Super spikes are worth 5 secs per mile

Armstronglivs wrote:

Howman wrote:

See? For years you protested and foamed but you were wrong. Now you have finally learnt how to write decades.

The countless hours you spend here have actually been worth something. You learnt to write times, then you learnt that cross training doesn't mean treadmill running, and now decades!

You never admit when you are wrong, but we notice it. You are like a small child.

Back to the subject. So what have you to say in regard to this?

"I'm still waiting to see whether those maintaining the superspikes enable a 5 seconds improvement over a mile would accept that the athletes in the '90s who ran 3:26x for the 1500 and 3:43x for the mile would run 3:21x and 3:38x today. If they could have then that also means that the best today are only worth 3:31x and 3:48x without super spikes. So all the best in this era are nowhere near the ability of El G, Lagat, Ngeny (and Komen)? And of course Kiprop, who ran 3:26x without superspikes."

hhhHHHhhh wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

Back to the subject. So what have you to say in regard to this?

"I'm still waiting to see whether those maintaining the superspikes enable a 5 seconds improvement over a mile would accept that the athletes in the '90s who ran 3:26x for the 1500 and 3:43x for the mile would run 3:21x and 3:38x today. If they could have then that also means that the best today are only worth 3:31x and 3:48x without super spikes. So all the best in this era are nowhere near the ability of El G, Lagat, Ngeny (and Komen)? And of course Kiprop, who ran 3:26x without superspikes."

Several things:

1 - you have learnt how to write decades

2 - 3:26x is not a time

3 - in the 1990s only 1 athlete has run sub 3:27

4 - you are stupid as someone can be

5 - the current shoes are not worth 5 seconds compared to shoes from the 1990s

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

Howman says athletes continue to get away with doping. The view of antidoping is that drugs will aid performance. The only way you can discount drugs from contributing to the times you say the shoes are responsible for is if drugs are not present in the sport or if they are they don't contribute to performance gains. You won't find any expert in antidoping who will agree with that.

These things were all true before supershoes. The question you fail to answer is to explain what changed in 2017 on the roads and 2021 on the track.

"Getting away with doping" is irrelevant to discussions about performance improvement.

The view of anti-doping, besides being similarly irrelevant, is multi-faceted, and at best says with some handwaving that some drugs can potentially aid some performance. This may or may not include distance running.

"Discount" implies that some performance advantage has already been counted. Where is the data?

Armstronglivs wrote:

Most of you asserting gains from the shoes don't seem to realize how difficult it is to scientifically measure that. You aren't acknowledging that even when wearing the same shoes in a succession of races athletes' performances will vary considerably. Haven't we just seen that in the last week with Hocker?

Athletes don't race in exactly the same conditions from week to week, or employing exactly the same tactics. They are mostly racing - which is about winning and not time - and only occasionally time trialling. So there will be considerable variation in performances. Also what they might record in test circumstances won't be the same as in a race, where the pressure and expectations are different. Add to that an athlete's form is never exactly the same from day to day. What about peaking? The comparison between the shoes would have to take that in to account. The level an athlete reaches may be affected by the kind of training they do, the age they are, where they are at a given stage in their career (college athletes will vary more) their motivation and perhaps doping.

A definitive comparison between the old shoes and the superspikes would require the same group of athletes (how many? Probably a thousand or so for a number that would cancel out anomalies) performing in the old shoes and the new shoes in exactly the same conditions - tracks, weather and a range of distance time trials - in a period of close proximity, as performances will likely vary naturally over longer time-periods. These tests also could not be a one-off, for the reason that differences in performance could be due to how an athlete is feeling that day and not due to the shoes. So the same group of athletes would have to be tested throughout the year.

This is a logistically massive and demanding exercise. I doubt it has been anywhere near undertaken, which is why the studies have resorted simply to using historical comparisons in the sport, and why conclusions about the shoes are therefore still largely speculative and not definitive.

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

You cannot claim as a fact that doping doesn't aid performance in athletes who choose to dope. So it has to be admitted as a possibility. You cannot show otherwise. Given the extent of the practice it is the most reasonable inference to say athletes gain from doping or the practice wouldn't exist and certainly not on the scale it has acquired. Secondly, as Howman says athletes are getting away with doping that indicates that the practice continues today. Hence increases in performance that you might attribute to the shoes could be affected by doping. That is what it means to say data about the shoes has not been able to "discount" the possible effect of doping on performances.

Again -- doping existed before supershoes. But we don't really know the extent nor the scale of doping in distance running -- it is not given.

When comparing performance improvements in the supershoe era any alleged performance boost will be cancelled out during the comparison.

DataDoesntLie wrote:

Studies show a 2% performance boost from these shoes. That is 4+s for a 3:45 1500, 16s for a 14:00 5k, 35s for a 29:30 10k. Pretty close to the 100th ncaa performance data shows in the 2 years following introduction of the super spikes vs the previous decade which was near constant. (See my ncaa data post on page 6).

There is no question about the rapid performance change. However, discussing the best time ever (El G) is not a large enough sample to draw conclusions. Taking the 100th (or more) performance is a much better measure because so few approach record times and the data shows the 100th performer is pretty consistent over the years. That data shows a significant performance increase, on par with the 5s/mi suggested in this thread.

So something happened at the exact time the shoes were introduced that increased performance equivalent to what studies have suggested. This happened at every level of the sport from middle schoolers to professionals. Here are some possibilities of that "something" that changed.

1. Rinners at every level of the sport started using a new drug(s) that no one has been able to identify despite tens of thousands of users including young teenagers with no money to buy them...

OR

2. The shoes, which everyone does have, are mostly responsible for the performance gains that are equivalent to lab testing of their performance improvement...

Armstronglivs wrote:

Most of you asserting gains from the shoes don't seem to realize how difficult it is to scientifically measure that. You aren't acknowledging that even when wearing the same shoes in a succession of races athletes' performances will vary considerably. Haven't we just seen that in the last week with Hocker?

Athletes don't race in exactly the same conditions from week to week, or employing exactly the same tactics. They are mostly racing - which is about winning and not time - and only occasionally time trialling. So there will be considerable variation in performances. Also what they might record in test circumstances won't be the same as in a race, where the pressure and expectations are different. Add to that an athlete's form is never exactly the same from day to day. What about peaking? The comparison between the shoes would have to take that in to account. The level an athlete reaches may be affected by the kind of training they do, the age they are, where they are at a given stage in their career (college athletes will vary more) their motivation and perhaps doping.

A definitive comparison between the old shoes and the superspikes would require the same group of athletes (how many? Probably a thousand or so for a number that would cancel out anomalies) performing in the old shoes and the new shoes in exactly the same conditions - tracks, weather and a range of distance time trials - in a period of close proximity, as performances will likely vary naturally over longer time-periods. These tests also could not be a one-off, for the reason that differences in performance could be due to how an athlete is feeling that day and not due to the shoes. So the same group of athletes would have to be tested throughout the year.

This is a logistically massive and demanding exercise. I doubt it has been anywhere near undertaken, which is why the studies have resorted simply to using historical comparisons in the sport, and why conclusions about the shoes are therefore still largely speculative and not definitive.

rekrunner wrote:

DataDoesntLie wrote:

Studies show a 2% performance boost from these shoes. That is 4+s for a 3:45 1500, 16s for a 14:00 5k, 35s for a 29:30 10k. Pretty close to the 100th ncaa performance data shows in the 2 years following introduction of the super spikes vs the previous decade which was near constant. (See my ncaa data post on page 6).

There is no question about the rapid performance change. However, discussing the best time ever (El G) is not a large enough sample to draw conclusions. Taking the 100th (or more) performance is a much better measure because so few approach record times and the data shows the 100th performer is pretty consistent over the years. That data shows a significant performance increase, on par with the 5s/mi suggested in this thread.

So something happened at the exact time the shoes were introduced that increased performance equivalent to what studies have suggested. This happened at every level of the sport from middle schoolers to professionals. Here are some possibilities of that "something" that changed.

1. Rinners at every level of the sport started using a new drug(s) that no one has been able to identify despite tens of thousands of users including young teenagers with no money to buy them...

OR

2. The shoes, which everyone does have, are mostly responsible for the performance gains that are equivalent to lab testing of their performance improvement...

Agreed, although I would temper these projections for the faster speeds (above 18 km/h).

Going 100 deep (or 1000 deep as another poster did) certainly removes distortion from large effects from single outliers, but also removes the ability to say what is really happening among the top-10 or top-5.

Many people are quick to point to the pattern of African improvements just when EPO was starting to be used, but ignore or dismiss factors like 1) no such pattern existed outside of small regions at high altitude -- for 90% of the world population; 2) it is unlikely that EPO would be used at such a large scale in Africa yet not showing a similar pattern in the rest of the world; and 3) athletes born and raised at altitude are likely already stimulated to produce EPO naturally and well adapted to low oxygen conditions -- we should predict they are low responders compared to sea-level athletes.

Yet when the same pattern shoes up much more clearly synchronized with supershoes in 2017, then superspikes in 2021, on a nearly universal scale, regardless of gender and nationality and for elite, national, collegiate, and high school athletes, we still have some skeptical doping diehards who think it still must be drugs because there is so much we don't know, including the double negative argument that we don't know it is not drugs, despite no such evidence of any such new powerful drugs in 2017 and 2021 which must surely be well known for so many high schoolers to be taking it.

DataDoesntLie wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Again -- doping existed before supershoes. But we don't really know the extent nor the scale of doping in distance running -- it is not given.

When comparing performance improvements in the supershoe era any alleged performance boost will be cancelled out during the comparison.

Studies show a 2% performance boost from these shoes. That is 4+s for a 3:45 1500, 16s for a 14:00 5k, 35s for a 29:30 10k. Pretty close to the 100th ncaa performance data shows in the 2 years following introduction of the super spikes vs the previous decade which was near constant. (See my ncaa data post on page 6).

There is no question about the rapid performance change. However, discussing the best time ever (El G) is not a large enough sample to draw conclusions. Taking the 100th (or more) performance is a much better measure because so few approach record times and the data shows the 100th performer is pretty consistent over the years. That data shows a significant performance increase, on par with the 5s/mi suggested in this thread.

So something happened at the exact time the shoes were introduced that increased performance equivalent to what studies have suggested. This happened at every level of the sport from middle schoolers to professionals. Here are some possibilities of that "something" that changed.

1. Rinners at every level of the sport started using a new drug(s) that no one has been able to identify despite tens of thousands of users including young teenagers with no money to buy them...

OR

2. The shoes, which everyone does have, are mostly responsible for the performance gains that are equivalent to lab testing of their performance improvement...

Let it Rupp wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

Most of you asserting gains from the shoes don't seem to realize how difficult it is to scientifically measure that. You aren't acknowledging that even when wearing the same shoes in a succession of races athletes' performances will vary considerably. Haven't we just seen that in the last week with Hocker?

Athletes don't race in exactly the same conditions from week to week, or employing exactly the same tactics. They are mostly racing - which is about winning and not time - and only occasionally time trialling. So there will be considerable variation in performances. Also what they might record in test circumstances won't be the same as in a race, where the pressure and expectations are different. Add to that an athlete's form is never exactly the same from day to day. What about peaking? The comparison between the shoes would have to take that in to account. The level an athlete reaches may be affected by the kind of training they do, the age they are, where they are at a given stage in their career (college athletes will vary more) their motivation and perhaps doping.

A definitive comparison between the old shoes and the superspikes would require the same group of athletes (how many? Probably a thousand or so for a number that would cancel out anomalies) performing in the old shoes and the new shoes in exactly the same conditions - tracks, weather and a range of distance time trials - in a period of close proximity, as performances will likely vary naturally over longer time-periods. These tests also could not be a one-off, for the reason that differences in performance could be due to how an athlete is feeling that day and not due to the shoes. So the same group of athletes would have to be tested throughout the year.

This is a logistically massive and demanding exercise. I doubt it has been anywhere near undertaken, which is why the studies have resorted simply to using historical comparisons in the sport, and why conclusions about the shoes are therefore still largely speculative and not definitive.

Exactly. So many factors go into racing times. I personally believe that this current era of runners just started in a point in time where running was taken seriously, and ideas about training methodology were more widely available. Racing strategies also changed by what I call the Bannister effect. I think Jakob specifically changed everyone's tactics because they knew they would have to be able to run fast in order to win, shifting people's strategies from less tactical races to more time trials. This lead to faster times on average, leading to athletes becoming more confident in chasing records.

The Bannister effect is real - once one athlete breaks a certain barrier, it gives others the confidence that they can do it as well and I think that's why we've seen such a jump in performance.

I was still running in college when the supershoes came out. A lot of people bought them mid-season because they thought it would help them, and nobody ran any faster, some of them even got slower. According to supershoe doomer logic, that means they all magically got 5 seconds/mile slower at the exact time they tried the supershoes.