Yes . How was that possible ?? what has changed recently to bring about this amazing stat? Ohhh...right, lots of Base training during covid. My bad. [ eye roll]
[ super shoe + super track deniers, where you at?!]
You are being downvoted, but you are correct to bring it up. It is not always necessary to bring up super shoes/spikes if talking about a comparisons within a season. That can be tiresome. But when making historical comparisons, which seems to always be a thing here, denying the efficacy of super spikes is putting blinders on.
The exact benefit can be argued, and will be different for different people and spikes, but there IS a benefit. To the deniers, if you still race, why are you wearing supershoes/spikes, if you don't believe in them?
I agree. But even if you give them 1.5s/lap, we are still looking at a lot of fast times. The depth of guys running sub 13:40 is nuts. Some of that is shoes and tracks. Some is training. And some is expectation (you aim to run nationals/conference meets) and opportunity(how many races do you have with a chance to run fast)...
A YUUUGE factor is the shoes... as in training in the new carbon plates for hard sessions. I have run competitively for 50+ years and my recovery after hard sessions now is better than in my 20s.
A YUUUGE factor is the shoes... as in training in the new carbon plates for hard sessions. I have run competitively for 50+ years and my recovery after hard sessions now is better than in my 20s.
This is true. The shoes.
I'm 40 yrs old and stopped running road races about 5-6 years ago, PB in the marathon is 2:33. 1:12 HM.
A few guys who ran more miles and more workouts than me back then but I used to beat in every distance from 5k - 26.2 are now running 2:27-30 at CIM. They made incremental improvement before the super shoes (2:34:30 to 2:33:50), but once they had a year of the shoes they started chipping off 90-120 seconds per shot as they got closer to 40 yrs old. One friend went from 2:26 to 2:23 today.
An understated reason why the times are faster - many more kids than usual are in their 5th or 6th year because of COVID eligibility. It’d be interesting to see how the descending order lists compare with 6th years taken out
I won't deny the importance of better training and better shoes, in that order.
But there were 199 finishers in the 5k at BU on a rocket ship track yesterday, with loads more entered who DNSed. And there will be several more meets at BU this winter. The opportunities to run against great competition every single weekend at incredible facilities are everywhere, and not limited by conference affiliation or even just to D1 athletes.
20 years ago if you were hoping to break, say, 14:20 in an indoor race you were probably hoping a couple of other fast guys happened to enter the 5k at the 8-team invitational you were running on a flat 200-meter track. Indoor track has changed dramatically since then.
big lmao @ Neil Gourley getting smacked by a bunch of college kiddos.
13:16 is really excellent for a 1500m guy with good 800 speed. Jake Wightman and Josh Kerr could not run that fast and they hold Olympic bronze and world champs gold medals. Ovett didn't break 13:20, Coe and Cram did have the endurance to run that fast.
Very true, him and Prakel really surprised me by how fast they ran.
I'm 40 yrs old and stopped running road races about 5-6 years ago, PB in the marathon is 2:33. 1:12 HM.
A few guys who ran more miles and more workouts than me back then but I used to beat in every distance from 5k - 26.2 are now running 2:27-30 at CIM. They made incremental improvement before the super shoes (2:34:30 to 2:33:50), but once they had a year of the shoes they started chipping off 90-120 seconds per shot as they got closer to 40 yrs old. One friend went from 2:26 to 2:23 today.
Even they admit the shoes are the reason.
People who put in more miles and workouts then you but were about a minute behind you five years ago are now, after five year of you not racing and them continuing to race, faster than your old PRs. I think the shoes make an obvious difference as well but this is pretty meaningless as evidence.
Yeah... a high school coach who didn't believe running on the weekends was healthy/safe and started speed work the first week of September. One "long" run of 8-10 miles per season. Looking back, I don't know how we finished 5ks.
Remember a long long time ago (say 2015), when the top NCAA guy ran 13:31 (Jenkins). Jenkins was 7s faster than the #2 guy. A total of 4 guys (incl Jenkins) ran sub 13:40 that indoor season. I mean Jenkins made the US team for the world championship in 2017. He was that good. 13:31 indoor is quite spectacular. Isn’t it?
This was a time when we thought that it was also quite incredible if 3 or 4 guys from the same school ran sub 14.
Jump 8 years into the future and 5 guys from the same school run 13:35 (or faster) + another guy from the same school ran 13:45 (in the same race) and nobody is talking about it.
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