Nick Willis: New Shoes AND NEW TRAINING are reason for fast 1500s in June

It's actually the wavelights enabling these races to be hit in literal perfect splits. Why is this not being talked about more?

We had good shoes in the past (anyone remember the carbon fiber Vic elites?) and these shoes are not that much different (anyone who has run in the dragonfly will tell you that), and the training can't be THAT much different from what is done in the past.

But, we have an entirely NEW variable that we never had anything close to in the past: wavelight

Why does everyone focus on the slight tweaks to the shoes and the training and completely ignore the elephant in the room?

Not to mention pacers in every race, even in many big high school meets. Combined with the lights we are talking seconds per lap.

20 years of sub4 miles and still trains with current pros…I trust Willis and would like to hear more of his thinking on this. One time in the past he mentioned that these days athletes are able to take legal methods/supplements/tweaks to the absolute extreme to replicate effects of EPO which blew my mind a bit.

Exactly. The spikes are overhyped and the lights are overlooked. Anyone scoffing at the notion that a pacing tool can benefit elite athletes doesn’t understand the sport.

He’s also missing that the standard is now 3:34.2. If you’re trying to run sub-3:34 with a kick like many of these races are it’s a good setup for deep fields to go under 3:35.

Why? Because there is not wavelight in the marathon where the shoes have decimated the times.

THere was no wavelight that mattered in Girma's WR as he was way ahead of it.

Now I did remark on the podcast that the 1500 pacing is now perfect, and I do think it makes a difference as Kiprop used to alway go out super fast (but that's what he wanted to do as I asked him about it), but I think the shoes are way greater than the wavelight.

People who act like shoes don't matter are people who have worn the new shoes. Go buy a pair.

Prior to the pace lights, at least 2/3rds of races were screwed up by bad pacing.

I don't think people remember how common it was for a pacer to be 20+ metres ahead of the field after a lap. That doesn't seem to happen anymore.

In the Diamond League, you might get one well paced race, with a stacked field, and a willingness to go all in. That tended to be Monaco - now it's every race.

Have you ever run a lap of a track in new spikes?

if a world-class miler like Willis says it, it will be true. i remember typical elements in his training like a weekly long run of 2 hours, 17 or 18 miles. or the michigan workout. who is doing something like that of those who are now successful over 1500?

If the spikes are as negligible as many of you believe, why do all top level pros choose to race in them? In fact, not just choose to, in some cases, they sought permission from sponsors to run in spikes from a rival brand. You can still buy standard spikes but nobody at pro level uses them. You might think the super spikes don't make a difference, but the pros disagree with you.

coffee club boys mentioned maurten bicarb system

So the huge improvement of HS times in similar events, not just at the top but top 25, top 100, top 1000, etc, is due to wavelights and pacing, even though 99.9% of HS races are run still without wavelights or pacers, just like before? There is no elephant, what you see is just your own delusion.

These times are being recorded also in meets without WL. It's the shoes that allow pushing hard and often in training and, above all, threshold-heavy training methods spilling down at the fast end.

The elephant in the room is the fact that the stats would be even more stark if not for the better testing in Kenya. 24 Europeans have gone under 3:35 already this season, in 2013 only 8 did so the entire season.

Why wouldn't everyone wear them, even if they were only a second faster over 1500 meters?

Well Rojo, will be interesting what the new supershoes can do to my coached Kenyan Evans Bett in the 1500m if or when he will get them. Yesterday he made a great performance running a new PB 3:32.48 at 2:nd position after the new young Kenya star Reymond Cheruyiot ( 3:31:57 ) in the Kenya Nationals 1500m ( also qualification race for the African Games in two weeks time).I started to coach Evans 2 months ago ( ! ) when his PB was 3:39. I saw very early he had fantastic speed but lacked endurance , so I mainly worked on to correct that. E.g I had him to do a famous workout done by Mike Boit back in the -70s where Mike ran 2 x 800m@ 1:53 with 4 min rest between before he beat the world record then and ran 1:43.7 . Evans executed the same workout in 1:52 and 1:50 !

New PB with almost 7 sec in 2 months coaching without supershoes,must be a record in itself I guess,don`t you think?

Hey Coach JS, can you share a little more about the training of Mike Boit and Evans Bett? Would be good to know.

Do you read what you write before you post?