DMX wrote:
It honestly is the internet. As soon as someone drops a fast time everybody knows about it. There's constant motivation for kids to work more cause they see their competitors improving
Right. Because there was no internet 15 years ago.
DMX wrote:
It honestly is the internet. As soon as someone drops a fast time everybody knows about it. There's constant motivation for kids to work more cause they see their competitors improving
Right. Because there was no internet 15 years ago.
Just spitballing here (although I would argue my experience can back this up)
I think the internet plays a big role here.
1) Training ideas: for both coaches, parents and runners there is a way to discuss training ideas and hear about successes. I like to think that there are enough coaches who going beyond just how they were coached since information is widely available. (Now not all the information may be great, but
2) Heroes: I am a firm believer that for a sport to grow it needs heroes (here I am using the term only for athletic prowess and not as a mention of character. While I do not like this term as I think "hero" should be limited to those who risk their lives to save others, the term is used in its common usage here). I bet if you look at the growth of a sport you will find a "hero". The first running boom in part was a result of Frank Shorter and others performing well. Cycling had Greg Lemond and then Lance Armstrong. Baseball had Babe Ruth. I would say Alan Webb falls into this category (making SportsCenter is a big deal!). With the internet, the stories of high school runners and also professional runners can easily be found. Back when I was a kid you pretty much relied on Sports Illustrated or Track and Field News (SI once covered track well). Sites like this one, Flotrack, Dyestat, etc helpd.
3) The second running boom is probably paying off. Lots of runners with kids.
4) I think having Footlocker and Nike NXN helps too.
5) Perhaps just a cycle.
sheesh wrote:
DMX wrote:It honestly is the internet. As soon as someone drops a fast time everybody knows about it. There's constant motivation for kids to work more cause they see their competitors improving
Right. Because there was no internet 15 years ago.
The prevalence, accessibility and quality of a technology plays a role, too. So your argument is invalid. Yeah, by the time of the first world war, trans-Atlantic telephone communication was available, too. Yet, nobody is going to deny the effects of the development of mass communication in the years since...
HRE wrote:
They really wouldn't. None of them won any sorts of international races while in high school like Ryun and Lindgren did. But I certainly could have included their names as they do help make the same point.
Outside of Ryun, they were competitive because athletics was considerably less competitive on a world stage at that time. I'll grant that Ryun was a true phenom, but he's the exception that proves the rule.
Can you honestly say that Gerry Lindgren would be as competitive on the world stage today as he was in the '60s? I just don't see him running sub-13:00 at 18 no matter what year it was.
Two reasons, nothing scientific at all, just reality:
Here they are:
NXN
Dyestat
Old fast chump wrote:
The kids are getting much faster, and don't tell me its the internet or some kind of horeshit like that. Somethings going on.
Morphic Resonance
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_SheldrakeIt's worth remembering that YouTube is less than ten years old. Sure, info about fast kids was available before that, but I think a lot of folks--in particular, a lot of kids--have much more of an *image* of fast (other) kids than used to be the case. I think expectations have risen as a result.
I also think that LRC has had something to do with getting the word out. A lot of high school kids are more knowledgeable now about training than their elders were.
No "kids" today are running sub 13:00 nor, aside from Ritzenhein, are they running 13:44 and he's not exactly one of today's "kids." There have always been young phenoms. The OP seems to think there's something exceptional enough about the current group to require a "scientific" explanation. There's not.
Echoing what's been said already
It's not the pinnacle that has been pushed higher, it is the base of the pyramid growing wider.
My guess is that there are more coaches with better access to info who are able to take kids who are well above average to times that are well above average. It is when we see the truly phenomenal athletes come along today (Fernandez, Ritz, Webb, Verzbicas, Hall)that we can see how they stack up with the truly phenomenal athletes of the past (Ryun, Liquori, Danielson, Lindgeren)
Long term, this trend is better for American Running. More kids at a very high level (sub 9, sub 4:10) means better competition at the university level, which will lead to more depth working its way forward to the pro ranks, which will lead to people running faster than before just to make world teams.
Look at Fernandez's 3:34 he ran a couple of summers ago. Good time, people said, "well, maybe he can do something now" but it wasn't super fast compared to guys like Leo, and Wheating. Compare that to the early 2000s and 3:34 would have been eye popping.
OP, I haven't been following high school track too closely recently, so you'll have to give a few examples of kids today who are way faster than runners in previous years. Did somebody break Webb's mile record? Did Rupp's 5,000m record go down recently? Please provide some basis for the premise of this thread. Thanks.
Jeff Nelson
number ln e wrote:
hum and drum wrote:More boys running 8:50's but nobody running sub-8:45.
Handful of boys running 4:05-4:10 but nobody getting close to 4.
That comes from more mileage not more talent.
Nobody's threatening sub 4? Blake Haney ran 4:44 for the 1500 LAST YEAR. he's looking even better this year and has a fantastic chance of breaking 4 for the mile. Garrett O'toole ran 3:45 for the 1500 already. I also wouldn't rule out Grant Fisher.
Haney and O'Toole are 2.5-3.5 seconds away from breaking 4 on conversion.
That's a lot considering neither has run particularly fast for 800m. Until Haney runs faster than 2013 I don't know what "looking better" really means.
Nothing exceptional about having two guys at that level. And I don't think anyone else in the country is currently better than 4:07.5 on a mile conversion.
Are we sure that more kids are getting faster? Or is it now a time that every fart is going on Facebook twitter flutrack and we know about it? I think the not so great races (but marked as fast like the op states) are long forgotten. I disagree by the statement until someone can show numbers of the past so we have something to compare with.
For the mile its already no true.
Jeff Nelson. It was Jeff Nelson who held the two mile recordfor high school boys. Record stood from 1978 until Fernandez. And then Fernadez to Verzbicas.Scroll to Fall 1976: http://runningentertainment.com/runningshots7.html
Steve Duncan wrote:
HRE wrote:There may be greater numbers of pretty fast kids now but there's nothing going on like there was in the 60s and 70s when you had Ryun, Danielson, and Liquouri going under 4:00 in the mile and Lindgren, Dan Nelson, and Prefontaine in the two mile/5,000/10,000.
Who's this Dan Nelson fellow? Wasn't he from the 80s? I know he was a good runner, but I never heard of him in the context of being a HS legend.
Anyway, you can't really say "now" doesn't comes to "the 60s and 70s". The 60s and 70s was a 20-year stretch. Of course you're going to be able to come up with some legendary runners from a 20 year stretch. But for overall depth as measured by sub-9 3200m performances or sub 4:10 miles, recent years have been far better than the 60s and 70s. And there have been some amazing individuals too.
More mileage, as US coaches slooooowly assimilate Lydiard. Summers of Malmo.
pindakaas wrote:
http://www.cs.uml.edu/~phoffman/nats/milers1.htmFor the mile its already no true.
This list hasn't been updated since 2004, silly. Nice subtle troll attempt.
Yes. JEFF Nelson. Thanks.
You say that it's not the Internet and malign that reason, yet the timeline of American distance success in high school goes precisely along with the Internet and in particular sites like dyestat and this one. Moreover, the idea of networks as essential to sporting success is supported by numerous studies, as discussed in the book Soccernomics.
"The kids" are simply becoming more interested in distance running due to inspiration from seeing their favourite Kenyan and Ethiopian heroes on youtube, so they go all out and try their best.I know several American kids that tried making Ugali and think the Robertson twins are the coolest thing since sliced bread.It IS the internet. It sure as hell isn't Runner's World...or "genetics."
Old fast chump wrote:
The kids are getting much faster, and don't tell me its the internet or some kind of horeshit like that. Somethings going on.