Hoka Festival of miles 2026

Is Elin Latta injured? I don't see recent results?

She had surgery on her ankle in December. She ran under 4:40 at Music City as her first race back.

Decker ran 4:04 on a 200 flat track which converts to a out 4:00. Are you saying that all of the guys in the fast heat have sub 4 equivalents?

My stomach turns with post about bloodlines and pedigree. Human athletes are not racehorses. Bunch of old has beens on here getting nostalgic. I think the stories of kids not coming from these dynasties are far more compelling. Hard working athletes who didn’t have Olympian parents “guiding” their every step and have access to all the resources former pros and olympians would be able to provide.
Give it a rest and move on to a new generation of athletes.

I agree to a certain degree. It’s certainly INTERESTING to note these things. Fun facts and such. But the boards these days seem to be obsessed with it and even cheer for these kids more than other kids. Total contrast to other sports. Cinderella upsets in March Madness. Rooting against the Yankees. Etc. The random hardworking kid beating the kid with Olympian parents is far more compelling than cheering for a Ritzenhein living at altitude and a professional coach as a parent on a team with professional caliber school-based coaching.

If you're skeptical of altitude conversion, then look at 2025 Hoka results for Colorado and compare that result with their 2025 Colorado PR.

I'm using the 1600 splits from Hoka:

Benji Anderson: 4:01 (Hoka), 4:10 (CO)

Ben Adams: 4:01 (Hoka), 4:10 (CO)

Rocco Culpepper: 4:02 (Hoka), 4:10 (CO)

Cadel Ruthven: 4:08 (Hoka), 4:11 (CO)

The best HS athletes at the Hoka FOM will be livestreamed with 1990s camcorders at 720p resolution. It has been almost six years since I started with modern consumer cameras yet I don't see any improvements in what the professionals are doing (except for hdrunners which upgraded to true 4K cameras two years ago). What a disgrace!

I guess we are stuck to watching smeary dark blotchy videos for the next 10 years (or until you can't buy these 1990s camcorders on e-bay anymore).

First, I appreciate the respectful and interesting debate--too rare on LR.

Again, I agree that some conversion is right, but the conversion for CO born and raised runners is just too great. The examples cited above are not apples to apples comparisons. You picked the top runners in CO last year, who were running to win/for championships in CO, not to time trial. They race for position in CO. They sit and kick. They don't time trial in CO.

It makes more sense to look at the kids who weren't the front runners in their CO races. They likely still would have run faster in CO if given a RunningLane-type setup (wavelights and cool nighttime temps) but it's a better comparison than looking at the top kids. These are the kids who are truly pushing to their max in their CO soil races--they can't play it strategically and sit and kick. Examples from last year (just looking at the faster CO State 1600 finalists who ran RunningLane a week after CO State Meet):

Ayuub Hassan: 4:15 at state (then a PB) to 4:13 at RunningLane

Abdi Hassan: 4:16 at state (then a PB) to 4:14 at RunningLane

Oliver Horton: 4:13 at state (then a PB) to 4:10 at RunningLane

Boston Potts: 4:14 at state (PB) to 4:15 at RunningLane

Hunter Robbie: 4:14 at state (then a PB) to 4:11 at RunningLane

These results make much more sense. Give the CO kids more oxygen at sea level, along with pace lights, time trial race setup, and cool nighttime temps, and they'll run 2-3 seconds faster even given the extra 9 meters.

Doing the same exercise for this year provides even less support for a significant conversion for CO kids:

Oliver Horton: 4:10 at state (PB) to 4:13 at RunningLane

Xzavier Campos: 4:09 a week before state (PB) to 4:20 at RunningLane

David Roberts: 4:13 a week before state (PB) to 4:17 at Under Armour

Benjamin Olds: 4:12 in April (PB) 4:09 at RunningLane

Antheney Herre: 4:12 a week before state (PB) to 4:12 at RunningLane

Isaac Vasquez: 4:11 a week before state (PB) to 4:13 at RunningLane

Levi Smela: 4:13 a week before state (PB) to 4:19 at RunningLane

So I'd again expect Culpepper, for example, to run MUCH faster at Hoka than his 2026 CO soil time. But mostly because he didn't wavelights time trial a mile in CO. And the more marginally-admitted-to-Hoka CO kids are likely to run a bit faster, but meaningfully slower than the typical conversions would suggest.

These are our new generation. Experienced parents to help avoid overtraining, injuries, HS burn out. Setting them up for success in college and if self motivated hopefully to be USA top tier after. Hard training/ Smart training what is your long term vs short term goal? Best in HS, able to be competitive in college then shoot for pro? Having been there, done that is a huge plus. Some may not stick with it, some may fall by the wayside, you can lead a horse to water. New talents and dynasties will come up, it’s a bright exciting future for the US. As the US has no system for youth like Europe etc. we need more resources for coaches to help with keeping kids in the sport through HS.

I am not skeptical. Somebody else questioned the conversions. I was merely pointing out how deep the meet is.

First of all, this is the HOKA thread, so I'm looking at last year's HOKA results.

I did not use Colorado state meet times because those races can be tactical, sit-and-kick races, and for some athletes they're also their fourth event of the meet. Instead, I used each athlete's Colorado PR from the entire season.

Most Colorado races are not sit-and-kick races, especially the larger meets. Athletes are actively chasing fast times to qualify for the state meet and major out of state invitationals, so using their season best 1600m time is a fair comparison.

If you use the RunningLane results, many of those athletes traveled there specifically to run the 3200m and then raced the 1600m the next day because they were already there.

You're also comparing their RunningLane mile times to their Colorado 1600m times, which isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. That's almost 2 seconds right there.

I compared 1600m times to 1600m times and used each athlete's best Colorado performance from the season.

Someone mentioned these are the fastest milers in the country. False. And Ritzenhein isn’t a factor in this race.

Here is the list. Most of these don’t even make the top 10

I am an old never was not a has been.

I'm assuming you mean Pifer. and he won the GA state in both the 1600m and 3200m in a 1 day meet. Where did you get this random information?

Their will be 60 athletes across 4 races (2 championship miles and 2 elite miles) plus 2 championship 800s (another 16 athletes). As a counter, that would mean ~92% of athletes had parents who are normal human beings.

Regardless, everyone who lives within an hour drive of St. Louis needs to be at this track meet it's a jam packed, phenomenal event and all ticket proceeds will benefit two athletes in need. One is a middle school girl fighting cancer and the other is a high school boy who recently had a hear transplant. If you cannot attend you can make a

runsignup.com

HOKA Festival of Miles

Join me at the HOKA Festival of Miles

Open link

. If you want more information on the athletes in need

stlfestivalofmiles.com

Athlete in Need

mike

Open link

.

Thank you

https://live.brrm.com/meets/74013/events/individual/2802177

Where are these seed times coming from? Some are their PBs. But Pifer at 3:59? Spencer at 3:56? Leonard at 3:58? Culpepper 4:01? Ritz 4:05? I get coaches putting best guesses as seed times but these ones are exceptionally precise.