Two highschoolers go sub 4:00 for the full mile in one race (RunningLane)

If you remove Webb, there were 0 HS sub 4 miles from 1967-2011 (44 year period). Then from 2011-2020 (9 year period, pre-super shoes) there were 7 HS sub 4 miles. So I think we need to ask what technological innovation was introduced in 2011!

G Martin no pacer for 1 mile at high school league meet.

What's your reasoning for saying a greater number of talented runners are being drawn to the sport?

Also your hypothesis seems a lot less likely than super shoes / better knowledge / raised bar. I don't think there's been an influx of more talented runners at every level of the sport since super shoes.

Sub 4 isn't seen as a great barrier anymore. And at the pro level, sub 13 and sub 27 doesn't mean much. Times improve, standards raise across the board.

Top high school milers today aren't more talented than Paavo Nurmi.

Blahahahaaaa! Bruh, did you start following track yesterday!? There were more us hs sub 4s in 2023/24 (8) than there were from 2011-2020. There have been more us hs sub 4 runners in the last 4 years than the previous 66 years combined. 7 runners have done in just this year alone! ZERO runners ran sub 4 in 2018/19. Then from 2020-25 you have 21! 21 HS runs have run sub 4 since 2020.

How do you explain 7 runners doing it in 9 years when for 44 years there was 1 (who was a freak of nature)?

You also just cherry picked a single year for some reason. Why not look at the trends? The trend started in 2011, and accelerated with super shoes. But what started the initial trend?

You think 6 runners in 9 years is comparable to 25 runners in 4 years!?

You’re absolutely right. 2025 runners aren’t any better than they were in 2011. So why are more of them running sub 4? SHOES! The trend only started to accelerate in 2020.

You count the previous 5 years just before bouncy shoes and there were only 4 runners. Jumping from 4 to 25 and you think it’s a trend? The only one cherry picking is you.

I'm not denying the trend is accelerating due to the shoes, but that is NOT the only factor. What explains 44 years of nothing? You still haven't answered what happened in 2011

10th place was sophomore Drew Beroset (4:05), my daughters teammate. Fastest SO in the country this year?? He also ran 9:48 in the full 2 mile on Friday night, and earlier this season, in late March ran a 4:06 in Atlanta.

If you look at a 5 year rolling average, you can clearly see that the super shoes have an impact, but the rolling average in 2019 (pre-super shoes) is double that of the late 1960s, and the trend is TOTALLY FLAT for 45 YEARS! So something clearly happened in 2011 as well.

https://i.imgur.com/cDVnLUy.png

There are multiple factors besides the shoes (which probably are worth a few seconds). Anyone who ran in the late 80s/early 90s can tell you that almost everything has changed in high school distance running since back then, leading to dramatically improved results. Nobody could tell you which of the factors is more important than the other:

1) Better middle school programs, leading to more runners who are in their 5th, 6th, 10th, etc year of training when they are a senior vs someone like myself who was in my 3rd year of running as a senior.

2) People training all year round rather than taking the summer/winter off, or doing other sports.

3) Widely available information about how to train. Less people playing the lottery of whether their high school coach knows what they're doing (most don't).

4) Better nutrition, physical therapy, etc helping to improve recovery

5) The death of the "no pain, no gain" mentality. My child's team has one the state record holder in the mile. Most of his workouts would have been light for me (I was 10-15 seconds slower than this kid). Kids are smarter and aren't trying to crush every interval workout or long run.

6) Better competition. At the very top where all these sub 4 guys are, they have more opportunities to race people at their level. When I was just a mere 4:20 guy, I had 2-3 races a year where I had someone sub 4:40 to race against, and usually just 1 or 2 guys so there wasn't a big herd effect like Arcadia.

7) Mentality. When sub 4 has become an annual thing, the top guys are aiming for it and taking their shot. They aren't running 4:03 and thinking "that's good enough"

8) Super shoes, tracks, bicarb, etc. These things help take a few seconds off, so a 4:02 - 4:03 guy back in the 90s would be sub 4 today if they pulled out all the stops.

Because it happens incrementally, people don't seem to be aware how much the spread of knowledge and the sharing of information is rapidly transforming the scene. In my city, most of the top kids are still training and racing mostly incorrectly. You see a lot of very bad pacing during races, some people massively overrating, etc. There are a lot of things that can be optimized. Each year there is improvement and knowledge is spreading around. The level of competition is improving fast.

Yes, thank you. People who say "it's just the shoes!!!" are intellectually lazy

It’s advent of the popularity of middle school track and XC. It’s getting the kids passionate about the sport and the 2-yearearly start reduces the chances of them getting interested in something else.

I might not change your mind, but I encourage you and others to look into analytics of modern training.

Do high school athletes / their coaches keep a detailed record of workout logs - reps and workouts performed with & WITHOUT super shoes, alike?

and perhaps, hill sprints and hill training, which I presume would benefit less from super shoes?

How about ergometer machine, cardio machine, and other forms of tracking performance output - how do the athletes of today compare to 5-10 years ago?

if we look at all of these things, we can get a better idea of how much the shoes are contributing directly to times

1) Any advantage gained from starting in middle school compared to in HS will be gone by the start of the junior year. I seriously doubt guys like Ryun and Fernandez would have been any better had they started in 7th grade. People go on and on about Ingebrigtsen training llke a pro at age 11, but I think he would be just as good had he started at 14 or 15.

2) Serious high school have always trained year around. Probably even more so than now. It would been ridiculous to think you could reach your potential without running during the summer and winter. When I ran road races during the offseasons,there were always many HS guys from other schools competing.

3) Even before the internet, runners were aware of the training of elite HS runners. There were articles in RW and other periodicals that contained details. Coaches would talk to other coaches about training and the runners did as well.

4) Good nutrition was invented long ago. I don’t know about physical therapy. Who would pay for it?

5) I don’t think “no pain, no gain” was ever a universal philosophy for running. It was hard/easy and people ran by feel for interval workouts. I didn’t hear too many stories about coaches barking at runners to run faster.

6) Running against faster runners won’t result in outrunning potential. If you, as a mere 4:20 guy, had run against a 4:10 or faster runner, you would have suffered a massive positive split.

7) Mentality doesn’t trump ability and training. I’m not sure any serious runner has said or thought that a certain time is good enough. Everyone wants to improve. If your 4:03 runner really is a 4:03 runner, shooting for 4:00 will backfire.

8) The effects of the shoes, etc,are an unknown.

You estimate the benefit from the new shoes to be 2-3 seconds. How many more seconds does what you mentioned in your 1-7, provide.

The U.S. sub-4 high school trend catalyst was the launch of Bring Back the Mile in 2012. We brought sexy back.

Pre-2012 = 5 U.S prep sub-4
Post-2012 = 24 U.S. prep sub-4

Participation is at an all time high. We are also seeing more preps who had D1/pros as parents do well(Strand, Kessler, Ritz, Culpepper etc).

Hey there, I’m one of the meet organizers. just to clarify there were no pros in the race, all high school field.