43 break 4:00 mile BU Valentine

Wait, so you're arguing that when over 1/3 of these times come from the same track, in a sport with 100+ tracks, that it's proof BU isn't the anomaly?

The better training looks exactly like the old training.

I didn't read every reply but I'm curious- How many were first time sub 4?

That makes a difference when assessing the "commonness" of a sub 4.

Uh.....4 minutes was broken 70 years ago and you still talking about it. SMH...

Its 2024 and if you can't do what was done 70 years ago, you suck as DI track and field athlete.

Also if the world ran the mile event weekly like we do here in the U.S., a million people would break that 70 year old barrier. Next. Move on to something else.

Never say 4 minute mile again. It stopped being a big deal 45 years ago.

Should any sprinter quit then? Even sub 10.00?

No. Nobody should quit running regardless of how slow. We are merely discussing times and perspective.

Not at all what I am saying. I am targeting those people who tried to discredit Parker Valby's 14:56 by arguing that the new surface at BU makes it a lot faster this year than last year. It doesn't.

Is BU faster than most indoor tracks? Yes

Is BU 2024 faster than BU 2023? Absolutely not. If it was, we would see MORE top times there this season, not less.

The BU track was resurfaced for the first time in 20 years this past fall. Of course that improved the performance of the track lol. Why else do it?

We are seeing more top times this year. I doubt it is just the track though. The women's mile for example has been on fire, and not just at BU.

Would you say the same about:

27 foot long jump - 60+ years ago

10.0 100m - 60+ years ago

19.8 200m - 56 years ago

44.9 400m - 60+ years ago

1:44.3 800m - 60+ years ago

Do all NCAA athletes in those events "suck as D1 athletes"

Those mars are all better than a 4 minute mile. Most of those will be the best in the NCAA while 4 minutes will only be 100th.

Used to compete against a guy who runs a major ncaa men’s/women’s program who explained to me that there is a whole other aspect to the shoes that many don’t talk about. They allow athletes to do 20% more reps and 20% faster and also sometimes get in an extra workout each week. The compound effect of this is enormous.

Plus all the coaches have added T and double T workouts that tons and tons didn’t do just a few short years ago.

so yes, it is the shoes (and the tracks) but they’re also training better and harder without getting hurt.

I was pointing out that the age of the mark doesn't matter.

I just did an analysis of NCAA D1 Indoor mile times as far back as TFRRS goes, which is the 2009/2010 indoor season. Here are some key numbers, and my interpretation of the data:

The year 2020 we saw the full indoor season, so qualifying was done but championships was canceled. It was the last year before we had everyone wearing the 'super spikes' and also the last year before we had people with their covid eligibility, which those people are still in the system.

From 2010-2020 the total sub 4's in D1 were: 22, 22, 33, 30, 26, 32, 35, 30, 30, 33, 35. So as you can see, it was only 22 athletes for a couple years, then got steady around 30, and finished off tying our max of 35. When you create a trend line off this data, the increase is 1 per year with 35 matching the trend in 2020. If this trend were to continue, we should see 39 sub 4 athletes this year.

We currently have 92 sub 4's this year, we're nearing championship season, most people have already raced a fast time trial race, but maybe we'll hit 100. In 2023 we had 97, and in 2022 we had 90. The 2021 season is bad data because cross country and indoor track were at the same time, so I'm ignoring that since people were split between the two.

So, since we had extra athletes in the NCAA system, and the super spikes, we've seen 90, 97, and 92* with a couple weeks left. So the number of sub 4's is still trending up if we see several more sub 4's in the next couple weeks. But it is a lot more than the 39 we were expecting based on the previous trend.

But now we have to factor in the extra athletes that would normally be done with their eligibility. This would put the past 3 years of sub 4 runners at 65, 65, and 69*. This is still higher than the 39 were expecting. What was the 37th, 38th, and 39th fastest times in 2022/2023/2024? It makes sense that this could give us the number of seconds the shoes help, assuming all of the increase from the expected trend is due to the new spikes. Well, in 2022, 2023, 2024 the 37th, 38th, and 39th fastest times (equal to previous 3:59.99) were 3:58.4, 3:57.8, and 3:58.4.

So you could make an argument that the shoes are making NCAA men 1.6 to 2.2 seconds faster. But I think the increased number of runners in the NCAA running sub 4 with the super seniors is adding more bodies which allows for more good competitive races, which helps some people go faster. I also wonder if there is an increase of focus on indoors recently. I remember a decade ago some southern and western schools didn't even run it, and a lot of top runners barely raced, just preparing for outdoors. Although that's more the 5k/10k type of runners, and not milers.

Some more data would be good, including some data on when the covid year athletes are completely out of the system. They still have an indoor season next year, so the 2025/2026 indoor season will be the first year with the normal number of athletes.

PEDs allow for more work and better recovery. The shoes provide the same benefits as PEDs.

It's cheating.

Sub-4 is not what it used to be. I ran 4:04.35 for a mile in college and was amongst the top milers in the country. My 4:04 in 2005 is worth a 3:58 today!

It's not that much different than last year. 92 D1 milers have broken 4 this year. 97 did it last year.

Is it different than 10 year, 15 or 20 years ago? Yes.

1) Shoes have changed the game dramatically.

2) Also way more time trial meets. Pacing lights helps as well. Buy my 341 guy at Cornell was probalby in like 358 shape as a junior, had one shot at it and the pacing was terrible. A week later, the two guys he beat went to a legit meet with pacing and did it.

3) Coaching is better. When I started college coaching in 2002, many of the other programs were bad. When I stopped in 2012, I'd say hardly any of them were objectively bad. Midway through my Cornell tenure, I had another coach in our conference ask me how we did our tempo runs - by feel, pace or heartrate. But at least he knew to do them. I had a buddy who went to grad school at an ACC school in 1997 where he volunteered and he said the coach had zero tempo runs in the training zero.

Look at my data above, the increase is more due to extra COVID eligibility than the shoes. When the extra people get out of the system I predict it'll drop down to about 65 sub 4's in a year, which is stilll more than the 30-35 we had been seeing, but that difference is only worth 2 seconds or less.

rojo are you talking about Bruce Hyde? He was a great athlete and most importantly an intelligent guy. I remember him playing the WSOP Main Event finishing 307th or something. I have some stud poker player friends that have not finished that high in the main and they play regularly.

For some reason the mens mile at this BU meet is not in the official World Athletics results list or the road to Glasgow, was there some issue? all the other events, including the womens mile are. Bit of a blow for all those who ran the World Indoors Q