People saying the fast times are because of new Nike spikes. How many of the fast people competing right now should have finished their eligibility a year ago, but are still competing now? We all know that distance runners keep progressing longer into their careers. You now have an NCAA year with an extra year of athletes, who are older and would have normally been done last year.
I'm just quickly looking at the 5,000 meter list for 2021/2019/2018/2017/2016/2015/2014. There are 15 seniors in top 50 this year that normally wouldn't be there, so the 50th fastest time now of 13:45.66 would be 35th rank without these extra year kids. 35th rank in 2019 was 13:48.67, 218 was 13:48.64, 2017 was 13:53.04, 2016 was 13:52.29, and 2015 was 13:51.82, and 2014 was 13:42.41.... 2014 is NOT A TYPO.
I'm looking at the 5k because so many people run a 5k, 10k is only run by true distance specialists, 5k is run by many 10k runners and many 1500 runners and many steeplers.
When you take out the athletes who should have graduated last year, the times for the top 35 runners in the NCAA is only a few seconds faster than the past couple years, and SLOWER than back in 2014. So any effect of spikes is marginal. The data shows it's a few seconds at best, but then how do you explain 2014 being faster than now? And we all know that depth of times in general are trending faster decade to decade, so why wouldn't we be faster now than five years ago?