What's the reason/s that high schoolers and collegiates are running so fast in the last couple of years.

Shoes. They are not illegal, they are not evil, but they ARE significantly faster.

Kids have realized that alcohol consumption actually does negative to their performance. Amazing what a high school kid can do when he learns respect and follows a plan

And seeing how fast those records are motivates people to run faster to break those records

Drugs

The shoes are definitely faster, but I think psychologically there's the "4:20 is not that fast" mentality going on. Seeing so many kids running fast moved the mark for the upcoming generations to have less psychological barriers, they are seeing what used to be crazy fast times as actually attainable now

Not sure why the downvotes on this.

It’s several factors. Shoe technology is ALWAYS improving. Training methods prescribed by coaches are smarter. Nutrition. Caffeine.

Records set before the super shoe boom should really have an asterisk, as should cinder/ dirt tracks versus all-weather surfaces. If super shoes weren’t an advantage then why are you and everyone else training/ racing in them?

How do we keep bringing this up? It's literally the shoes. A 4:20 mile in 2005 is like running 4:14 yesterday.

So true... people were never motivated to break records before... just now.

Here's an off the wall theory, there are other reasons too. Covid. What? There was nothing to do other than train and stay inside, mostly. Running was an excuse to get outside.

Juice. Like, lots of juice. Juice is so good, when nobody knows you take it (because they don't check wheter you take it or not).

3 kids broke 4 in the 1960s. Then it increased every year right? We should have had 2 kids do it every year and then 3 and then 4 and then 5. But no. We went 35 years until another kid broke 4. I guess kids in the 70s, 80s, 90s just didn't care as much as kids in the 2020s. Kids today are so much more focused. They have nothing else to do since they used to have video games, and the internet, and phones, and everything else going on in the 70s and 80s.

As a former D1 collegiate athlete, I got to experience the shoes at the very end of my college running career. So 2019-2020. It is definitely the shoes. When I used them it was a significant boost from the previous spikes I wore that were Nike brand.

You're giving the shoes a six second advantage over a mile. Then the best guys should be running 3:22 1500s and 3:39 miles at least. They're not. The spikes might be worth a couple seconds at most. That was Nick Willis's estimate and it might be too much. The top guys were running 3:26.7 to 3:28.8 at Monaco before the spikes and to this point Jakob has run 3:27s and has improved only 4 seconds since he was 17, before superspikes and with physical maturity. But confidence, time trial-like races for time primarily, and pacers have all improved a lot.

The same reasons everyone else is running faster.

A generation of distance coaches with good knowledge that are not afraid to push young athletes. Love them or hate them, guys like Soles, Brosnan, and Mostert have raised the game. Successful schools have also been hiring real coaches, not just giving the job to a teacher that hobby jogs marathons.

Don’t forget Joe Newton!!!

The running boom in the 70s/80s kids are having kids, too. Shoes, training, better tracks, better better better. Meow

Another original post from you. You will get to 28,000 soon.

I think the Notre Dame coach Chris Neal (#1 recruiting class in the country currently) put it well on a podcast recently. When he was asked why so many young talented guys are breaking records he said something along the lines of "this generation of kids see each other running well and instead of thinking 'Oh that guy is a once in a generation talent' they say 'why couldn't I do that?'" There seems to be a rising tide lifting all boats because 20 years ago if a guy like Nico Young had the season he just did then everybody would say "Oh there won't be another guy like him for 20 years" now we're not even sure his NCAA records will last longer than a year.