The NCAA data is in - The super spike effect is real

Rojo, I think your thought process is intriguing. And the analysis, crude as it is, is also of interest.

However, none of this makes any sense unless we know all the 2021 athletes were wearing the super spikes. If we start with the assumption that they WERE wearing the super spike, then the conclusion is fair with the understanding there isn't any further rigor in the analysis.

Again, however, that still necessitates that all the improvements seen are substantive enough to conclude the spikes made the difference.

What we have at this point is more of a general statement: "Times in 2021 are modestly faster -in general- than they were in 2019." But no reliable conclusions about super spikes can be drawn with what has been presented. It isn't a comment on your thought... that was very good. It's a comment on the lack of evidence to draw the conclusion that it must therefore be because of super spikes.

I'm mostly just echoing others at this point, but seems impossible to 'prove' super spikes are making distance runners faster this year. As has been said, sprinters are almost certainly more influenced by facility closures than distance runners and there's no good way to know how winter xc influences the times. October-June is a long time for collegiate distance runners to be mostly in season, and it seems entirely reasonable to me that a number of distance runners who would typically be running out of steam in the spring are fresher and fitter this year. Of course some may respond better to the typical format, but it just seems a little absurd to me to suggest that shoes are the sole (or even primary) explanation of faster times in 2021 than in 2019.

The comparison is interesting regardless, but this "I've proved it" schtick is a bit much.

captainwildcat wrote:

This is FAR from a detailed analysis

1) You only compared one year to 2021 (was 2019 a slower than normal year? Faster than normal? - I don't know)

2) Are all the fastest times run with the "super spikes" (yes, no, some were some weren't)

3) Comparing ONLY the fastest times doesn't take into account that there may be an outlier. A better analysis would be comparing the top 10 or top 15 fastest times. Here again you woud need to look how many of those top runners in 2021 were wearing the super spikes.

You MAY be correct about the super spikes, but your analysis doesn't provide the evidence

i like the wojorojo or whatever study.

of course the 10K women's data totally wipes out the conclusion. but then again maybe it is OK to throw it out. as women's 10k, maybe has not good data amounts, people are say running 5k instead of the 10k as a trend.

the biggest confounding factor is covid era and a 2 year gap really in the data.

people are forced to focus their activities, and this isolation stuff maybe contributes to better training and recovery?

with that said, if you want to know if the spikes are faster, just put them on and verify personally.

do you need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows.

i mean, back in the day, i would run 30x200 (insane) 5 days per week (crazy coach, love him).

and would know my split by 1/5 seconds, like a clock. the workouts were red line, and day in and day out, you can't really have a placebo (shoes) account for a significant difference.

with a change of spikes, i would know instantly. for sure, anything the made my feet more comfortable, would make for better times, then again, you'd be running more comfortably, wouldn't you?

i'm very glad the lousy shoes have gone the way of the dinosaur.

shoes back in the day were soooooooooooooooo bad. good riddance.

but sure, lets recognize that shorter/rogers/etc, their times would be 4 minutes faster with the shoes and course. very fair to call them 205-206 marathoners.

longjack wrote:

but sure, lets recognize that shorter/rogers/etc, their times would be 4 minutes faster with the shoes and course. very fair to call them 205-206 marathoners.

Yeah, I personally think the obsession with times over the years from people like Tim Hutchings is overblown. Rodgers/Shorter won Big City races and were amongst the best in the world. That's how you judge them. Here's a hypothetical, but obviously nobody will think Connor Mantz is a better marathon than Bill Rodgers when he runs a 2:07 marathon in Chicago to finish 7th or something.

rojo wrote:

PS. I never tried to claim this was some scentifically valid study. I just literally thought, "Let's look at the 50th time. WOw, they are faster this year versus 2019 in the distance races but not the sprints (yes the 10k is messed up)."

This is a total backpedal after getting called out for not even being close to statistically signifigant. The title of the thread was literally "The data is in" so while you may not have made the exact claim of a scientifically valid study you were certainly trying to sell it that way.

captainwildcat wrote:

rojo wrote:

PS. I never tried to claim this was some scentifically valid study. I just literally thought, "Let's look at the 50th time. WOw, they are faster this year versus 2019 in the distance races but not the sprints (yes the 10k is messed up)."

This is a total backpedal after getting called out for not even being close to statistically signifigant. The title of the thread was literally "The data is in" so while you may not have made the exact claim of a scientifically valid study you were certainly trying to sell it that way.

Bingo

rojo wrote:

To all of the haters who have been basically saying the same thing which is like the quote below - please answer the following:

duck sauce wrote:

i'd probably guess something along these lines if you asked me how much faster the #50 mark would be after ~9 months of no racing and with 5 full classes of guys with eligibility rather than 4

Why haven't the sprinters also improved in similar fashion?

Game. Set. Match. Rojo.

PS. I never tried to claim this was some scentifically valid study. I just literally thought, "Let's look at the 50th time. WOw, they are faster this year versus 2019 in the distance races but not the sprints (yes the 10k is messed up)."

Extremely easy: sprinters require a number of meets a week or so apart to really sharpen for their end of the year peak. They also benefit from daily training in small groups on a track, which wasn't allowed in most places until recently. Sprinters training solo tend to have a significant drop in training quality.

Distance runners burn out from excessive racing, theyre better off with meets a few weeks apart. They also handle training in ones and twos much better than sprinters, especially true for easy and recovery days, something sprinters don't really have. They can also move many of their hard days off the track, which sprinters can't do. So distance training fit much better into covid restrictions.

Your argument really was incredibly weak. Again, nobody here is saying the spikes don't help, I think most of us believe they do.

We are arguing that your statistical analysis is awful.

Has anyone looked at people who are running faster in non-super spikes? Like when Shelby Houlihan ran 14:24 in her old spikes. I mean, I know Rojo wouldn't do anything that dumb since we wouldn't be able to spread his propaganda. But certainly not everyone that is running fast is in a Nike spike.

The weird thing here is that we all agree that the spikes are helping. But by how much is the question. Even using the limited data that Rojo used, the average improvement is ~0.75% for each gender (throwing out the high and low gains). That's two seconds per mile, if giving ALL of the gain to the shows and discounting everything else. The reality is, the shoes might be 1 second per mile better.

of course they are slightly faster for some but not for others. This is probably been a long time coming . If you compare the" adistar 80 md " to what they were wearing in the 2010s the only thing that really changed was the fashion statement ... (couldn.t understand how there was no sweet spot till now) . other sports have been developing there equipment all the time but it seems to be that middle to long distance neglected evolving the spike/track shoe until now. I think you'll find a air conditioned stadium like in doha is going to have an even bigger impact on times than the shoes. these are all excellent athletes producing times that aren't much if at all faster than what world class students were running on cinders in the late 60s early 70s . isn't it great viewing, seeing these guys fly .

apologies for the grammar and spelling errors in advance , hence why im on a running forum and not a academic one :)

rojo wrote:

I've crunched the numbers and compared the 2021 and 2019 NCAA times and the distance times are faster in 2021, while the sprint times are not, showing the super spike impact is real.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2021/05/the-ncaa-data-is-in-the-super-spike-effect-is-real-starting-in-the-1500/

(Sub required).

Isn't it basic statistics that an observational study, which is what you have conducted, cannot prove causation? You have proved correlation between the two though. If I have one pet peeve with the whole super shoe debate, it's when people nickname them "cheaterflies". People can debate their ethics all you want, but in my mind when they insert the term cheater in their argument or troll post it really takes away from the athletes, who don't cheat in any way by using WA sanctioned shoes. It's not their fault, but if people don't like the use of the new spikes, blame World Athletics instead of the athletes wearing them.

There is zero statistical evidence that the spikes are actually making a significant difference. If you think otherwise, you need to go take a statistics class. There are many more variables than just the spikes. The biggest variable is the fact that the pandemic was a massive opportunity to double down on training and maximize your training output, and the most serious athletes made full use of this.

rojo did a good study.

the plus and minuses are laid out.

i'm thinking that distance running is taking off in the us right now.

better shoes have to help.

why not do controlled experiments?

you know, have a bunch of good athletes (definitely not lousy ones) run repeat miles, in shoe A, and shoe B. tell them both shoes are rated as like the best from NASA.

say the guys can do 29-30 min 10k

get about 16 guys

set a rabbit at 440 miles with 4 minutes rest.

8 guys run in A shoe, 8 guys run in shoe B

repeats until a guy cant do a 440 mile

3 days rest

repeat the above, switch groups with shoe A and B.

add up the shoes with the most 440 miles.

toss out sick guys or injured. from the data set.

so you have the same number of guys running in shoe A and shoe B

it there isn't a statistical difference, then well, it doesn't prove that much, except, it's not that obvious.

The Insider wrote:

Has anyone looked at people who are running faster in non-super spikes? Like when Shelby Houlihan ran 14:24 in her old spikes. I mean, I know Rojo wouldn't do anything that dumb since we wouldn't be able to spread his propaganda. But certainly not everyone that is running fast is in a Nike spike.

The weird thing here is that we all agree that the spikes are helping. But by how much is the question. Even using the limited data that Rojo used, the average improvement is ~0.75% for each gender (throwing out the high and low gains). That's two seconds per mile, if giving ALL of the gain to the shows and discounting everything else. The reality is, the shoes might be 1 second per mile better.

And now she's running in Dragonfly's.

You can argue this all you like, the fact is that when any athlete is given the choice, they want the Nike spikes. Athletes from On, Brooks, and Under Armour are all lining up in another companies shoes. Jye Edwards probably cost himself a sponsorship deal on the LRC pod by making it clear he wanted Nike because the shoes are faster.

One way to test this whole claim that it has been the Covid situation that has allowed people to train better is to look at the times of Adidas athletes. Adidas hasn't let their athletes run in Nike shoes so how many have run PRs? I can think of Tsegay's indoor 800 and 1500 (her outdoor 5000 and 10000 were in Nike). Other than that, I'm hitting a wall. But people in Nike and NB shoes? PRs all of the board

then you have to choose the "old" shoe and the "new" shoe.

the choice could screw up the entire study, that's for sure.

the idea of picking #50 from year to year is probably a good choice.

or the average of #20 to #40.

at the top end you have clusters so that won't work.

as seen at the U of O today.

the ultimate spike was in chinese women's running where they went from zero women under 410, to a dozen under 354 in the space of a year or so, and then once busted, till today they have zero under 410 since

today china has zero runners in the top 300 in the world.. dropping from like having 8 of the top 10 all time, back in the day, infact, chinese still take up half of the top 20 women.

https://www.worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/middle-long/1500-metres/outdoor/women/senior?regionType=world&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1899-12-31&lastDay=2021-05-11

chinese women 6 of the top 10 runners all time 1500

in the day is was the top 5, and 8 of the top 10.

then you got the russian babes, inhabiting most of the rest of the top 50.

they you got your turkey/ethopia, former soviet bloc type programs, morocco protocol, hermans tour de france type stuff.

in the past 2 years, no chinese woman broke 16 minutes for 5k

in comparison to 1998 china had the top 3, all time.

about 40 seconds ahead of the fastest american.

that is what you call a spike.

zero runners, to the top 5 all time to zero runners.

this is where you have cause and effect established 100%.

100%

the scandal was so bad, the government cracked down, and no more drugs, and people must be afraid to compete, so as to be accused of taking drugs if they do well.

also the Chinese women back in the day, probably had no clue what they were taking by an large,

it's tragic. then again, life is set up to be tragic.

however, you focus on the wins, and it ain't too tragic.

rojo wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

Don't you get revenue from shoe companies advertising here? Conflict of interest.

God people are stupid. We've received money directly from two shoe companies - neither of whom has a super shoe. I'm literally promoting the technology of Nike.

A nike ad appears after the next post.

Rojo, you've been rightly bashed for claiming that this is certain. The fact is that the data you have don't show any major effect and you can't just put those down and say, therefore. Some aren't wearing the shoes. There are redshirts due to COVID. There was much more base training this year and xc nationals were in March, as were indoor nationals, so there's been much upheaval and the numbers just aren't that clear. If long base training meant a lot more healthy, fit runners in April, then you would figure to get distance improvements, while sprinters were on their usual program, except maybe had some limits in the fall.

I went through the TFRRS outdoor qualifiers top 100 for the flat distance events for 2021, 2019 and 2018.

For the men, there's essentially no change at the bottom from 2021 to 2019 and 2018 in the 800m. At the top, there are some fluctuations with Saruni's 1:43.25 in 2018 vs. Dixon's 1:44.76 in 2019 and the slowest this year's 1:45.8.

In the women's 800m, the 100th time in 2021 is about a half second faster than 2019 and 2018 was another .37 back. The top time in 2021 is 5 seconds faster than 2019 and 3.4 seconds faster than 2018. However, the 2nd best time in 2021 is 2 flat, which is just 2 seconds faster than 2019 and 1 second faster than 2018.

In the men's 1500m, top times are on par with previous years, while 100th is 2.23 s faster in 2021 over 2019 and 1.83s faster than 2018.

In the women's 1500m, the top time in 2021 is 4 seconds faster than in 2019 and 2 seconds faster than 2018. The 100th time in 2021 is 1.6 s faster than 2019 and 1.94s faster than 2018.

In the 5000, the men's top times are on par with previous years, while the 100th times are much better, 13:53.42 in 2021 vs. 14:03 in 2019 and 2018.

In the 5000, women's top times are nearly 6 seconds faster than 2019 and 2.27s faster than 2018.

The 100th times are 16:16.40, 16:17.98, and 16:23.61. So, there was barely any change for the 100th time between 2019 and 2021.

In the 10000m, men's top times were much better, 27:47 vs. 28:11 and 28:04. a 24 s and a 17 s difference. The 100th times were slower in 2021 than 2019 but faster than 2018, 29:36.66 vs. 29:32 and 29:42.

Women's 10000m times were slower at the top in 2021 than 2019 and 2018, and much slower in the 100th place than 2019 and 2018.

There may be some effect from the Ivy League or any others cancelling their seasons but there's just not a clear shoe effect. M 1500m and M 5000m give you the best basis for a claim to difference but only at the 100th place. The W 1500m at the top is improved. The 10000m does not support that. Meet cancellations could have an effect as well. We just can't conclude anything from the data here.

Gender, Year and event, 800, 1500, 5000, 10000, with best and 100th times

2021 M800 1:45.8-1:49.95

2019 M800 1:44.76-1:50.06

2018 M800 1:43.25-1:49.87

2021 W800 1:57.73-2:06.94

2019 W800 2:02.41-2:07.42

2018 W800 2:01.18-2:07.79

2021 M1500 3:35.96-3:43.39

2019 M1500 3:37.20-3:45.62

2018 M1500 3:35.01-3:45.22

2021 W1500 4:08.38-4:20.01

2019 W1500 4:12.08-4:21.64

2018 W1500 4:10.03-4:21.95

2021 M5000 13:19.98-13:53.42

2019 M5000 13:25.06-14:03

2018 M5000 13:18.74-14:03.58

2021 W5000 15:17.79-16:16.40

2019 W5000 15:23.46-16:17.98

2018 W5000 15:20.06-16:23.61

2021 M10000 27:47.27-29:36.66

2019 M10000 28:11-29:32

2018 M10000 28:04.44-29:42.61

2021 W10000 32:24.38-35:24.29

2019 W10000 32:06.71-34:36.57

2018 W10000 32:00.55-34:48