College Track has CHANGED in 15 years (with data)

DIII has improved a lot, too.

It is wild to see the changes in HS and college. These kids are running SO fast and it's not just one or two stars, it's a deep deep field. Just so very impressive and fun to watch.

I told one of my old teammates that I dont know if I wish I was running today or if I'm lucky I'm not.

Water is wet

Using IAAF Points Calculator:

Men 60m: 6.74 -> 6.66 = 1075 -> 1119 (+44)

Women 60m: 7.45 -> 7.33 = 1067 -> 1107 (+40)

Men's Mile: 4:03.68 -> 3:58.18 = 1082 -> 1153 (+71)

Women's Mile: 4:45.50 -> 4:36.25 = 1038 -> 1103 (+65)

So distance has improved by roughly 25 points more than sprints has. In the mile, this would be worth slightly less than 2 sec for men, a bit more than 3 sec for women. Identifying the mechanism for this difference is pretty much impossible to do, but whether it's more threshold training or shoes (likely a mix of both) it's interesting to see, and about what I would have eyeballed the shoe effect at (1-2 secs per mile for men, a bit more for women).

first i read your name as "my two penises"

second I wonder what the difference would be in the ten years from 2004 to 2014, and the ten years before. Would be interesting to see if the improvements are consistent (from a percentage based standpoint) or if this is a "huge jump" situation for this decade. Part of me feels like some of the times are standing out more, especially the mile, because of the "barrier" associated with it.

This will require more data scrubbing but I feel like back in the 2000s, there were far fewer international talents/recruits from outside of the USA running in the NCAA system

Even so, I feel like the average American high schooler has gotten significantly faster over the past decade and a half

I just wanted to thank you for this post. It’s interesting, data-driven, and actually about running. A beacon of light in this generally declining message board.

Really interesting. Go back another 10 years and look at this indoor list from 1999 via T&F news. Only 15 sub-4 milers total between pros/college/foreign collegians.

I was running in college in the late 90's and it was a huge deal for a college guy to crack 4 for the first time. You'd probably get your picture in T&F news. Now 3:59 gets you last place in heat 2 at BU.

You mean the last 4 years. There is practically no change in times from 2010 until 2019. In 2020 shoes were introduced and it got crazy because, well, we all know why.

Men's Shot put: 2010 #40 - 17.79; 2024 #40 - 18.23

Women's Shot Put: 2010 #40 - 15.45; 2024 #40 - 16.10

Men's Weight Throw: 2010 #40 - 19.57; 2024 - 20.98

Women's Weight Throw: 2010 #35 - 18.85; 2024 #35 - 20.50

Men's High Jump: 2010 #40 - 2.14; 2024 #40 - 2.15

Women's High Jump: 2010 #40 - 1.78; 2024 #40 - 1.80

Men's Triple Jump: 2010 #40 - 15.46; 2024 #40 - 15.50

Women's Triple Jump: 2010 #35 - 12.70; 2024 #35 - 12.89

I feel like a trend chart is in order...

How soon do we expect performance changes to plateau?

the percentages of kids starting and finishing college keep going up, with college graduation as total population slice going from slightly over 20% in 1990ish to nearly 40% in 2020. and that's setting aside the whole population growing. which means in absolute terms it would be an even bigger growth. i was having a discussion with someone on here about the quality of college (they were dismissive) and i was like duh college runners are a function of who graduates HS, makes the scores and gets eligible for NCAA or NAIA or NJCAA, and does the thing. he was like, essentially, why is some slowpoke allowed to run D3. because they made their grades, got in, and showed up. if more kids finish HS and enter college then you get more of the kids from that fast final at that HS meet. if more of those kids drop out or get the diploma and stop, that evaporates before college.

plus training plus nutrition plus equipment plus surfaces plus the ability to find information about running on the net.

to elaborate on the one point, if fewer kids make the grades and scores, and go to college, then you get the abilities and times of the kids smart enough to make eligibility, get in the schools, and show up for practice.

One thing I have noticed is the internationals coming to the US are REALLLY good.

In general money is track and field goes to the top 5% of athletes. The best deal out there right now for anyone not at that level is the NCAA. Scholarship, housing, athletic training etc.

A top 15 global athlete would not stay in the NCAA in the old days, now they do.

plus shoes, training, meets, facilities, etc all the standard stuff

Rono, Maree, Coughlin, Nyambui, Nick Rose, Kimombwa, The Tracey brothers, were all world class athletes i n college.

Current top D2 teams are what top D1 teams were in the 90's and 2000's. Maybe an outlier here or there, but the numbers are what they are.

Many more high level indoor track facilities, bigger outdoor "qualifier" meets and of course shoes all contribute to the depth of results.

Even look at the USA Olympic Trials standards below 20 years ago. Today there are a lot of people under these marks.

2004

1:48.50

3:43.00

8:42:00

13:48.00

28:50:00

2:22:00

Speaking from my own experience, as someone who graduated in ‘07, a huge factor for me personally is using a heart rate tracker on my watch.

I was far removed from my college running days when I started using it, but in hindsight I realized I massively overtrained in high school and college. Had I been using a heart rate monitor to control my effort levels, I’m sure my times would have been significantly faster.

Correct there have been a lot of great internationals (especially in the 70s) again it was better to be a part of a college system than a pro one.

But the top in each even, especially outside of distance, are all incredible.

This thread would have you believe that improved training techniques are behind the progress in US collegiate times and that times have been steadily progressing the past 15 years. This is not true. Times from the 2000s are better than times from the 90s but not much. Times from the 2010s are better than times from the 2000s, but not much. If you go back and take top 100 averages from 2010 - 2019 there is hardly any improvement (if any). Then came 2020. Years 2020, 21, 22, and 23/24 are light years ahead of anything US collegiate distance running has ever seen. What happened in 2020 that is different from years past? It isn’t training and it isn’t nutrition. You can’t tell me that training and nutrition in 2020 are any different than they were in 2018. The one thing that changed drastically was shoes. That’s it. Is training from 2024 better than training from 1996? Of course. Is it quadruple the number of sub 4s better? No.

in 2018 there were 70 US runners under 4 in the mile. In 2023 there were 116!

In 2017 there were 18 sub 13:30 US 5000m runners. In 2023 there were 40!

Runners aren’t improving - tech is.