shape now get reasonable weather.

I didn't know the Vaporflys were a track spike. News to me.

It's no different from what we have seen with cycling, weight-lifting and bodybuilding. And WADA puts track in the same category for doping. But it is very apparent that the dopers are now way ahead of antidoping, which has become mere window-dressing to a totally dirty sport.

You don't know it - like most fans - but what you consider "fast" or "slow" has been shaped entirely by doping. It means the sport is nothing like what it once was. It's a chemical factory.

This is a misconception about sports. A once in a lifetime athlete does not exist. In 50 years you will probably see that 50+ women have broken the 15 minute barrier in the 5k.

The sport of track and field is becoming more competitive and records are getting smashed because of it. Athletes are training, recover, dieting, and monitoring themselves more than ever before. There are thousands of people talented enough to beat world records and we're witnessing a fostering of these talents. Additionally, it doesn't hurt to be running in more efficient shoes.

Tsegay was literally bouncing around the track yesterday like a kangeroo. Even Cram mentioned it.

Still, the EPO records had to go. Full throttle EPO gives you maybe 1.5 seconds a lap, while the shoes more like 0.5s, and the tracks another 0.3s.

Lot of speculation in this thread presented as fact. My take is this is a small community.. we all know each other. If doping were as systemic and prevalent as stated in top level middle distance, it would be out and people would be getting popped or comments would be made in media by disgruntled competitors or whistle blowing ex teammates.

What we do know is:

1. training has improved, people running more and not flogging themselves on stupid reps as much. The success of the high mileage Norwegians has inpired this and a significant number of coaches doing this now.

2. improved spikes give better recovery, and may give some time. I say may as I haven't seen my athletes improve much with the spikes up to 1500m, but definitely do over 3k and up. They injure people less though and doubles like the incredible one we saw yesterday are now possible.

3. normal training shoes have improved and people are injured less.. I can't compare modern shoes to the ones I wore in 00s, 90s. For me they leaped forward about the Pegasus 36 timeframe. Materials, support, variety are better.

4. We have a few game changing athletes. Jakob has changed the game in that he actually races from the front at a hard pace.. he is the world's best pacer as he says and most top middle distance runners got their PBS and national records in his wake.

5. Pacing lights work and the tracks are faster. I think hard Mondo tracks would have hurt people more with the old spikes but the new spikes compensate for the hardness.

I see zero hard evidence that a portion of top track athletes are doping. Obviously we did have a lot of Kenyan athletes popped recently. Mostly these were road athletes and none of the top ones.

The top distance women have definitely levelled up but until there is someone popped in the Kipyegon, Tsegey or Gidey camp or some evidence of any kind other than fast times I take them at face value and mark them as either generational athletes or that the level of the event was lower than we thought and training methods, etc rising the standard for women.

#4 is huge. People have such a short memory and don't remember the Mo Farah era when everybody was just racing the last 400 of every event, and most races were just sit-and-kick. Times haven't gotten THAT much faster since then, but fast times are run more often.

I'd probably add

6. Qualifying standards have been raised. People need to run faster times for auto-qs, leading to faster races and more records

I also think the training effect from wearing super shoes for workouts.

You run your workout faster and you recover quicker.

Add it all up and we're seeing this spike. It'll settle down soon.

I started running in 1971, there was no such thing as good running shoes. They were all minimalist.

I just see this as a technological boost.

The first motion control shoes saved me, I had given up running, they made it possible for me to continue and I've benefitted from technology ever since.

I bought a pair of carbon plated shoes, I notice a difference.

I'm 64, it was taking me a week to 10 days to recover from workouts.

Now, it's more like 4-5.

I love seeing this.

You will notice that basically no athletes at or near the top post here, including ex-greats.

Those who actually know keep their mouths shut in public. Among themselves, they all know.

Quit fooling yourselves. You are NOT in the loop, you are NOT in the game. Your ignorant speculations are childish.

Which is fine, if you are in fact a child.

The answer to all these chucklehead's angst is to go back to competing with no clothes, riding a poor animal long distances to get to competitions, eating raw meat theycatch with their bare hands, spraying dye from their mouths in their hands on a cave wall etc... And for all you gender vs sex idiots, I think going back then would solve all your problems too.

How did we ever get here? Somebody isnt listening to you. Feel free to stop watching though. I think you'll enjoy it better.

I wasn't just complaining about shoes making people faster. My argument is that shoes aren't necessary. Cars are necessary for a car race. Shoes aren't necessary for a footrace on a track. In fact if a human physically depends on shoes to run I would argue that person is disabled and should compete in Special Olympics or something. We are talking about elite athletics here, not the average crippled populace. I have no problem with people competing with prosthetic devices but that should not be the norm for track running competition.

Doping was definitely worse in the late 90s for distance running.