A 4 minute mile equals 3:56.8 with superspikes

NOP was dirty, sure, but lets not pretend that L cartinine and Low dose Testosterone is high octane stuff compared to the EPO era of the 90s and early 00s!! Kiprop and Maflflhouki were certainly dirtier than Centro ...and Centro never got popped for anything so lumping him in with them makes your argument weaker not stronger.

As to the embedded post, where do you get that there has only been 1 sub 12:50 since 2019?? Nonsensical, as are all those false stats

Like players averaging 30+ ppg in the NBA in todays game with no hand checks on defense, carrying the ball and travelling never ever called and illegal moving screens on 75% of plays compared to the 80's and 90's? :D

It's absolutely not the case that covid affected only one of those four years. Many, many top athletes also raced less in 21 than they did in 19. (If you care to waste a few minutes, you can go check the world athletics site and verify this -- you'll find plenty for whom this is true.) Things didn't truly get back to normal until 22. (Remember the bizarre atmosphere of the Tokyo Olympics?)

And for what it's worth, in a sample size of only four years, even one makes a massive difference. Um, you are aware of this, right?

riiight. what nonsense. Maybe 3:59.8, but definitely not 3:56.8. Anyone that thinks that thinks that there are ET spaceships flying all around us

Normally your posts are thoughtful, but in this particular thread you're really grasping at straws. Hutchinson is reporting someone else's findings, so his own personal performance in the event has no role in the calculus. Um, you are aware of that, right?

JWH already answered this. 2020 was the only year the racing circuit was truly effected by COVID, and we saw an emphasis on running fast that season (Impossible Games, Monaco 1500, Cheptegei WRs, BTC Intrasquad, etc.). Your statement that fewer high level races occurred from 19-22 is patently false. If anything, time trial type races with incredibly deep fields became more common during that period to the point that they are now the norm.

That aside, if the spikes are worth 3 or more seconds per mile, why has no one broken 3:28 since 2015? Why haven’t the men who ran 12:40s pre-dragonfly run 12:30s or even 12:20s now? How do you explain the entire world suddenly getting slower?

There is zero evidence the spikes are worth anything remotely close to 3+ seconds per mile for elites.

3 seconds per mile = 9.3 seconds for 5k.

A 13:00 in old spikes, then, would be equivalent to 12:50.7 in super spikes, meaning that Cheptegei’s 12:35.36 is the only performance in the last 4 years that meets the new standard for sub-12:50. Krop is 2nd on the list at 12:45.71, now worth only 12:55.

All of this assumes the spikes are actually worth 3 seconds per mile, which is of course completely false.

I agree with most of this. I had said if shoes made that much a difference guys that ran 3:28-29 would be running 25-26 by now..has not happened.

I've already replied to JWH (see post #44). I rebut his arguments there.

What you two argue is in fact patently false. You'll find many, many top runners who raced less in 21 (and obviously 20) than in 19. (Just to take one really prominent example, Jakob Ing has 16 outdoor track results for 2019 on the World Athletics site but just 10 in 2021. There are loads of others with profiles like that.)

And do you really think loaded time trials weren't common before covid? That's obviously not true.

you just keep believing but not proving that.

Okay, trying to reconcile these various statements.

1. The shoes make a difference.

2. The estimates of how big a difference based on running economy are wrong.

3. The estimates of how big a difference based on performance depth are wrong.

4. Even discussing the size of the difference is wrong, because it hurts the feelings of current runners.

I reject the fourth claim. You've acknowledged the shoes make a difference, so it's unreasonable to insist that nobody talks about it just because you're not interested in that conversation. Others are.

And if the estimates are wrong, what do YOU think the estimate is? Everyone understands that there's considerable variation between people, brands, distances, and so on. But what's your actual rationale for assuming that the average effects are smaller than the estimates discussed here?

Because 3:26.00 require massive amounts of drugs. the world record averages sub 55.

Also because the top guys aren't racing a lot of fast 1500 races, they'd rather just run for the win. Jakob was probably in 3:27 shape in Tokyo. Wightman went for 800 and 1000 times after Eugene.

Your (bad) argument regarding the 1500 also ignores the other distance events where we've seen massive world records. Many here considered Bekele's 5k record as the most unbeatable. It was broken by 2 seconds by a relative unknown. The 10k record was broken by 6 seconds. People here still say that Bekele is the greatest ever and his records were broken EASILY.

LRC: “Super shoes are a progression of modern tech (like tracks). They improve times the way tracks and Gatorade did.”

also LRC: “How dare you suggest that modern tech improves current times. Also, 90s EPO!”

At the risk of belaboring my point (and I realize the discussion seems to have moved on), a few more prominent examples (looking just at outdoor track races):

Yomif K: 7 races in 2019, 4 in 2021

Tim Cheruiyot: 15 in 2019, 9 in 2021

Selemon Barega: 10 in 2019, 6 in 2021

Sure, there are people out there without these sorts of disparities, but let's not pretend there weren't lots of top runners still racing less in 2021. Things had not returned completely to normal.

Were the same discussions had back in the 70's when PA11 plastics changed the spike plate world? Or in the 80's when air meshes changed it? Or in the 90's when carbon fiber plates changed it?

Regarding estimates? What's really the point here when there is a potentially considerable fluctuation at play due to a multitude of other factors. When you start saying they are "worth 2%" and the effort of a 4min mile back in 2010 is now automatically a 3min57 mile, it's applied universally across the board and that's incorrect.

I don't have an estimate (in terms of number) because for some runners it might be 2% for some it might be 0%. For some it might even be counter-benefit (eg. a runner that trains exclusively on the track in flats thus never really exposing their lower limbs to large impact fatigue and then prefers to maximize their ground force during a race with a significantly less cushioned spike like a Victory). I say that yes I believe the spikes overall make a positive difference solely because I think that many athletes do their track work in spikes and this is where the most benefit lies but again putting a number to it implies that it impacts every runner the same way and that's not accurate. Make sense?

My actual rationale? It was in the post you responded to or is that the new thing when responding to posts here - not actually reading first what you then respond to?

Just thought to check: Geoff Burns' 2/3 of 2 percent (1.33%) reasonable estimate benefit coincides with my table between 64 and 66 or 67 second 400 pace.

The competitive season was much longer in 2019 than 2021 (WCs in October vs August), so of course people raced more. Your claim was that we had fewer high level races the last 4 years due to COVID, which is false. 2020 was the only year without a full Diamond League schedule, and it’s already been pointed out that there were still plenty of time trial setups that year.

I would say loaded time trials have become increasingly common the past few years, probably starting in 2018. That was the first year we started seeing all-time marks in the 3k and 5k again after several down years. Just looking briefly at sub 12:50 5k races…

2010-17
Paris 2012 - 6 sub 12:50, 8 sub 13:00

2018-22
Brussels 2018 - 3 sub 12:50, 8 sub 13:00
Ostrava 2020 - 2 sub 12:50
Florence 2021 - 2 sub 12:50, 7 sub 13:00
Rome 2022 - 2 sub 12:50, 8 sub 13:00
Brussels 2022 - 2 sub 12:50, 6 sub 13:00

This doesn’t include Cheptegei’s WR, and if you want to remove Ostrava 2020 for lacking depth, that’s still four stacked sub 12:50 races in the past 5 seasons (and three in the past two), compared to one in the eight years from 2010-17. There are other ways to look at this, but I don’t think it’s unfair to say that we’ve seen a greater frequency of deep time trials in recent years, which was my original claim.

We can agree to disagree on the above, but you still haven’t explained the lack of 3:27s and 12:30s. The idea that there haven’t been enough races in the last 4 years for the effect of these spikes to be made evident isn’t convincing at all. Cheruiyot should have run 3:26 in 2019, Barega and Kiplimo should have run 12:30s in 2020, etc. Will you address this point?

- You can only run on the placebo effect for so long. When every race is in superspikes, that's the new norm.

- Pacing groups/wavelight. There's no technical argument for or against down in the 1000th performer level. I'll argue the null hypothesis though. It's always been really easy to pace distance races like the 5000/10000 even just with a clock by the finish or a Timex on your wrist. Back when I did track workouts or time-trial-like races, it was really easy for me to run like a metronome with just a (non-GPS) watch, but not looking at it even. I'm sure I'm not alone - you just get into a rhythm and make the slightest of tweaks in effort if necessary. A wave light would do nothing except for spectators. And there have always been races where distance guys go to run even-paced times, like Mt. SAC or Stanford and others.

- # of older than early 20s Americans running increased between 2012-2018 and 2022 due to covid years? I guess that would be easy to check in the database. If I was really bored, I could redo my analysis with all Americans removed. The World Athletics database allows you to choose by "Area" so, I could do Africa or Europe or Asia and see if I get the same results. Would that settle it for you? What area would you prefer?

To address zxcvzxcv's question about the effect of American covid years having an impact at depth (1000th performer level) on my superspike analysis, I just spent 5 minutes doing it for Europe to leave Americans out of the equation. I chose Europe over Africa or Asia because it has the most data, and I wanted to go as deep as possible to get good data.

#650 European male performer in 5000

2012 14:46.76
2013 14:49.54
2014 14:49.95
2015 14:44.72
2016 14:48.61
2017 14:44.56
2018 14:45.19
2022 14:28.33 (superspiked)
2012-2018 pre-superspikes: mean14:47.05, standard deviation 2.32 seconds
difference: 18.72 seconds
That is 1.50 per 400 at 70.96 pace.

That's exactly my prediction from my table higher up in thread where:

oldspike/superspike/benefit (in seconds).
71 69.5 1.5