United States Sub-4:00 Milers list no longer being updated because of supershoes

pun intended wrote:

Bruhhhhhhhh wrote:

The T&F News list that's been upkept for years, has said it is no longer adding to the list after 2022.

"Amendments are most welcome, but we don’t anticipate adding any post-2022 marks. The advent of super-shoes has bombarded the 4:00 barrier into something no longer relevant for tracking, although many new members would have made it even without high-tech footwear."

I disagree with this choice, as it will always be cool to see sub-4:00 miles, and for each person to know what number they are in the list. The sentiment comes off as sort of sour about how many people has broken 4 in the past few years (despite the number already drastically increasing before super-shoes)

Thoughts?

Lame. As if the previous 70 years of spike technology and all-weather tracks didn't make sub-4 miles easier. A 3:59 miler isn't going to make the Olympics but at least it gave them a way to be part of running history. Sounds like T&F news is too lazy to keep the list up anymore. That's their right I suppose but it's not a positive development for the sport.

ListenToRitz wrote:

I can't believe anyone believes it's all just ingenuity and hard work after this weekend seeing Amos B run 3:50 after years of irrelevance and a flood of sub 4s at BU behind him. Sure, guys at the pinnacle of the sport were fast from 09-15 but some of those guys were Rashid Ramzi, Asbel Kiprop, Galen Rupp, Mo Farah, Makhloufi... and MANY more not so spotless names.

I don't know how you can see the middle of elite tripling in size while the top tier barely improves and not think the shoes are part of it. Is the NCAA where the hard work happens but the pros are getting complacent? The sport is about winning races. A 3:55 indoor miler this year is entirely irrelevant in the event and that's fine, but seeing Tinman celebrate Drew Hunter running 3:55 like he's back is obnoxious. Every indoor race set up as a strung out time trial so everyone and their mother can PR.

We need to stop pretending every coach is a genius and every athlete works harder today than 20 years ago and they can all hug and celebrate how great we all are at running after their 18th PR of the season.

Remember when the 5k and 10k sucked for a decade in the 2010s? When the Qu Yungxia's record, and Bekele's records and all the distance records looked like unbreakable relics of the EPO era? Everyone was ready to discredit those runners for having advantages. Farah's 3:28 was discredited DURING the race by Steve Cram. Suddenly women's distance records are broken pretty much monthly, sub 13 is internationally irrelevant, UW can produce 8 sub 4 guys in one race you'll, for the most part, never hear of again, and there are still fans saying - no they're just working smarter and harder now! We ran on a bed of flaming nails in the 70s, those runners in the 80s and 90s had it easy!

It is blatantly obvious something changed in the last few years with a much greater impact than any change for the last 40 years. It's not red shirts, it's not running influencers, it's not the training advice on these boards. It's the shoes. If it was anything else we might see faster sprints and 800s... But we aren't. Lazy 800 runners aren't riding the wave of awesome good vibes propelling today's athletes to be superior to the bums from 15 years ago. The sport is boring as hell right now because every pro and collegian and club runner thinks they're breaking through to the next level at these times trials and nobody is racing. Sub 4 was worth tracking because it meant you were relevant in an elite competitive setting (or very close). It simply does not anymore. It's an arbitrary time barrier without the same attachment to competitive relevance and, no, you aren't as special for doing it as the guys who did 20 years ago. I'm sorry. Go win a GD race. Remember that's what the "sport" is? Not a spreadsheet of names and times?