Shoe effect on NCAA indoor distance times

Sorry for the formatting. LR does not allow table formats. One more try with commas.

NCAA Indoor mens distance race times
Year, <3:57 mile, <4:00 mile, <7:50 3k, <8:00 3k, <13:40 5k, <14:00 5k, DMR 12th
2012, 7, 33, 7, 41, 9, 38, 09:31.91
2013 4, 30, 3, 32, 7, 33, 09:31.23
2014 6, 26, 2, 41, 2, 39, 09:31.64
2015 2, 32, 7, 50, 4, 42, 09:31.85
2016 5, 35, 6, 50, 5, 42, 09:29.89
2017 5, 30, 5, 36, 3, 39, 09:31.15
2018 9, 30, 6, 43, 2, 45, 09:29.90
2019 2, 33, 5, 51, 10, 43, 09:29.35
2020 7, 35, 12, 44, 13, 44, 09:32.60
2021 10, 38, 5, 31, 9, 43, 09:36.25
2022 30, #50 is 3:58.0, 38, #50 is 7:52.0, 38, #50 is 13:45.95, 09:24.56
10y Avg thru 2021 5.7, 32.2, 5.8, 41.9, 6.4, 40.8, 09:31.70
%Diff for 2022 526.3, ?, 655.1, ?, 593.7, ?, 6sec faster

Nice work👍

You are ignoring a couple of factors. One being the number of 5th/6th/7th years because of Covid, most of which skew towards the top end of the NCAA (Less likely to come back for a 6th year to run if you are a 4:20 guy). Two being increased emphasis on TT type races at BU/UW (Mostly BU). I ran in college from about 2016-2021 and the difference in quality for BU meets over that time frame is staggering. I improved my mile by 10+ seconds from Freshman year, yet every year at BU meets I would be in a higher heat bc so many good runners come to these now.

5 seconds a mile for 3k/5k is ludicrous tbh. Barega actually could have run 12:28? Hassan Mead could have run a 12:47? Jakob is slower than he was 3 years ago? For the 1500 3 seconds is also way too much. Over the last decade we have had a slew of 3:28/3:29 guys, if the spikes do 3 seconds a mile the WR should be under threat by about a dozen guys. If thats not the case, pro running has taken a monumental leap backwards since the spikes have come out.

People massively overrate the impact of these spikes. I also dont think its a linear impact for each runner.

XCfan, Please cite the number of 6th & 7th year runners in this NCAA data.

There are hundreds of data points from over 10 years here. None of it is for pro runners under 3:30 1500 or under 13:00 5k. It is possible that the closer to the WR, the less effect the shoes have. A similar set of data is needed there.

Didn't Cheptegai have these shoes for his WRs?

You make your high school point but have nothing to support it. Do the same exercise comparing the 2014-16 high school season vs 2017-19 high school season. Plus to avoid confounding numbers, you’d have to remove college runners who aren’t wearing super spikes. There are some.

Did you read my notes:

Notes:
There may be other factors not captured here, but if the 2022
represents a new baseline of race times going forward it is likely due
to the shoes.
Those running in older style shoes may still benefit
in races where others are running in new shoes via drafting in a faster
race.

If this change in times is due to >5th year runners, the numbers will come back down in the next few years. It would be nice to remove the "old shoe" runners, but that data is not readily available. It is clear that the majority are using the new shoes. The "old shoe" runners are benefiting from the faster races in the draft just as a bike rider can go much faster in the peloton than by himself.

I welcome other data that people provide. These differences in times this year were much larger than I expected when I started this little analysis. My expectation was something in the neighborhood of 1s/km or 1s/mi. But this is what the data showed. I did not say it was purely from the shoes. If the trend holds, it is much more likely that the shoes are a large factor.

I did read your notes, but you literally wrote in control/constraints the following two items, which I don't really think fit in the category.

"High School race times did not dramatically improve the past few years, so the feeder system for NCAA is unchanged."

"Tracks have not changed in this period. (ie. large number of tracks resurfaced and / or redesigned)."

I admittedly am too lazy to do the research, but I believe if you did high school time ARE getting significantly faster. I think a 4:05 1600 in 2014 was relatively way faster than it is today or even in 2018. Some of this is the spikes (at the moment), but some of it is also improvements in coaching/training, more youth runners coming through the pipeline, and more fast racing opportunities. All these things help set up high school runners to adapt quickly and thrive in college.

Objectively, there's been a boom in indoor tracks being built, so I'm not really sure what you said is right on that note. The time trial meets that attract collegiate runners like magnets have only grown in prominence as well.

Also indoors really incentivizes runners to put down a fast mark with no regionals. Time trialing to the maximum level is what you need to do. Meets have made an art-form of this with pacers, loaded fields where the coaches have coordinated top talent to race fast against pros, and of course the conditions are always perfect indoors. Outdoors doesn't have that sort of time pressure, so it might be the more apt comparison.

Indoors has incentivized fast times for many decades so time trial meets have been around a long time. That is not a 2-3 year trend. The tracks where most of these top times are being run have not been redesigned / resurfaced in recent years (BU, WA, AR, WI, Iowa), but the times dramatically shifted in 1 year. Comparing times to the 80s and 90s would be unfair due to a near 100% turnover of tracks.

If you or someone else can show me data that elite high school numbers of runners running (under maybe 4:20 mile and 9:10 2mile) increased by >500% a few years ago, that would largely explain this data shift in the NCAA.

I understand that many people don't want to believe that technology can have this much effect on what we deem as a pure sport. But you are giving an emotional response and admitting that you are too lazy to get real data to refute this data and conclusions. It is the equivalent of "I don't like it so it can't be true."

Things can intensify. I believe the spikes help, but you are emotionally defending your position instead of truly refuting my points as well. 2021 was a weird one with XC and indoor going on simultaneously. Did BYU/NAU and schools of that ilk always chase fast marks indoors at BU? I’m noting that never have been there better orchestrated and frequently done attempts than now.

I don’t have a subscription but at least for the top 5 HSers in the 1600/mile, it has gotten significantly faster/deeper over the years from 2010-2019. You can call out my laziness but you are similarly being lazy lol.

athletic.net

Track & Field and Cross Country Statistics

Rankings for middle school, high school, and college athletes. Compare yourself against athletes in your district, your state, or the nation.

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As I have said, if the trend continues, it gives greater weight to an inflection point where the shoes became available. If it trends back to previous numbers, it is likely this was a series of other circumstances.

Having the top 25-50 HS would be more consistent with the NCAA data. The link shows 2016/17 are the fastest years (2012-2020) and few (none?) of those top 5 were active NCAA participants this past NCAA indoor season. I may try to look deeper at this, but at first glance it does not look like HS runners were approaching 3s faster in the mile and 10s faster in the 2mile than a few years before. The trend may be downward, but does not explain a 1 year 500+% increase in times under 3:57 and 7:50.