BYU men PREPOSTEROUS 1500 in Fresno

I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that the top of the line nike or similar brand running shoes from the year 2000 didn't provide at least some extra energy return and decreased leg fatigue compared to running shoes from the 50s.

Fo da record it’s spelled Phreznough, brah.

GreatDane wrote:

I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that the top of the line nike or similar brand running shoes from the year 2000 didn't provide at least some extra energy return and decreased leg fatigue compared to running shoes from the 50s.

I just pulled out my old adidas spikes from ‘99. They have a hard plastic spike plate and a half inch layer of foam at the heel. There is absolutely nothing about them that would indicate a significant advantage to, say, running barefoot other than decreasing bruising on the bottom of the feet. In fact, I remember getting severe blisters after a hard 10k but I continued to wear them because they were very light. When I got those spikes I was super excited but I never believed that they would cut 20 or 30 seconds off my 10k time. I raced several times in them in the next year or so and ended up pr’ing from one year to the next a total of 5 seconds which was 15 seconds slower than I expected to run. There was never a time racing in those spikes that I ran significantly faster than I thought I was capable of.

Already I’m seeing athletes that I know cut huge amounts of time off what I would think possible (comparing previous races and recent indoor races). One athlete I actually went back and looked at their times from last year and indoor times. I couldn’t figure out how a runner significantly improved so much over the past couple months. It was eye opening. 6 months ago I had never heard of dragonfly’s. But I had heard that Nike had developed a new type of shoe that generated a lot of talk. So I went back and looked at photos of the race and looked at the shoes. The school is sponsored by another company but they had outfitted their entire distance crew and removed the swoosh (which is commonplace now - even have shoes painting over the swoosh with adidas stripes). I went back again and looked for any race that would equate to what they had run and found nothing, but I still had a hard time believing the shoes were responsible. Then other athletes from the school started doing the same thing. One athlete improved their time in the 5k over a minute from 2000. The previous time was already near ncaa qualifying and the same athlete didn’t even run within a minute of that time indoor in different shoes. Now school records that have been up 10 years or more are being broke from one race to the next. Has their training improved that dramatically over the past couple months? Maybe. But I find it more than just a coincidence that all these breakthrough races are happening since going to the new shoes.

People will argue that newer track surfaces (which have been around for many years) are the same thing but they’re not. Never has so many us athletes ran so well as they are running now. (3 sub 27:15 10ks in the same race with the second fastest British 10,000 ever. All wearing Nike). The change from cinders to rubberized surfaces was just good thinking. Easier to take care of, didn’t get muddy. Nothing more than running on asphalt. I would argue that asphalt provides more return that cinder but not much. But cinder provides more return than say grass or sand. Is running on cinder cheating? No, it’s just providing a running surface that allows the runner to compete at their full potential. Same with the ‘newer’ track surfaces.

Eventually, when Oly and more WR records start to fall left and right, I think the shoes will start to be criticized more. They’ll end up the same way the swimming suits did a few years back. Either that or the next big development in running technology will come around completely rendering the sport an absolute joke (if it wasn’t already).

Sub-9 guy wrote:

Killeriotttt wrote:

Well it shows that the magical shoes are even helping senior citizens.

The assist from the shoes is undeniable now, both in allowing harder sessions because of greater recovery and faster races. The genie is out of the bottle. All we can do now is denote pre-2018 records versus post... something like that.

I have an idea, have top runners suit up with shoes a la Roger Bannister on same type of track and with three races separated by 2-3 weeks with rabbits see what times they drop. My guess is 3-4 seconds 1500 and 5-6 seconds for full mile.

What is the basis of your claim of less than zero academic pressure?

Firstly I appreciate your mature response! There's a lot of immaturity on here. I also appreciate your detailed argument. All I will say is with technology improvements its difficult to know where to draw the line. I totally agree that the new shoes are no doubt producing faster times. However where do you draw the line? Any improvement in technology that gives one athlete an advantage over another should be seen as unfair. You referenced the change in track surfaces from grass/cinder to all weather artificial tracks. The immediate problem I see here is the word "artificial". It's a rubberised track that gives a better energy return for a runner compared to a natural earth surface. That better energy return equates to an easier leg/knee lift and potentially improved stride length along with less leg fatigue and hence quicker times. I've heard of various studies where they have shown that you can save up to 1-2 seconds per lap (depending on the distance) when comparing a grass surface to an all weather track. I would be interested to know what the likes of Roger Bannister and Herb Elliott (both of whom I'm fairly certain only ever competed on grass/cinder) thought of athletes running faster times than they had after they had retired on all weather tracks. Do you think it seems completely fair on an athlete if a world record they set on the grass was later broken on an artifical track? I feel the exact same argument goes for the shoes. I don't believe it's a fair comparison for someone with todays shoe technology to break a world record from say 10 years ago before this technology was available and to call them the better athlete. But it's just part of the evolution of sport - I'm not saying I agree with it but it's been happening for the last 50+ years. I think why a lot of people are upset is that the improvement in technology and times has been very pronounced over a short period of time rather than a gradual change in the technology which we had previously seen over many decades which lead to minute and less pronounced improvements in times. In conclusion I will just say thar technology changes in sport which leads to improved performance is inevitable and this makes comparing athletes performances from one technological era to another a very difficult comparison to make. However if each athlete for a particular time period has access to the same technology then at least it's a level playing field where no one athlete has an advantage over another. This is what we are seeing today.

I completely agree that it is difficult to know where to draw the line and that previous advancements further blur the line between what should be allowed and what should not. With the recent advancements in shoe technology I think it's time to start thinking about it again. Why do we allow synthetic tracks but not any number of PEDs? What is it about any particular chemical enhancement that causes the entire collective running community outrage? What is different? The synthetic track issue has been brought up numerous times as we all know. But I think it's different in the sense that it does not physically aid the athlete. Sand absorbs more energy than grass, grass absorbs more energy than cinder, cinder absorbs (maybe) more energy than synthetic? I think we need to start thing of track surfaces in terms of what absorbs less energy instead of energy return. Running in sand you lose energy. It's not that a cinder track is returning energy rather you're losing less energy running on cinder than on sand and, therefore, decreases leg fatigue because you half to work less. In this sense, a cinder track isn't necessarily physically aiding the athlete rather it is inhibiting the athlete less. I could be wrong on all this and I gladly accept any criticism.

We often forget that many former athletes competed on both cinder and synthetic tracks. Ryun compete on cinder and synthetic but he never ran a mile faster than his 3:51 on cinders. It's not like the moment he stepped on a synthetic track his time automatically dropped 4 seconds. Ron Clarke ran 27:39 on cinders. It's hard for me to imagine Clarke gaining a 1-2 second advantage on synthetic considering his time on cinders was this fast. If the return for synthetic is so much more, this would mean that Clarke was, at least, a 27:14 10k runner (it would be another 19 years before anyone ran this fast). A few years later, more and more tracks were converting to synthetic. But it wouldn't be until 1972 when Viren, running on synthetic, finally broke Clarke's cinder record by 1 second. Was Clarke just that much better in '65 than Viren? Herb Elliott never got the chance to run on synthetic. His 3:35 in 1960(?) is mind-blowing considering that he did it in such a short career. But, was Elliott a 3:31 1500 runner in 1960? The next time the 1500 record was set wasn't until 1967 by Ryun (3:33) on cinders but it wouldn't be until '74 when Bayi broke the record by 1 second on synthetic even though synthetic had been around for many years. 3:31 was finally ran by Ovett in '80, 20 years after Elliott's 'synthetic converted' 3:31. This also holds true for the 5,000. Clarke ran 13:16.6 in '66 on cinders. Viren ran 13:16.4 6 years later. By '72, synthetic tracks had been around for several years and Clarke had probably run multiple times on one since setting his PB of 13:16 but never ran as fast as he did on cinders. There are obvious advantages to synthetic tracks. The most obvious is that they are easy to take care of. I can't imagine running on a cinder track during a heavy downpour but, it probably wasn't fun. But, based off world record progression it's hard to argue for the benefit of synthetic on energy return for runners. I just don't see it affecting the outcome enough to make that much of a difference (if any difference at all).

The release of Nike's shoes over the past couple years are different. Gone are the days where we are just trying to minimize energy loss. Athletes are instantly running significantly faster just by wearing a new piece of equipment. 29:20 10k runners are now 28:50 10k runners. If you're running a 10k in 28:50 and 10, 20, or 30 of those seconds can be attributed to a carbon fiber plate, how is this not cheating? I've posted plenty regarding recent improvements so I won't go into it here. Main goal was to point out how this is different from technological advancements of the past, namely synthetic vs. cinder tracks. I know some will argue that shoe technology has been going on for a long time. The spikes I wore in early 2000s are nothing more than a nylon upper with a plastic spike plate an foam heel. They aren't that much different that was runners were wearing in the '60s other than they are probably a few ounces lighter and look cooler. Would Clarke have run faster than 27:39 in '66 with 2000 era shoes. I doubt it. But I would bet my next pay check that the record would have been well under 27:39 had he been in a pair of dragonfly's. How is this different from epo?

ThickThighs wrote:

What is the basis of your claim of less than zero academic pressure?

Well, you may be correct. byu might be difficult for the type of student who would go there, and it is taking these runners eight years to complete four years of courses. In that sense, there is academic pressure. For a normal person, however, it is kindergarten or below level.

get out and travel wrote:

ThickThighs wrote:

What is the basis of your claim of less than zero academic pressure?

Well, you may be correct. byu might be difficult for the type of student who would go there, and it is taking these runners eight years to complete four years of courses. In that sense, there is academic pressure. For a normal person, however, it is kindergarten or below level.

Byu students have the same number of years of eligibility as other schools so students are there the same amount of time as other schools. BYU students are not taking classes while on a mission. BYU is also a very good and competitive school academically. Of course you know all that but you like to follow and degrade BYU. Did you get kicked out of there for some reason? Why do you follow something you don't like? You respond with the same nonsense over and over again in many threads.

hhgf wrote:

get out and travel wrote:

Well, you may be correct. byu might be difficult for the type of student who would go there, and it is taking these runners eight years to complete four years of courses. In that sense, there is academic pressure. For a normal person, however, it is kindergarten or below level.

Byu students have the same number of years of eligibility as other schools so students are there the same amount of time as other schools. BYU students are not taking classes while on a mission.

True, they may not be taking classes while on their little missions, but aren't they at least enrolled in some sort of classes during the eight years they are on campus? Why is it taking them so long to finish a curriculum in a cupcake major at a clown college?

Or you know they could do their missions after college. To say others can do what byu does is bs. Others need to graduate, work, etc. Don't have the lds luxury or lifestyle.

So hey cougs even the playfield and do the right thing or get asterisks.

get out and travel wrote:

hhgf wrote:

Byu students have the same number of years of eligibility as other schools so students are there the same amount of time as other schools. BYU students are not taking classes while on a mission.

True, they may not be taking classes while on their little missions, but aren't they at least enrolled in some sort of classes during the eight years they are on campus? Why is it taking them so long to finish a curriculum in a cupcake major at a clown college?

Who says they are taking 8 years of schooling on campus? Where you getting that from? If they took 6 yrs of schooling but 8 yrs passed because of the mission, there is your answer. I recognise your writing on this and many other posts because you like to use the phrase "little mission" and call BYU a "clown school". I could search those terms on letsrun and find many of your posts. You really have an issue with BYU!

Where did you go to school and what was your major if you attended? Mantz, Young, and McMillan were all engineering majors. That is not cupcake.

It is recognize, not recognise. Anyway, four years of competition, plus a redshirt year, plus a medical redshirt year, plus a Covid year, plus a year out of competition adds up to eight years. Mantz left high school six years ago and still has two years of eligibility left, FFS. I haven't been on other threads about this topic, but it is common to refer to them as "little missions" and a "clown college." I actually went to reputable universities and earned degrees in chemical engineering. byu engineering is below the radar.

get out and travel wrote:

Anyway, four years of competition, plus a redshirt year, plus a medical redshirt year, plus a Covid year, plus a year out of competition adds up to eight years.

However you present it, the difference is two years out of competition.. Redshirt this, Redshirt that, It's not relevant. Everyone got a Covid year, and all athletes can apply for a Medical hardship waiver/redshirt.

Nowadays male athletes who serve a mission, generally do so at 18 before enrolling in college.

Returning at 20 years old they then enroll and join the athletic program. At this point their eligibility starts and the redshirt options available to them are no different than any other NCAA athlete. Academically they can finish their degree and graduate from college in 4 years just the same.

The college enrollment age of 20 for a track and field athlete isn't out of the ordinary either. It's quite common for international track and field athletes to enroll in Universities between the ages of 20-23 with a full 4 years of eligibility.

The only unique characteristics that can objectively be attributed to these athletes is that they made a deliberate choice to forgo their schooling/career and athletic/training endeavors to preach the gospel.

All the overblown jeering and disdain surrounding the university and its athletes is just that.

Spurts of bigotry manifesting.

A ChemE grad should be able to understand BYU runners have the same years of eligibility as other schools, not more, not less. What reputable school did you go to?

I made no assertion about the academic rigor at BYU so I can't be correct or wrong. But thank you for proving that that you are totally ignorant on the subject but still willing to run your mouth. Are there other schools you have academic concerns about or is your obsession limited to BYU?

Cougars *older men wrote:

Or you know they could do their missions after college. To say others can do what byu does is bs. Others need to graduate, work, etc. Don't have the lds luxury or lifestyle.

So hey cougs even the playfield and do the right thing or get asterisks.

BYU students don't need to graduate and work? Probably more so than the average since BYU students probably have more students that are married and have kids than the average. Not sure what you mean by lds luxury/lifestyle? Missions are mostly paid by the people that serve them and/ or their families often at a sacrifice. I worked while in school (BYU), took out some student loans, and joined the Army National Guard to get through school. There wasn't any luxury for me I can tell you that.

Why don't they go on their missions after they are through their seven years at BYU? I mean, except for the obvious age advantage reason? That is a good point about them having the luxury of foregoing many years of income in order to jog and do the other sports. I'm a little surprised that the cardinals and bishops and grand exalted councilelders don't encourage them to get out and earn so they can contribute tithing for the leaders' purchase of the GI Joes with the Kung Fu grips.

get out and travel wrote:

ThickThighs wrote:

What is the basis of your claim of less than zero academic pressure?

Well, you may be correct. byu might be difficult for the type of student who would go there, and it is taking these runners eight years to complete four years of courses. In that sense, there is academic pressure. For a normal person, however, it is kindergarten or below level.

This is just wrong you need to learn about BYU they go away on missions where they do not complete course or school work it's just like normal college when they are on campus