I was one of the guys who doubted Spencer after Mantecon closed a 4:00 at indoor nationals with a 56 last 400. I thought that put him basically in 3:55-3:56 shape. I thought no way Spencer was fitter than that and he proved me wrong. He does have a shot at all the records except the 5k. Surprisingly the least hyped up Arcadia race I’ve seen compared to the Newbury Park, Birnbaum, and Daniel Simmons races. Lots of big names missing (No Leonard and Hassan) in this one. There was a large time gap between Mantecon and the next runner. I think Mantecon can still give Spencer a hard time since he did run the 800 in 1:49 the day before. But man Spencer led the whole thing that’s nuts. Just a little annoying we just can’t see a combo of these two plus Nauman and Winders in a mile race fresh. Lastly German Fernandez was the perfect high school distance runner. You youngsters will never know the pure talent that was Verzbicas and Fernandez. And the boomers who were too old at the time to recognize it still don’t, and that’s the sad part. That is all.
You think shoes are worth 6 seconds per mile? You think El G would be running 3:37 today? You think Jakob would barely break 3:50 10 years ago?
Once again people arguing about how much the shoes are worth in a race. The answer is not much on the track. They are a game changer in training which has a compounding effect over a long period of time. They let you train faster, longer, and harder with the same recovery time.
When the argument turns to pros and world records it always falls apart because the assumption that just putting on the shoes is the main advantage really misses the mark.
Jackson Spencer's dominance is not glazed enough. He would win a paced, record type race, as well as a slow, sit and kick type race. He is basically unbeatable at the high school record in the mile and up. He has not lost a race all season. When was the last time we saw this type of dominance?
EVEN WITH THESE ELITE TIMES NOBODY WILL LIVE UP TO GERMAN FERNANDEZ
MAD RESPECT TO
This was my immediate thought after watching this race, too.
I actually had the opposite thought. Every time German stepped on the track his senior year, you knew something loco was about to go down. Same with the NP peak years. For me, with this performance Spencer has reached that level.
Note, I'm not trying to start a pissing match about his level of talent compared to German or the NP crew, but just in terms of spectacle, blasting a 56 final quarter to close an 8:31 effort puts him on similar footing to me.
Jackson Spencer's dominance is not glazed enough. He would win a paced, record type race, as well as a slow, sit and kick type race. He is basically unbeatable at the high school record in the mile and up. He has not lost a race all season. When was the last time we saw this type of dominance?
JS is both an excellent time trailer and racer and not everyone can say that. These guys usually do pretty in championships with trials.
This was my immediate thought after watching this race, too.
I actually had the opposite thought. Every time German stepped on the track his senior year, you knew something loco was about to go down. Same with the NP peak years. For me, with this performance Spencer has reached that level.
Note, I'm not trying to start a pissing match about his level of talent compared to German or the NP crew, but just in terms of spectacle, blasting a 56 final quarter to close an 8:31 effort puts him on similar footing to me.
Spencer put on a remarkable performance.
It's hard to downplay how incredible a 4:00/8:34 solo double was from Fernandez pre super shoes (and he ran a 4:11 the day before). That was an amazing year.
The value of the new shoes isn’t a fixed amount across the performance spectrum. For a world-class 3K guy, maybe 2-3 seconds a mile. For the 9:20-caliber HS 2-miler, it’s about 2 seconds per lap.
The value of the new shoes isn’t a fixed amount across the performance spectrum. For a world-class 3K guy, maybe 2-3 seconds a mile. For the 9:20-caliber HS 2-miler, it’s about 2 seconds per lap.
Tons of 9-10 minute 2-milers come on here and defend super shoes with the tired "You think El G would run 3 something or other now?"
it's definitely 1.5-2.0 sec per lap for these 8:40 kids.
I actually had the opposite thought. Every time German stepped on the track his senior year, you knew something loco was about to go down. Same with the NP peak years. For me, with this performance Spencer has reached that level.
Note, I'm not trying to start a pissing match about his level of talent compared to German or the NP crew, but just in terms of spectacle, blasting a 56 final quarter to close an 8:31 effort puts him on similar footing to me.
Spencer put on a remarkable performance.
It's hard to downplay how incredible a 4:00/8:34 solo double was from Fernandez pre super shoes (and he ran a 4:11 the day before). That was an amazing year.
He was on another level.
Yep, he sure was. He followed it up with the high school two mile record later that summer and then the world junior indoor mile and American junior 5000 records in college as a frosh the next year. All pre-super shoes. And while I disagree with the sentiment that the super shoes are worth 1.5-2 sec per lap (that’s silly), GF was surely a sub-8:30 guy and probably closer to sub-8:25 for 3200 as a high school senior if he had today’s shoes, for training and for racing.
But we shouldn’t be comparing eras. Greatness can be recognized in any era, and the genie is out of the bottle with the shoes. The times of the last five years only make sense in comparison to times of the last five years, nothing before. And what Spencer did was pretty incredible. He led a lot of that race to keep it honest and then he blew everyone’s doors off that last 200. That was quite a race. All of the Niwot kids looked like boys among men in Spencer’s shadow.
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This is such a stupid argument. Talk to any pro and they’ll credit the shoes as being a big reason for their own fast times (Grant does this all the time). It’s only immature posers who think shoes have no impact.
I coached a high school team and everyone recognizes the shoes help… or else why bother getting them? How much they help is up for debate. The cumulative effect is definitely real. You can train faster, recover faster and race faster because of them.
But training principles have evolved too. Back in the 1990s you could have 1:54-2:00 guys who couldn’t break 4:30 or 10:00. Now you have 2:00-2:05 guys running 4:25 and 9:20. That’s because kids today are developing their aerobic system like never before. The shoes help but doing threshold training, longer reps and mileage are just as big if not bigger (btw, kids can do that now in part because of the shoes). And accumulating that good training over 4 years is monstrous.
Not to mention just the opportunities to run fast. Back in the day there was no Arcadia. Just your local meets and states. We see that in NY where the opportunities to run fast aren’t plenty. But when the stars align and you get a race (like Fast Times at Ridgefield High) and the weather cooperates kids can run 10+ seconds faster than any other race they’ve ever run.
I also think the shoes help inefficient runners be more efficient. So top runners back in the day who maximized their efficiency naturally (or chemical y) would get less of a benefit. But some plodder hs kid with a big engine may go from 9:20 to 9:00 just because it the shoes. Throw in all the rest of the above, an now they’re sub 9
With all this said… that video is nuts. This kid is exceptional. The way he changed gears was insane. The crazy thing with ALL these kids is how fast they’re running while not looking particularly tired. Truly phenomenal results.
For the youngins. What would you have us believe, my kids generation has an evolutionary jump? lol. And that would be something to be proud of anyway? lol.