Superspike benefits decrease the faster the pace is - explains some contradictions

1000th fastest outdoor male 1500m performer
2012 3:47.56 Tatsuro OKAZAKI
2013 3:48.08 Reid BUCHANAN
2014 3:48.16 Ben MOYNIHAN
2015 3:47.64 Ryan MCLEOD
2016 3:47.7h Ezekiel KEMBOI
2017 3:47.83 Peter EJERSBO
2018 3:47.83 Cathal DOYLE
2019 3:47.86 Abednego CHESEBE
2020 3:52.77 Kazuki KUROKAWA
2021 3:46.16 Hamza HADJLAOUI
2022 3:45.71 William BROOM

That's a narrow set of marks from 2012 to 2018, averaging 3:47.83 (60.75 per 400). The 2022 1000th best performer's 3:45.71 is only 2.1 seconds faster (60.19 per 400). That's 0.5 sec benefit at 60 second 400 pace, less than half the benefit runners were getting at 68 second 400 pace.

1000th fastest outdoor male 800m performer
2012 1:50.85 Rorey HUNTER
2013 1:50.95 Phillip KOSTELNIK
2014 1:50.91 Daniel KUHN
2015 1:50.86 Jakub BAŁDYKA
2016 1:50.75 Tomonori TANAKA
2017 1:50.85 Sebbe FRANCKEN
2018 1:50.91 Leonardo CUZZOLIN
2019 1:50.91 Kevin WILKINSON
2020 1:53.00 Aruhito TAKANASHI
2021 1:50.45 Kiyotaka HOTTA
2022 1:50.14 Wyatt WYMAN

That's an even tighter set of marks than the 1500 marks from 2012 to 2018, only 0.20 seconds from low to high, averaging 1:50.87 (55.43 per 400). The 2022 superspiked saturated year is 0.73 faster, a significant difference considering the low variance of the pre-superspike years, but it's only 0.36 second per 400 at 55.43 pace.

1:50.87 is 3:27.88 1500 pace, so near Tim's and Jakob's PR 1500 pace, they are probably only getting 1.3 seconds benefit in a 1500 from the superspikes. We know not everyone responses the same to superspikes, but we can't do spike testing on people from afar, so it's the best guess. I know some people have been arguing that they don't get even 1.3 seconds benefit because Jakob plus superspike benefit supposedly can't go backwards, but you really can't expect yearly bests to chart a smooth graph. It depends on how races play out each season.

Look at Nick Willis's seasonal bests for example. It's bumpy, not all up until a peak then all down.
2001 3:55.38 Hastings (NZL) 25 FEB 2001
2002 3:42.69 National Stadium, Kingston (JAM) 21 JUL 2002
2003 3:36.41 Zagreb (CRO) 07 JUL 2003
2004 3:32.68 Stadio Olimpico, Roma (ITA) 02 JUL 2004
2005 3:32.38 Paris (FRA) 01 JUL 2005
2006 3:32.17 Paris (FRA) 08 JUL 2006
2007 3:35.85 Carson, CA (USA) 20 MAY 2007
2008 3:33.51 Stade Louis II, Monaco (MON) 29 JUL 2008
2010 3:35.17 Milano (ITA) 09 SEP 2010
2011 3:31.79 Stade Louis II, Monaco (MON) 22 JUL 2011
2012 3:30.35 Stade Louis II, Monaco (MON) 20 JUL 2012
2013 3:32.57 Stadio Guidobaldi, Rieti (ITA) 08 SEP 2013
2014 3:29.91 Stade Louis II, Monaco (MON) 18 JUL 2014
2015 3:29.66 Stade Louis II, Monaco (MON) 17 JUL 2015
2016 3:34.29 Alexander Stadium, Birmingham (GBR) 05 JUN 2016
2017 3:34.74 Stade Louis II, Monaco (MON) 21 JUL 2017
2018 3:35.25 Olympiastadion, Berlin (GER) 02 SEP 2018
2019 3:36.99 Olympiastadion, Berlin (GER) 01 SEP 2019
2020 3:41.77 Douglas Track & Field, Auckland (NZL) 23 FEB 2020
2021 3:35.41 National Stadium, Tokyo (JPN) 05 AUG 2021

Might as well do the 10,000 as well.
1000th male outdoor 10,000m performer
2012 30:00.64 Luke BAKER
2013 30:08.93 Michael NIELSEN
2014 29:59.14 Adam ZUTZ
2015 30:02.71 Hiroya INOUE
2016 29:50.41 Norihiko MATSUDA
2017 29:51.16 Joilson Bernardo DA SILVA
2018 29:50.49 Kenta MUROTSUKA
2019 29:47.17 Daisuke DOI
2020 30:06.56 Daiki KUNIMOTO
2021 29:18.93 Yuto HAMADA
2022 29:18.01 Shota HIGUCHI

The 2012-2018 average is 29:57.55 (71.9 per 400). It's 39.5 seconds faster in 2022 or 1.58 per lap benefit at 72 second pace. If you want to data pick/cheat and only count 2016-2018 as the pre-superspike average at 29:50.68, that's still 32.7 seconds faster or 1.3 per lap.

Conclusion:
I put those four points in Excel, and the log(benefit) vs. pace is highly correlated. The best fit line gives:
55 pace: 0.3 second superspike benefit per 400
56 pace: 0.4 second
57 pace: 0.4 second
58 pace: 0.4 second
59 pace: 0.5 second
60 pace: 0.5 second
61 pace: 0.6 second
62 pace: 0.6 second
63 pace: 0.7 second
64 pace: 0.8 second (or 0.7 second in the lesser benefit/data picking cheat option in the 10,000)
65 pace: 0.8 second
66 pace: 0.9 second
67 pace: 1.0 second (or 0.9 second)
68 pace: 1.1 second (or 1.0 second)
69 pace: 1.2 second (or 1.1 second)
70 pace: 1.3 second (or 1.2 second)
71 pace: 1.5 second (or 1.3 second)
72 pace: 1.6 second (or 1.4 second)

I wonder how it looks for women, and might look at it later, but I've spent too much time on this already today.

Thanks for this. Consolidates some intuition I had. Definitely like the point that the most elite 1500m guys aren’t getting as much of a boost (because running sub 3:30 is closer to the 1000th place 800m) compared to guys running ~4 minute mile pace

Full credit to you, dude. This is a pretty interesting analysis. Thanks for crunching the numbers!

Hard to compare the the 10 000m to other events, because some wore super shoes on the track before banned by World Athletics, which would have been before superspikes were a thing.

Good point. The paces under 68/69 should still work though.

Major credit for doing actual research...and super in-depth at that.

As a person who believes that the shoes don't work nearly as much as many say, I have a follow up question though that I've yet to hear an answer on. Why is it just the American's (or westerners for that matter) that supershoes work on?

Let me explain. For ~25-years, the top 1500 meter time every year has been in the high 3:20's ish, and the top 5000 meter time has been in the mid 12:40's ish. That remains the case today. The only difference now is that the top times are littered with North American's. So if the shoes are so good, why isn't the rest of the world that much faster?

On second thought, that explains the 10,000m discontinuity I pointed out between 2012-2015 and 2016-2018. 2012-2015 is a mix of people using old-school flats and old-school spikes. 2016-2018 is a mix of people using old-school spikes and supershoes.

That doesn't have anything to do with supershoes or superspikes. It just means that North Americans are getting more competitive in the current generation (assuming your observation is correct). I think Cheptegei certainly benefited from superspikes to beat Bekele's records. Gidey also seems likely to be a big responder to supershoes and superspikes.

I hear what you're saying with Cheptegei and Gidey, both of whom broke the WR. But this is my point. With the exception of an outlier, who also happen to be the people winning the gold medals, the rest of the world is the same today as they've been for a long time. The only change is for the American athletes, and it's not just the pros, as we've seen the collegiate and high school record books get ripped to shreds. If the shoes were as good as people want to believe, it would be everyone, not just us.

Again, I've yet to hear an argument as to why it's only us who are so much better. It can't just be the shoes, as many would want to believe.

Very interesting. As Devil's advocate, how would the 2020 "lockdowns" have impacted the 2021-2022 data? i.e. Could some of the improvement be credited to runner's training their collective assess off in 2020?

There was an article quoting Dathan Ritzenhein where he said something along the lines of that the superspikes aren't as noticeable on raceday in pro times because top tier pro runners are already so efficient at transferring power in their stride that the plates can only help so much.

But less efficient HS and college runners are helped a noticeable amount per lap so much that the times are dropping multiple seconds for them from where they may have been historically. It helps explain why you are seeing so many more sub 4:10 miles and sub 9 two miles in HS and sub 4 miles in college but not many more sub 3:32 1500's in the pro ranks.

We don't really hear about the east African high school kids unless they are kicking Western butts at World Cross (including Ingebrigtsen in U20 at Aarhus, Leo Young at Bathurst), and a lot of them aren't using superspikes at that point either. I didn't think to look at Bathurst, but Ethiopians still had a lot of girls running World Cross barefoot in recent times. Cheptegei trains on a dirt track.

I basically looked at 2012-2018 and showed they were at consistent levels through those years (except for the 10,000m, which someone reminded me was disrupted the first Vaporflys, prototypes in 2016, public release 2017). I ignored 2020 due to covid. You can see the obvious effect lockdowns had on the times in each event. They held the Olympics in 2021 and most racing returned, but I just skipped to 2022 for the cleanest comparison - both deeper saturation of superspikes and no lockdowns affecting racing than 2021 (but the 2021 numbers are pretty much the same as 2022, and wouldn't change the results). So 2012-2018 pre-superspikes vs. 2022 superspiked is the comparison.

I don't think you can attribute the obvious step-change reduction in times in all those events to thousands runners training harder than ever in 2020. That presumes they, as a group, didn't train hard and smart enough in 2012-2018. It presumes that not racing will improve everyone in the top 1000's times dramatically. I'm not sure the not-racing for a year argument holds water. Most (non-BowermanTC) need to both train and race to be at their best, including most of the best in the world on the track, who seem to race regularly (or simulate it in time trials like BTC, which is the same effort).

I don't think the lists are much use other than the top 100 or so marks because those marks are nearly always with the best competition and tracks. Americans are still ~2% shy of world bests at 800- marathon. Lots of athletes capable of top 1000 marks with limited travel opportunity or access to spring- loaded shoes.

The benefits of the shoe evolution also means as races get longer, shorter athletes are racing with effectively longer legs.

From a physics perspective, the shoe only "sees" force, so high school kid running 60-second-pace for 800m is the same as a pro runner running 60-second-pace for 3000m, if the two happen to be the same weight. Ritz is right, but it is basically another way of saying that the pros can run 3000m at high school kid's 800m pace. It also means that the pros do benefit more from the superspikes when they do the 10,000, which is relatively infrequently run though. A 27:30 10,000 in old spikes is now probably about 27:08 in superspikes. Seems about right (e.g. Salazar might have run 27:03 in them).

That the sweet spot happens to be at a speed that benefits HS kids more than elites is a matter of luck that the low hysteresis superfoam/human interaction happens to work best at those paces. It's possible some future foam might have mechanical characteristics that are engineered to change that sweet spot speed, so who knows about the future...

Your assumptions are 100% WRONG.

We've seen world records in the mens and womens 5k, 10k, now women's 1500m. also indoor men's 3k.

We just had 13 guys break 13 minutes in one strategic 5k TODAY.

Some world records were so DRUGGED UP that they are still hard to beat.

17 of the top 100m all time athletes in the 1500 have come in the last 2 years................11 of the top 50................despite increased drug testing...........................