139 runners broke 9 minutes this year.

my two pennies wrote:

For some reason, somewhere in the middle of the 1980s people decided that running a high volume of easy mileage was ineffective for distance running (I personally blame Coe but I'm sure it was more than just him). The "quality over quantity" crowd took over at all levels of the sport in the USA, and it showed in the times. In high school specifically, there was also a narrative of "burn-out", and a focus on keeping the training load low on high schoolers (with the idea of peaking later in life).

As you can see on these boards, both of those ideas are still fairly prevalent today, but high schoolers themselves are not thinking about them so much. High schoolers today see professional athletes doing double threshold and high mileage, and they see young phenoms like Jakob and Kessler building off their high school success and continuing to improve into their 20s. This encourages them to train harder and do more volume and that results in an improvement in times. This improvement is more of a reversion to the natural progression from the 1970s to now than an insane shift, it only seems that way because the 90s and 00s were so poor.

Zuper Zhoes wrote:

my two pennies wrote:

For some reason, somewhere in the middle of the 1980s people decided that running a high volume of easy mileage was ineffective for distance running (I personally blame Coe but I'm sure it was more than just him). The "quality over quantity" crowd took over at all levels of the sport in the USA, and it showed in the times. In high school specifically, there was also a narrative of "burn-out", and a focus on keeping the training load low on high schoolers (with the idea of peaking later in life).

As you can see on these boards, both of those ideas are still fairly prevalent today, but high schoolers themselves are not thinking about them so much. High schoolers today see professional athletes doing double threshold and high mileage, and they see young phenoms like Jakob and Kessler building off their high school success and continuing to improve into their 20s. This encourages them to train harder and do more volume and that results in an improvement in times. This improvement is more of a reversion to the natural progression from the 1970s to now than an insane shift, it only seems that way because the 90s and 00s were so poor.

Then what accounts for the current underperformance in cross country?

Zuper Zhoes wrote:

my two pennies wrote:

For some reason, somewhere in the middle of the 1980s people decided that running a high volume of easy mileage was ineffective for distance running (I personally blame Coe but I'm sure it was more than just him). The "quality over quantity" crowd took over at all levels of the sport in the USA, and it showed in the times. In high school specifically, there was also a narrative of "burn-out", and a focus on keeping the training load low on high schoolers (with the idea of peaking later in life).

As you can see on these boards, both of those ideas are still fairly prevalent today, but high schoolers themselves are not thinking about them so much. High schoolers today see professional athletes doing double threshold and high mileage, and they see young phenoms like Jakob and Kessler building off their high school success and continuing to improve into their 20s. This encourages them to train harder and do more volume and that results in an improvement in times. This improvement is more of a reversion to the natural progression from the 1970s to now than an insane shift, it only seems that way because the 90s and 00s were so poor.

Then what accounts for the current underperformance in cross country?

my two pennies wrote:

Zuper Zhoes wrote:

Then what accounts for the current underperformance in cross country?

First of all, those ideas never took hold in XC the way they did on the track. Summer/fall was the only time it was considered acceptable to do higher volume. The mile was considered an anaerobic event best trained with low volume and high intensity, but the 5k was always viewed as more aerobic. Anecdotally I knew/knew of lots of guys willing to run 40-70 mpw in cross country, but very few going above 30-40 in track.

Second, there is no statistical "underperformance in cross country". The only metric of underperformance is the winning times from Foot Locker on the boys' side (the girls' race is regularly won in the 16:40s or 16:50s nowadays). At any course that has seen consistent use for the past few decades (Woodward, Bowdoin, VCP, Detweiller, Holmdel, etc.), the center of the distribution (Q1, median, Q3) has gotten significantly faster.

some context... wrote:

my two pennies wrote:

The early 80s was still quite competitive, the low mileage obsession didn't start until later. The bulk of the 90s and 00s had slow winning times in the 17:05-17:35 range, with Fairchild and Stamps the exceptions (Bei and Trotter did not run Balboa).

You are correct. The drop off in fast times really became noticeable around 1987-88. 1981 at CIF was a barn-burner, with 13 guys under 9:03 in the 3200 final. And from 2000 - 2002 Ryan Hall was the only guy to run sub-9:00 at the state meet. These lists just show the top 15.

63rd CIF State T&F Champs Finals 1981
3200 Meters Varsity - Finals
1. 12 Jon Butler 8:46.78a PR Edison (HB)
2. 12 Jay Marden 8:51.64a PR Mission San Jose
3. 12 Jesse Torres 8:52.11a PR Independence
4. 12 Mike Carlton 8:52.80a PR Northview
5. 11 Harold Kuphaldt 8:54.78a SR Bella Vista
6. 12 Mike McCollum 8:56.11a PR Palo Alto
7. 12 Dave Shea 8:58.49a PR Castro Valley
8. 12 Aubrey Wilson 9:00.42a PR Berkeley
9. 10 Eric Reynolds 9:00.71a SR Camarillo
10. 12 Tyrus Deminter 9:01.08a PR Jefferson
11. 12 Shawn Smallwood 9:01.9ha PR Corcoran
12. 12 Steve Valen 9:02.0ha PR El Modena
13. 12 Nelson Bernal 9:02.2ha PR Westmont
14. 11 Brian Abshire 9:08.6ha PR De Anza
15. 12 Gary Whaler 9:17.4ha PR Placer

82nd CIF State T&F Champs Finals 2000
3200 Meters Varsity - Finals
1. 11 Ryan Hall 8:55.12a PR Big Bear
2. 12 Josh Spiker 9:05.36a SR Ventura
3. 12 Travis Laird 9:08.56a PR San Marcos
4. 12 Girmay Guangul 9:08.90a PR Santa Clara
5. 12 Fernando Cabada 9:09.30a SR Buchanan
6. 10 Shaun Lyle 9:10.24a PR Eureka
7. 10 Brett Gotcher 9:11.31a SR Aptos
8. 10 Henry Hagenbuch 9:12.21a SR Cate
9. 12 Mario Macias 9:14.76a PR Delano
10. 09 Tim Nelson 9:19.83a SR Liberty Christian (Reddi...
11. 12 Vic Moreno 9:19.86a PR Escalon
12. 11 Neil Davis 9:21.56a Bellarmine College Prep
13. 12 Daniel Avila 9:23.97a Reedley
14. 12 Justin Neuroth 9:24.93a Vista
15. 12 Matt McInvale 9:26.06a Ramona

my two pennies wrote:

some context... wrote:

You are correct. The drop off in fast times really became noticeable around 1987-88. 1981 at CIF was a barn-burner, with 13 guys under 9:03 in the 3200 final. And from 2000 - 2002 Ryan Hall was the only guy to run sub-9:00 at the state meet. These lists just show the top 15.

63rd CIF State T&F Champs Finals 1981
3200 Meters Varsity - Finals
1. 12 Jon Butler 8:46.78a PR Edison (HB)
2. 12 Jay Marden 8:51.64a PR Mission San Jose
3. 12 Jesse Torres 8:52.11a PR Independence
4. 12 Mike Carlton 8:52.80a PR Northview
5. 11 Harold Kuphaldt 8:54.78a SR Bella Vista
6. 12 Mike McCollum 8:56.11a PR Palo Alto
7. 12 Dave Shea 8:58.49a PR Castro Valley
8. 12 Aubrey Wilson 9:00.42a PR Berkeley
9. 10 Eric Reynolds 9:00.71a SR Camarillo
10. 12 Tyrus Deminter 9:01.08a PR Jefferson
11. 12 Shawn Smallwood 9:01.9ha PR Corcoran
12. 12 Steve Valen 9:02.0ha PR El Modena
13. 12 Nelson Bernal 9:02.2ha PR Westmont
14. 11 Brian Abshire 9:08.6ha PR De Anza
15. 12 Gary Whaler 9:17.4ha PR Placer

82nd CIF State T&F Champs Finals 2000
3200 Meters Varsity - Finals
1. 11 Ryan Hall 8:55.12a PR Big Bear
2. 12 Josh Spiker 9:05.36a SR Ventura
3. 12 Travis Laird 9:08.56a PR San Marcos
4. 12 Girmay Guangul 9:08.90a PR Santa Clara
5. 12 Fernando Cabada 9:09.30a SR Buchanan
6. 10 Shaun Lyle 9:10.24a PR Eureka
7. 10 Brett Gotcher 9:11.31a SR Aptos
8. 10 Henry Hagenbuch 9:12.21a SR Cate
9. 12 Mario Macias 9:14.76a PR Delano
10. 09 Tim Nelson 9:19.83a SR Liberty Christian (Reddi...
11. 12 Vic Moreno 9:19.86a PR Escalon
12. 11 Neil Davis 9:21.56a Bellarmine College Prep
13. 12 Daniel Avila 9:23.97a Reedley
14. 12 Justin Neuroth 9:24.93a Vista
15. 12 Matt McInvale 9:26.06a Ramona

And it's the training that really made the difference. It's hard to say what caused it, but my dad graduated in '84 and when he was in high school they did lots of tempos, mile repeats, and long runs. No mileage tracking at the time but estimated 70-80 mpw thinking back on it. Unsurprisingly, his team was pretty good (state champions his junior year) and he ran 1:56 for the half mile and 4:22 for the mile. 30ish years later and I ran 1:54 for 800 and 4:18 for 1600 training about the same way.

Meanwhile one of my coaches graduated in 2004 and there wasn't a single guy he knew in high school that did more mileage than him, and he only did 40ish mpw. Everyone did lots of 200s and 400s at mile pace and 800s and 1ks at 5k pace. Very little real tempo work except the occasional 20 minute Daniels tempo. He ran 9:56 for 3200 and was one of the top local guys, qualifying for states a couple times. And this wasn't due to a lack of talent, as he ran 4:00 and 8:33 in college (doing 100 mpw at a D3 school).

This is all anecdotal but it's very much indicative of general trends. I have no idea what the real underlying cause is - while Coe's "low mileage" philosophy and the Norwegian double threshold method may have played a part, there's no way they were influential enough to affect the entire nation - but it's the truth and it's the real reason times are so fast nowadays.

The 2010s were the beginning of the change and we saw some very successful individuals and teams dominate because of this (Verzbicas, FM, Drew Hunter) but it wasn't widely adopted. Tinman was quoted at Hunter's peak as saying that there were dozens of runners as talented as Drew out there but none of them were training like Drew. At some point over COVID enough people started running a lot to turn the tide, and once everyone else caught on the improvement continued.

Shoes are probably responsible for 1% of the improvement in 3200 times, and even less for the 1600 times. They're not the reason 8:40 is the new 9:00. It's all culture.

Freddie Flounder wrote:

my two pennies wrote:

And it's the training that really made the difference. It's hard to say what caused it, but my dad graduated in '84 and when he was in high school they did lots of tempos, mile repeats, and long runs. No mileage tracking at the time but estimated 70-80 mpw thinking back on it. Unsurprisingly, his team was pretty good (state champions his junior year) and he ran 1:56 for the half mile and 4:22 for the mile. 30ish years later and I ran 1:54 for 800 and 4:18 for 1600 training about the same way.

Meanwhile one of my coaches graduated in 2004 and there wasn't a single guy he knew in high school that did more mileage than him, and he only did 40ish mpw. Everyone did lots of 200s and 400s at mile pace and 800s and 1ks at 5k pace. Very little real tempo work except the occasional 20 minute Daniels tempo. He ran 9:56 for 3200 and was one of the top local guys, qualifying for states a couple times. And this wasn't due to a lack of talent, as he ran 4:00 and 8:33 in college (doing 100 mpw at a D3 school).

This is all anecdotal but it's very much indicative of general trends. I have no idea what the real underlying cause is - while Coe's "low mileage" philosophy and the Norwegian double threshold method may have played a part, there's no way they were influential enough to affect the entire nation - but it's the truth and it's the real reason times are so fast nowadays.

The 2010s were the beginning of the change and we saw some very successful individuals and teams dominate because of this (Verzbicas, FM, Drew Hunter) but it wasn't widely adopted. Tinman was quoted at Hunter's peak as saying that there were dozens of runners as talented as Drew out there but none of them were training like Drew. At some point over COVID enough people started running a lot to turn the tide, and once everyone else caught on the improvement continued.

Shoes are probably responsible for 1% of the improvement in 3200 times, and even less for the 1600 times. They're not the reason 8:40 is the new 9:00. It's all culture.

Then race in a pair of low end spikes. Why waste the money? I'm guessing you won't.

We both know the "better training" only works when it's strapped to a pair of cheater shoes. Keep lying to yourself.