12:53, 13:05 in a B heat, 14:31 - We try to make sense of the CRAZY fast times put up over the weekend.

3 seconds a mile is still way too much. Rojo do you believe Johnny Gregorek could have run a 3:46 indoor mile with the spikes? 

if the spikes are helping the collegiate women so much, why not the women pros?

I agree with the case made that the super spikes are causing the huge time drops. However, the comparison made to the current swim times being slower than previous is misleading. The vast majority of NCAA swimmers will not PR until this months conference meets conclude and next month's NCAA meet ends. Rather, consider that in 2009 with the use of "flotation suits" NCAA swimmers doubled the number of athletes who met the NCAA "B" time standards. That is similar to the comparison made in the track times in this article.

Also does swimming have as many 5th or 6th-year seniors? 3 seconds a mile is ludicrous. You want to know why? Johnny Gregorek. He broke 3:50, but the idea of him breaking 3:47 is ludicrous. Let's not lose our minds...it's about 1.5-2 seconds in a mile, 3-4 in a 3k, 5-8 in a 5k and 10-16 in a 10K. Some guys respond more than others. Gault brought up Rupp's time like Fisher should be lucky to match it? Why. Indoors is as fast as outdoors, 13:01 or whatever wasn't Rupp's best and he was better 10K guy than 5K. So there you go...

Why is it so hard to believe that Fisher might simply be a better 5k guy than Rupp? It's almost like nobody wants to believe that American distance running is actually good now. Did people try to rationalize Rupp running well a decade ago? Why is there so much mental gymnastics to say that these times aren't legit?

Rupp was not able to sub-4:00/mile in high school like Fisher, so great point rhimby.

To be clear, I 100% agree. Rupp ran his indoor PB in 2014. He was coming off a World Champs where he finished 4th in the 10,000 and 8th in the 5,000. Grant Fisher basically the same with 5th in the 10,000 and 9th in the 5,000. With Uganda's emergence, that placing in the 10K is probably misleading if anything. Fisher is also younger in his career and it seems he's taken a step forward. I believe he breaks 13 in old spikes.

I agree and it's important to note Grant's age for stepping up to the level he's at.

Ritz ran 12:56 during his strong 2009 season, arguably his highest "high point." With a few seconds against Fisher for the shoes, his track times match up well to Ritz's track bests [strong continuity after the NCAA comparison I did of them on Monday].

Is Grant's 12:53i in super shoes same/better/less than Ritz's 12:56??

Better because of the way he ran it. I dont have Ritz's splits, but Fisher ran the last 2k in 4:59 and 1600 in 3:57. I thought he was gonna run 12:53 outdoors this year getting dragged along in a diamond league, but to take the lead with a mile to go and start ripping off 59's to drop Mo Ahmed was incredibly impressive. Even if you handicap the shoes 5 seconds over 5k, i still think the 12:58 was a bit more impressive than 12:56.

I think a common fallacy is that the shoes would aid times in a fixed linear way, i.e. 3 seconds/mile or 1 second/400, or whatever. I think it’s much more likely that they provide more assistance as the race distance increases; they don’t enhance basic speed, but they improve running economy and help keep legs fresh throughout longer races.

I see no evidence that they improve times at 800 meters and I doubt they help more than a second max at 1500 (do we really think, in a historical context, that Cheruiyot and Ingebrigtsen aren’t at least 3:29 guys?) Maybe they help by a few seconds over 5k, a little more over 10k and about 3 seconds/mile, on average, at the marathon distance.

It’s easy to attribute the entirety of this influx of fast times to a single factor, but I don’t believe that’s thinking critically. For one, scientific training knowledge is more pervasive than ever before. The opportunities to run fast time trials at meets like BU are more available than ever before. Wavelight has obviously contributed to new world records at 5k/10k for both men and women. And not to be ignored, Houlihan ran a faster 5k than any non-African-born woman besides confirmed Russian drug cheat Liliya Shobukhova ever has, and she did it without super spikes but with other factors at play.

Agree, also people are getting a percentage improvement so will likely gain more time the slower they are. Some people also respond better than others so this 3 second per mile idea is wrong headed.

Grant's 13:02 established what the super shoes did for him. Any further improvements are either him, the track or drugs. I say it's him.

To the Cheruiyot, Jakob note:

Have to note that Tim ran 3:28.4 in 2018 presumably not in super-spikes. With his 3:28.2 PB coming during an injury-plagued 2021 season (with only 900m pacing) and his most impressive 1500m ever run being in 2019 ( when he went out in 53.0 yet held off Jakob in 3:28.4) it's fair to extrapolate he's a 3:27 guy waiting to happen with the spikes.

Jakob hit a new level in 2020/2021, but he clearly took a further step in 2021. Hard to imagine his peak time was 3:28.3 in his 3rd race in 4 days and with a celebration/ease of the gas.

So even if you believe the spikes are worth 1 second a kilometer, both guys are definitely sub-3:30 guys (Tim is 3:28.4) and once they get right race should run 3:27 in the new spikes and can be thought of as in the rare sub-3:29 or even sub-3:28 group.

I like your note around the longer the more assistance. This would jibe with the elite level, where the 3K lists are getting hammered more than the 1500/mile and often not by the A-List guys. Where sub-7:28 was just the massive talents, now you have Aregawi, Jakob, McSweyn, Kejelcha, Barega, Wale, Girma, Katir, Kiplimo and Cheptegei. The 5K or 10K records went down of course. As good as Cheptegei is (and he's very good), I find it hard to believe he has more than a 5-8 second gap at 5K in a pure time trial against the next group down. That means there's a lot of 12:40-12:50 clockings ready to happen.

Also just a pet peeve of mine is the 13:05 in a B heat thing. That is purely a weird Jerry thing with Woody. Pretty much any other coach throws USA 10K champ and 5K qualifier Woody in the A heat. Was he in 12:57 shape like Mo or Marc Scott? Maybe not. But he certainly wasn't in B heat shape if he's closing like a train in 26 to run 13:05 after leading laps towards the end. Jerry's mind game tendencies would have him in the B heat for who knows what reason but he was probably fitter than Emmanuel Bor and Sam Atkin.

Agree, I don't get why it seems like people are losing their minds that one of the best High School runners ever/ a 5th place finisher at the  Olympics ran a time like that.  Like I've said before, I believe Grant could have gone up the road to Tuft's flat track with his spikes from high school and still have broken 13:00. The track and spikes make a little difference, but not that much. Track- 5 seconds, Spikes -1 Second.

One thing that has always bugged me and continues to annoy me about runners is how they always come up with excuses and ridiculous negative rationalizations for why someone ran a good time. And it's never that they work hard and are talented. No other sport on Earth does that. If a basketball player makes a shot, nobody says, oh it's because his shoes or the court or the rim or whatever nonsense. They just enjoy the game and have fun. You really think basketball shoes don't make a massive difference today than 10 years ago? Of course they do, and nobody cares. They enjoy the sport.

But distance running fans are mentally ill. Instead of enjoying the show we come up with a million reasons to say the performance wasn't good at all. If you don't enjoy the sport, why watch? Just watch something else. It's not a big deal.