Honest question - Have shoes gotten better in the last 3-4 years after the initial "jump" in technology that many complained about? If yes, show us some science. If no, explain why HS kids and college athletes have continued to improve drastically?
You’re the one in denial. I’ve accepted it’s the shoes. There’s plenty of proof. I’m not worried about convincing you. You ignore the obvious.
Sure, but those have been coming out since 2017. It's been nearly 7 years, and it seems to me that the number of performances like this, or the number of high schoolers capable of them is growing on a more recent basis. Maybe starting to train super shoes early on has a positive impact? I'm just curious.
and there ya go!! I just had this conversation with an excellent HS coach. The times continue to get better in numbers well after shoe evolution. It surely is not just the shoes. I think there are other factors coaching is clearly better and deeper overall. Tracks and shoes have been tweaked, yeah, but it's not just the shoes. In college you probably have more 5th and even 6th year guys than ever, guys that might even be out of the sport are still in it and doing good things. I also am fortunate enough to know great and really good guys who ran in the 70's and 80's, all I will say is lifestyle is certainly way different than then, you want to party today, oh you can try that ,even if you are talented? People will rip your heart out.
There certainly are not any guys running routinely down around Bekele's numbers and he ran those a while ago. I always say Jim Ryun was a freak show at 18, but it WAS 58+ years ago, every single sport has advanced athletically, but Running should not? We have 330M people instead of 210M when I was in HS, certainly a few milers and 5K guys should drop out of that funnel, no? Plus every race or big meet now is a set up, and those existed to some extent, but no where to the extreme of pacing lights for HS meets?
On getting faster …. Its the shoes, its the tracks… AND the fact that everyone know everyone else’s training and times and try to duplicate them. Training is much better. Everyone steals. When I was in HS, I ran 9:20 in the 2/mile and was all state. 1 or 2 runners nationally might break 9 every year. Now it’’s 20-30. I had to wait until the end of the month and read Track and Field News to find out what was going on in the rest of the country. Internet is a horror and a good, but it also contributes to faster times.
On getting faster …. Its the shoes, its the tracks… AND the fact that everyone know everyone else’s training and times and try to duplicate them. Training is much better. Everyone steals. When I was in HS, I ran 9:20 in the 2/mile and was all state. 1 or 2 runners nationally might break 9 every year. Now it’’s 20-30. I had to wait until the end of the month and read Track and Field News to find out what was going on in the rest of the country. Internet is a horror and a good, but it also contributes to faster times.
Well said, and I believe to be very much a real piece of what has transpired.
Is there a penalty for backing out your national letter of intent? With how fast he is, he could go to NAU if he'd want to go pro. Or since he already chose a good school, he's surely fast enough to have Santos get him at Stanford
Yeah
everyone turns down money from ND to go to an NAU
Are you that delusional?
on this race, the only rub i have is that these are billed as National Champ events
but with not only a pacer that steps off, but pacing lights as well
Thats just me lol. You can argue shoes and tracks all day long, but both of those certainly did not happen 20 years ago. Which is why i have always sais Webb would have easily run 8:30's in 2001 after watching his 8:45 on a flat below avg track in Md.
We talked about this earlier and the rabbit thing is wrong.
That said, these are really not National Championship meets. There are 2 or 3 of them. They are post season meets involving the best in the nation. Invitationals with the best participating. Like Golden West was. There really is no "National Champion" crowned.
Also, Notre Dame is a GREAT school with a killer alumni network. Get that degree.
But we've had the internet for 25+ years. The training of each other has been widely known since the Dyestat days. Is there something that has changed in most athletes' training? How is training much better now than it was in say 2010, when times like you ran in high school were still considered pretty fast? I agree with you that it could be a combination of things, but it really seems the shoes are the biggest factor among them. But maybe athletes now are just convinced, shoes or not, that one has to train to run 8:40. Otherwise, you are not a competitive athlete at the national level. Do most kids train in super shoes too?
But we've had the internet for 25+ years. The training of each other has been widely known since the Dyestat days. Is there something that has changed in most athletes' training? How is training much better now than it was in say 2010, when times like you ran in high school were still considered pretty fast? I agree with you that it could be a combination of things, but it really seems the shoes are the biggest factor among them. But maybe athletes now are just convinced, shoes or not, that one has to train to run 8:40. Otherwise, you are not a competitive athlete at the national level. Do most kids train in super shoes too?
Every modern shoes has a lot better cushioning than 40 years ago. It is easy tell HS kids to run 60mpw instead of 40. It is a bit harder to actually do it. Shoes that don’t beat your legs up help.
It is really everything. You want to keep up with your peers, shoes are better, training is a bit better, and the number of setup races is way up.
I don't remember where I read it, but in some elite runner's bio the runner talked about the creative process of putting a record performance together. Until you run a time, the performance only exists in your mind and you have to will it into reality. When I was running in the late 80s, nobody was anywhere near 4:00 in high school and hadn't been for a long time. Every year there was some kind of Runner's World (lame) article about the next crop of hopefuls (none of whom ever got within 4-5 seconds of it).
I also remember reading a Runner's World article with all the living mile world record holders, where they asked each one of them where the mile record would be in 10 years. I think it was Herb Elliott who said (I can't remember how he worded it) that he thought there would be some kind of mental revolution and people would be running shocking times (I don't know if he gave an exact number but if he did it was 3:30). I think what we are seeing in high school, college, nationally on the pro scene, and internationally in marathons is exactly what Herb was talking about.
It certainly accelerated with the shoes. The reason I think it hasn't stopped even though everyone has the shoes now is that nobody knows what the limits should be because they've been so thoroughly destroyed. So now everybody is running without limits. Everything is possible in everyone's imagination and they are just going for it. It's incredible fun to watch!
I don't remember where I read it, but in some elite runner's bio the runner talked about the creative process of putting a record performance together. Until you run a time, the performance only exists in your mind and you have to will it into reality. When I was running in the late 80s, nobody was anywhere near 4:00 in high school and hadn't been for a long time. Every year there was some kind of Runner's World (lame) article about the next crop of hopefuls (none of whom ever got within 4-5 seconds of it).
I also remember reading a Runner's World article with all the living mile world record holders, where they asked each one of them where the mile record would be in 10 years. I think it was Herb Elliott who said (I can't remember how he worded it) that he thought there would be some kind of mental revolution and people would be running shocking times (I don't know if he gave an exact number but if he did it was 3:30). I think what we are seeing in high school, college, nationally on the pro scene, and internationally in marathons is exactly what Herb was talking about.
It certainly accelerated with the shoes. The reason I think it hasn't stopped even though everyone has the shoes now is that nobody knows what the limits should be because they've been so thoroughly destroyed. So now everybody is running without limits. Everything is possible in everyone's imagination and they are just going for it. It's incredible fun to watch!
I lost a paragraph after the first one.
What I'd said is that nobody could imagine running under 4:00 in the late 80s because it seemed so thoroughly impossible. The people who were good enough couldn't picture it in their mind and create the reality. It would be like Jakob saying he was going to break 3:40 in his next race. To do it, he'd have to be able to imagine doing it like it was real. We cannot bring creations into reality unless they are real in our minds first.
Kids are training in them at younger and younger ages, which means they're getting uninterrupted training at higher volumes, paces, etc. without the impediments that held them back before (injury, burnout, etc.)
Why is Jakob so good? In large part because he's been training from a young age and incrementally increasing his workload and intensity. Now with the super shoes, kids don't have to be as prudent. They can go 'balls to the wall' more frequently and not suffer the ill consequences they once did.
The 90s had unrestricted EPO use, this era has shoe technology. Training methodologies, nutrition, supplementation, track surfaces, increased competition - they're all factors too, obviously. But the shoes are the main factor.
Kids are training in them at younger and younger ages, which means they're getting uninterrupted training at higher volumes, paces, etc. without the impediments that held them back before (injury, burnout, etc.)
Why is Jakob so good? In large part because he's been training from a young age and incrementally increasing his workload and intensity. Now with the super shoes, kids don't have to be as prudent. They can go 'balls to the wall' more frequently and not suffer the ill consequences they once did.
The 90s had unrestricted EPO use, this era has shoe technology. Training methodologies, nutrition, supplementation, track surfaces, increased competition - they're all factors too, obviously. But the shoes are the main factor.
/thread
No, many kids, including Hocker, Young and Kessler, didn’t start running until HS. I believe the recent improvement in depth of elite HS runners is from the development of middle school XC and track which brings more talented runners to the sport.
So your explanation for the MASSIVE jump in performances that all happened at the same time (and coincided with the development of super shoes) is that middle school XC and track programs, which have been around for decades, somehow magically all made a giant leap at the same time?
Finally an American faster than Gerry Lindgren’s 8:40 in 1964 on an 11 lap/ mile track, worth 8;33 using ncaa conversions for track size.
Gerry was the greatest high school talent of all time. It's not even a close call.
Well, there was Ryun. But yeah, those two were the greatest HS runners. Ryun was like 2 seconds off the WR in the mile, and Lindgren wasn't that far off either. Ryun, as someone earlier posted, was a freak talent. I can understand that. But Lindgren still puzzles me. Just don't understand how he could have been that good. You'd never take him for a runner . . . even when he was running.
Recovery. The shoes primarily reduce impact, which allows for more frequent workouts at higher speeds. Until 5 years ago most shoes were going for the minimalist approach, now it's all light with max cushion and return on force.
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