An analysis of NCAA top 16 improvements from 2010 to now. Here is evidence super spikes don't help

I encourage you to read some literature of Dr. Hoogkamer, or Dr. Kram, or Laura Healey, or Dr. Nigg or Dr. Barnes.

They've published and discussed some empirical evidence that these new shoes continue to provide in addition to the metabolic benefits exhibited by the original marathon super shoe.

BU has been hosting high level rabbitted races for at least 15 years. Rupp broke a couple of American Records there in 2014. BTC has been coming to BU even longer, I think. You have to go back to the early 90s to find the era when many NCAA schools didn't try to run fast indoors.

Yes there have been good meets but I think the difference now is the number of good meets available. Take 2013 for example, in the 5k almost everyone qualified out of one heat at one meet. UW Husky. Now you have more quality meets and are not relying on one heat to get the job done. Especially in the mile.
The top programs don’t run athletes in sub par meets anymore. Gone are the days of Diego Estrada and David McNeil trying to run fast in the sky dome.

Last one. Then I will stop. The NCAA rules around scholarship, NIL, Cost of Attendance, and transfer portal have dramatically changed the top teams. You used to not have 8 sub 4’s on one team because that would require a lot of scholarship. The accounting tricks, stipends, and open transfers get more good kids to the good programs.

washington’s 8, multiple transfers, DIII, DII, 5th and 6th years, internationals. 6-7 years ago that wouldn’t be possible

Why did times improve so much this year over last year when they had the superspikes both years?

They didn’t. Top 100 averages were the same for both 2021 and 2022

OP. I'ts like you totally ignored what I wrtoe and your own stats. Let me try a Cliff's notes version.

Your own data reveal the rate of imporvmeent since 2020 is 620% greater in the mile, 84% greater in the 3k and 74% greater in the 5k.

zxcvzcvx wrote:
Why did times improve so much this year over last year when they had the superspikes both years?

Answer, they didn't. It's almost exactly the same in the mile and is slower in the 5k.

Last year the last guy in the mile ran 3:56.60. This year's it's 3:56.20. Last year, the last guy in in the 3k ran 7:45.80, this year it's 7:44.69. And for the 5k, the last guy in last year ran 13:26.44 and this year's it's 13:29.31.

You're cherry-picking data points to serve your pre-existent argument. What happened this year is that the top runners ran significantly faster, while the lower level runners ran the same. I don't think the 3k and 5k were targeted as much as normal this year. The 5k had two big nights, in December and late January, while the 3k didn't have a lot of big meets but the mile did. The mile was much better at the top and top ten, the 3k was better at the top than ever and in the top ten, and the 5k was better in the top three and top ten than ever. Incidentally, I proved using outdoor lists from last year compared to indoor from this year, that there was more sub-4 equivalent depth outdoors than in, so the indoor tracks aren't magic either. Improvements in the top times indoors were not due to shoe improvements.

2022-23

mile 1 3:50.46 7 3:52.99#@ 12 3:54.93 35 3:56.98@ 49th (tie) 3:57.76 97 3:59.89

100 4:00.38 200 4:04.00

3000m 1 7:36 (the 2 best all-time) 17 7:44.76 30 7:49.89 50 7:52.96

100 7:58.11 200 8:05.16

5000m 1 13:11 (three at 13:11, unprecedented) 5 13:15 10 13:21 19 13:29 50 13:42

100 13:54.00 200 14:10.42

2021-22

mile 1 3:52.03 (1.6 seconds slower) 2 3:53.36 (slower than #7 in 2023) 3 3:54.07@ (third would rank closer to tenth this year) 8 3:54.77 (8 broke 3:55 vs. 12 this year) 17 3:55.95# (17 broke 3:56) 30 3:56.87 (30 broke 3:57 vs 35 last year) 50 3:58.08 (slower by 0.3) 90 3:59.98@ (97 broke four this year, 90 last year) 100 4:00.34 (virtually identical) 200 4:04.74#@ (0.74 slower than this year)

3000 1 7:38 (2 seconds slower) 10 7:43.84 (10 sub-7:45 vs. 17 this year) 38 7:49.91# (38 sub-7:50 vs. 30 this year) 50 7:52.02 (.94 s faster than this year) 100 7:56.97 (1.14s faster than this year) 131 under 8:00 200 8:05.68 (.5 slower)

5000

1 13:09 2 13:14 3 13:14 4 13:21 (better #1 but only three sub-13:20 vs. 9 this year), 20 13:28.95 (20 sub 13:30 vs. 19 this year) 50 13:45.95 (3-4 seconds slower than this year) 100 13:56.95 (slower, vs. 13:54 this year) 200 14:16.21 (six seconds slower than this year)

2020-21

mile #1 and #2 3:50 3 3:53 4 3:55 6 3:55.60 (ten sub 3:57) seventeen sub 3:58 Thirty-Eight sub 4. Very little high quality depth compared to the last two years

50 4:02.34 (4 seconds slower than 2022 and 2023) 100 4:06.49 (6 seconds slower than 2022 and 2023) 200 4:11.94! (7 seconds slower than 2022, 8 seconds slower than 2023)

Much worse depth. But who is saying that the shoes made a 6-8 second difference in the mile? The spikes were introduced by Nike in 2019 but adopted widely in 2021.

3000 1 7:46 Only five under 7:50 vs. 38 in 2022 and 30 in 2023 10 7:53.08 Only 31 sub-8 (compared to 131 in 2022 and something over 100 in 2023) 50 8:02.6 100 8:10.63 (14 seconds slower than 2022, 13 seconds slower than 2023) 200 8:22.22 (17 seconds slower than 2022 and 2023)

5000 1 13:28 (3 sub 13:30) 9 sub 13:40 (Adriaan Wildschutt dropped 30 seconds indoors from 2021 to 2022) 29 sub 13:50 44 sub 14 50 14:03 100 14:19 200 14:47 (29 seconds slower than 2022 and 37 seconds slower than 2023)

Recall that COVID struck down the season only during nationals, so the meets were all available during the indoor season--with the exception of maybe a few conference meets. They did have the balance of the season. There is something bigger than spikes in the differences between 2021 and the past two seasons, because the differences are too great for the spikes to account for them and the spikes were actually already out in wide use in 2021 at some point, so I would guess that some NCAA athletes had them already indoors, but I could be wrong. My belief is that extra covid years account for a lot of the improvement. When I analyzed top times previously, I saw many of the better guys would have graduated otherwise.

Wrong

We had a 11 lapper.....I'd get dizzy. Plus it was concrete.

Obviously super shoes/spikes help. I think it's overblown & I think looking at past times helps to support that. Kids were improving well before super spikes. .67 seconds in the mile, 1.18 in the 3k, & 2.23 in the 5k is not a 4% improvement. It's not some giant number.

If you're comparing actual NCAA race day results that is not really a good indication of if the super spikes help. Championship races tend to be more strategic in style rather than shooting for a fast time. So they don't tend to be the fastest times of the year. You have to go back to 2010 and compare each years performance lists to really get a good idea of how things have changed. Especially in the mile. I've done it, there is an obvious shift right about the time the super shoes came out.

There's an enormous shift from 2020-21 to 2021-22, as many not only got the shoes but did base training through outdoor track (cancelled) into the winter and had extended careers and lots of focus on time trialing indoors, but at the top of the mile, Teare and Hocker ran 3:50 in 2021. They obviously have never run more than a fraction of a second faster since the shoes came out. Wouldn't they have run 3:47 or better with them if the shoes made that difference. They were in equivalent shape as pros the following year when they also ran 3:50. Did they already have the shoes in Winter 2021 and most of the rest of the NCAA did not?

As others in this thread have pointed out, the arbitrary cut-off of 16 runners is not enough to paint the full picture. Also, you just chose 4 random years and assumed progression was linear between those years.

If you zoom out to 100 runners, and use every year from the past decade, the numbers tell a very different story.

Here's the 100th runner in D1 for the indoor mile in '21 and '22

2023- 4:00.3
2022- 4:00.3

Here's the 100th runner from the decade before

2021 (season impacted by COVID)- 4:06.4
2020- 4:04.2
2019- 4:04.7
2018- 4:04.9
2017- 4:04.8
2016- 4:04.0
2015- 4:03.8
2014- 4:04.6
2013- 4:05.0

I agree with OP's point about Johnny Gregorek being relatively complexing. It's hard to imagine that he's a 3:46-47 guy these days. But that one outlier does not cancel out a very clear trend this has been established. Some new variable was introduced in 2022 that has remarkably impacted the depth in the NCAA.

People can make the argument that other factors are at play. Better coaching, deeper talent, etc... I don't buy it, but at least the arguments are coherent. Saying that the rate of improvement hasn't changed since the introduction of super spikes is just flat out wrong.

Cole and Teare were wearing dragonflies in their 3:50, as was the rest of the NCAA.

The reason times were slower that year is that XC was happening in the spring, and lot's athletes opted out of indoors.

Please show us what the indoor records were the same years you are doing the analysis.

The data is even clearer outdoors--probably because anybody any good at all goes somewhere to attempt a regional mark, whereas indoors programs might not send someone out of region who can't get an indoor qualifier (infinitely harder). Here is the 100th best 5000m NCAA time over the last decade.

2022 13:46 Super spikes, post covid
2021 13:52 Super spikes, but COVID limited travel and overall participation
2019 14:03 Old shoes
2018 14:03
2017 14:04
2016 14:02
2015 14:04
2014 14:05
2013 14:06
2012 14:04

Cooper Teare seemed shocked that he had run 3:50 with Hocker in 2021 at Tyson. He didn't even seem to quite push all the way to the line, and he and Hocker didn't follow the pacers closely until it was just Hunter, and then they closed in 27, so they likely had 3:48-49 in the tank that day. Teare is wearing black nikes, the other four Oregon guys in the race, white nike spikes. Are they all dragonflies (super spikes)?