If super spikes are so good then what's wrong with HS girls 1500m running?

Most HS rarely run 1500m. For a lot of kids you run it once for the under 20s and that’s it. Go look at the 1600/mile list and you will have a mixture of times.

That being said Cain, Cranny, Efrainson, Murphy, and Aragon were an insane run of good 1500m runners. And most of them had a turn of speed that people like Tuohy didn’t have.

As someone who started following running in the past few years going back and reading through Cain's high school career makes me shocked that she isn't discussed more. She was doing some astonishing things for 2013.

- Former HSR in the 800, becoming the first high school girl to break 2 minutes

- Former HSR in the indoor 3k on the UW track of all places

- Former HSR of 4:04, also breaking the American junior record

- HSR of 4:28, the first high school girl to break 4:30 and still one of two to ever do it.

- Became the youngest American to ever make a world championship team, and MADE THE WORLD FINAL IN HER FIRST WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

I mean seriously, she looked like she was primed to be one of the best ever.

Fun story:

When I was a SR in high school I was a 2 flat 800m runner. The slowest on my 4x8 team, but we only had 4 guys who were serious and then a big gap after that. So we went to NSIC (indoor nationals, I think its gone now and new balance took it over). However, that was the swine flu year (yeah im old) and i got it about 2 weeks before the meet. I was not 100% recovered and ran 2:09, trashed the race for my team, but it is what it is.

But I remember watching the girls 4x8 and the announcer goes "this anchor leg for Bronxville is just an 8th grader and has run 2:08". My friends had a good laugh at me for losing to an 8th grade girl lol. But that girl was Mary Cain. She was just different, and realistically IMO the greatest fumble in usatf history (blame whoever you want).

In terms of why the era's are different?

1) in certain states the girls run the 1500 and in some they run the 1600. So a ton of talent just isn't exposed to the race in a high level fast environment.

2) IMO, I think a lot of girls right now are just more focused on cross country and building an aerobic base than going for the mile records. Its not the same with boys, because with boys saying "sub 4" is such an insane statement for a high schooler. I also think there's more "prestige" now in having a fast xc time/2 mile time/ 5k time in high school that just wasn't there 10 years ago.

She was discussed to death at the time, and in retrospect:

" 'Mary's father is a medical doctor, and both of her parents were deeply involved in her training, competition and health throughout the period she was coached by me,' Salazar said, according to the paper. 'For example, Mary's father consulted on medications and supplements Mary used during her time at the NOP.' "

Weight loss, like Goucher's post NOP issues, seem like they be deflection and distancing to avoid the doping links.

All sub-4:30 HS girls (1500/1600 converted to mile) from T&F news:
Combined 1500/1600/mile list (expressed as miles): Cain 4:24.19 2013, Efraimson 4:26.82 2014, Murphy 4:26.99 2016, Wiley 4:27.71 2022, Aragon 4:28.61 2016. I think Engelhardt converts to ~4:29. So none ever, then 4 in 4 years, and then 2 in the 5 years since super spikes came out (and in the 7 years since 2016).

Turns out Wiley is an insane talent, and the 1500m being rarely run still doesn't really explain the lack of fast times.

omg i literally just skimming her wikipedia to make sure i wasnt gonna say something dumb (i was), and I realized she didn't just make the world championship final in HS, she did it as a 17 year old junior. Absolutely nuts, and I think gives all the more credence to my theory that she made the other HS athletes at the time run better, either by inspiring them to beat her, or just by proving it was possible to run that fast.

Thinking about it now, seeing how badly her career went in 2015-2016, maybe there was a huge course correction? Did people start to believe that if you were that good, you'd burn out? I remember seeing that CONSTANTLY thrown at Tuohy, especially when she got injured her senior year/freshman year. Tons of Mary Cain comparisons. Nowadays I feel like I see it said about girls and guys about as often. With how good she was in HS, Cain missing the 2016 Olympics may have had a huge influence on how people viewed HS girl phenoms, and it would've been a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Flameouts happened long before Cain and long after. For every Mary Slaney who runs awesome as a young teen there are a dozen (both men and woman) who don’t make it.

she is was an insane distance talent in the Ryun/Webb talent level. We don’t see them very often. Touhy was very good but we are talking a notch down in the prodigy scale(well at least as a 17/18 year old. Not as aware of how 15/16 years run in other western countries. Seem to remember Radcliffe being fast). It is the difference between best in say 5 years versus best in 25.

If you look at 800 and 3000/2mile lists, the girls 1500/mile is a bit of an anomaly. But then again, Granvilles 800 record and especially, Robinson's 400 record are even more puzzling. Progress at the cutting edge is always irregular, except for pro road records.

While you are not yet seeing the 'shoe effect' at the tip top of girls hs records, you are seeing it in the volume of very good times.

There are a pile of girls results now at 4:3x and 9:5x that have not yet translated to all time top 5.

We did just recently have Wiley at 4:26 for 1600m and this year Leachman at 9:42 for 2 miles.

That’s great news bruh! Now that we’ve decided they don’t work - you can stop spending $200 on spikes. Something tells me you won’t though.

HS girls' fathers don't share their TRT prescriptions with them like they do with the boys. except, one might presume, in the case of Cain.

Not sure when a HS elite girl runner develops her asthma and thyroid diagnosis, but it must come late.

Webb’s best results in his prime are a 9th and an 8th place in global finals. Mary cain did the same as a junior in high school. He isn’t on the same talent level as Ryun and Cain.

Many of the top records are. Doping was already mentioned higher up in the thread but if you go down the lists for the sprint events, I can point out multiple people who were supposedly doping in HS.

I'm not saying all of the best people were doping, but many of the top high schoolers were and that is why they never progressed in the college and pro scene. For example, there was a huge amount of doping in the early 2000s among the short sprints, as a result of the cross culture between the aforementioned sprinters and football.

Also, it feels like there is just something about USA track and field that results in all of these "lost talents". Maybe it's just that USA HS track and field is one of the most well-documented sports scenes out there but it feels like this doesn't really happen in other countries.

When the OP writes a sentence like that, it means that it's a thread that he shouldn't have started in the first place.

Doping. Simple. End of thread.

Am I missing something? Didn't Addy Wiley break the high school record? You just seem to be choosing an event that is rarely run in US high schools.

I just dont wanna come out appearing way more confident in something than i am. i hate when people confidently assert something that they really know nothing about, so i try not to.

i can confidently say i'd way rather see threads like mine than the 90% of threads made that are lower effort and less running related than this one.

I guess so, but also the 1500 list is a lot stronger than the mile list (likely because 1500s are in open races), and 4 girls in 4 years is way weirder than 1 massive outlier every couple decades. Especially since Mary Cain made the world final, and Efraimson came along 2 years later and crushed her record.

Granville's 800 record would've gone down a couple years ago if Flatt hadn't let up at the line. Pretty surprising Brazier or Sumner didn't get it though, given how fast they ran as freshmen.

If she was a better talent, how come she was basically the same distance from the American record? With all her talent in her prime she set the AR in the mile right? Webb issue with championship races had nothing to do with talent…