Spruce Pickford wrote:
7 American-born men have run under 13:18 for 5000 this year. Three of them are from tiny Maine, population 1.33 million. (And a fourth is from next door New Hampshire) What makes Mainers so fast? Lobstah? Blueberries? Soft Serve ice cream?
13:06 Ben True (Maine)
13:07 Eric Jenkins (New Hampshire)
13:12 Galen Rupp (Oregon)
13:15 Ryan Hill (North Carolina)]
13:16 Garret Heath (Minnesota)
13:17 Will Geoghegan (Maine)
13:17 Riley Masters (Maine)
It's just 3 runners!
This is a rare coincedential stat, once these guys retire what's the odds of it happening again? In about 10 years were probably going to have 3 really fast girls at 1500m from Montana...
Rojo did a write up saying that Maine had a higher rate at producing sub-13:20 runners, but the thing about 3 runners is, if you take out one, the stat tremendously shifts and Kenya is going to consistently produce sub-13:20 runners at about the same rate, the odds of Maine maintaining 3 sub-13:20 runners is highly improbable
PLUS in Kenya, they have many sub-13:20 runners, but what about sub-13:10/sub-13:00, they lead by a long shot