I've already replied to JWH (see post #44). I rebut his arguments there.
What you two argue is in fact patently false. You'll find many, many top runners who raced less in 21 (and obviously 20) than in 19. (Just to take one really prominent example, Jakob Ing has 16 outdoor track results for 2019 on the World Athletics site but just 10 in 2021. There are loads of others with profiles like that.)
And do you really think loaded time trials weren't common before covid? That's obviously not true.
The competitive season was much longer in 2019 than 2021 (WCs in October vs August), so of course people raced more. Your claim was that we had fewer high level races the last 4 years due to COVID, which is false. 2020 was the only year without a full Diamond League schedule, and it’s already been pointed out that there were still plenty of time trial setups that year.
I would say loaded time trials have become increasingly common the past few years, probably starting in 2018. That was the first year we started seeing all-time marks in the 3k and 5k again after several down years. Just looking briefly at sub 12:50 5k races…
2010-17 Paris 2012 - 6 sub 12:50, 8 sub 13:00
2018-22 Brussels 2018 - 3 sub 12:50, 8 sub 13:00 Ostrava 2020 - 2 sub 12:50 Florence 2021 - 2 sub 12:50, 7 sub 13:00 Rome 2022 - 2 sub 12:50, 8 sub 13:00 Brussels 2022 - 2 sub 12:50, 6 sub 13:00
This doesn’t include Cheptegei’s WR, and if you want to remove Ostrava 2020 for lacking depth, that’s still four stacked sub 12:50 races in the past 5 seasons (and three in the past two), compared to one in the eight years from 2010-17. There are other ways to look at this, but I don’t think it’s unfair to say that we’ve seen a greater frequency of deep time trials in recent years, which was my original claim.
We can agree to disagree on the above, but you still haven’t explained the lack of 3:27s and 12:30s. The idea that there haven’t been enough races in the last 4 years for the effect of these spikes to be made evident isn’t convincing at all. Cheruiyot should have run 3:26 in 2019, Barega and Kiplimo should have run 12:30s in 2020, etc. Will you address this point?
To take the example I gave, Jakob Ing raced 15 times (according to world athletics, in outdoor track) in 2018, 16 times in 2019, and 10 in 2021. In 2018, another person I cited, Timothy Cheruiyot, also raced significantly more than he did in 2021, just as he did in 2019. There are plenty of others like them who also raced significantly more in 2018 than in 2018 (if you care to check around on the world athletics database). My point stands. You are just plain wrong on that count. The track world had not returned to pre-pandemic normal in 2021. You'll probably try to come up with some new strained explanation for this, but you are wrong on this point.
Your claim about time trials depends on flawed logic. You seem to think that if any given year doesn't yield super-fast times, then no one has made an attempt to produce super-fast times. There are of course other possible explanations (namely, the improved shoe tech and wavelight pacing, which I suspect has made a big difference as well). There have long been all sorts of meets (just for 10k, think Peyton Jordan and Hengelo) where good fields chase fast times. (I see that some poster -- not you, I realize -- cites the BU meets as evidence of a new emphasis on time trials, despite the fact that those indoor meets have been producing sizzling times for years and years.)
As for your point about specific times, that was not at all what I was addressing in my original response to your post. I was simply pointing out that it's disingenuous to compare results from 15-18 with 19-22 without acknowledging that the latter period saw a decline in the number of races -- which it most certainly did, however much you wish to believe otherwise. My claim was entirely related to that aspect of your post.
To be clear, I don't really have a dog in this fight over the new spikes -- at least any more than most of us do. It seems like a lot of the younger posters here are responding defensively about the shoes because they feel the legitimacy of their accomplishments has been questioned. But then you could just as easily say that us older runners are the defensive ones as we try to explain the dramatic improvements of newer generations of athletes. Personally, I am totally happy with the solid career I had (got to run at the IAAF world champs level, a dream come true) and am happy to see people going faster.
So in all sincerity I wasn't really weighing in on the broader debate about the spikes. I was just questioning the validity of comparing 15-18 results with 19-22 ones.
Another way to look at it. in 2019, 35 NCAA runners ran sub 4. In 2023, 35 NCAA runners ran 3:56.9 or faster.
You cannot even compare those two sample sizes. Do you know how many more 23-24-25 year olds were running in 2023 vs 2019..? Check it out thru IAAF site and others.
Ok, you will see in 2025 then, when COVID students will have been fully flushed out
Sorry, obvious typo in my last post: there are plenty of athletes who also raced much more in 2018 than they did in 2021 (just as they did in 2019). Hopefully that was clear.
JWH already answered this. 2020 was the only year the racing circuit was truly effected by COVID, and we saw an emphasis on running fast that season (Impossible Games, Monaco 1500, Cheptegei WRs, BTC Intrasquad, etc.). Your statement that fewer high level races occurred from 19-22 is patently false. If anything, time trial type races with incredibly deep fields became more common during that period to the point that they are now the norm.
That aside, if the spikes are worth 3 or more seconds per mile, why has no one broken 3:28 since 2015? Why haven’t the men who ran 12:40s pre-dragonfly run 12:30s or even 12:20s now? How do you explain the entire world suddenly getting slower?
There is zero evidence the spikes are worth anything remotely close to 3+ seconds per mile for elites.
I agree with most of this. I had said if shoes made that much a difference guys that ran 3:28-29 would be running 25-26 by now..has not happened.
Shoes matter more in training, allowing more workouts, quicker recovery times and lower injury risk. Athletes running 3:28 are already pushing the limits of the human body and live ideal training lifestyles, they get a bit of benefit from the shoes but not as much as a 4:00 college guy who consistently makes bad decisions on Saturday nights.
The impact of shoes will be greatest for athletes who were training at a moderately high level (vs. professionals).
Besides this, the impact of shoes is obvious when looking at the roads. You cannot deny this.
The benefits of super spikes in a single race is likely not the 4 seconds or so described in the study. Maybe 2 seconds. But not 4. The real benefit is the cumulative benefit of training in super spikes and vaporflys for several months. Again, athletes who are already running 3:28 are already approaching the limits of human capabilities, the shoes will make a less significant change on a percentage basis vs. the 4:02 college guy.
It's not 6th year seniors either. Such a stupid argument.
That would mean Jakob is slower now than he was at 17 when he ran 3:31.
I’ve tried dragonfly and I never beat my traditional spikes PR. I think it depends on the person but I don’t think they change anything during the race, they don’t even have a carbon plate. What they allow you to do though, is to train faster and do hard sessions in spikes more often without having dead legs the days after like with the old no cushion spikes. And if they improve your recovery obviously they will improve your performance, just like some doping methods do (e.g. : testosterone etc.).
I agree with most of this. I had said if shoes made that much a difference guys that ran 3:28-29 would be running 25-26 by now..has not happened.
Shoes matter more in training, allowing more workouts, quicker recovery times and lower injury risk. Athletes running 3:28 are already pushing the limits of the human body and live ideal training lifestyles, they get a bit of benefit from the shoes but not as much as a 4:00 college guy who consistently makes bad decisions on Saturday nights.
The impact of shoes will be greatest for athletes who were training at a moderately high level (vs. professionals).
Besides this, the impact of shoes is obvious when looking at the roads. You cannot deny this.
The benefits of super spikes in a single race is likely not the 4 seconds or so described in the study. Maybe 2 seconds. But not 4. The real benefit is the cumulative benefit of training in super spikes and vaporflys for several months. Again, athletes who are already running 3:28 are already approaching the limits of human capabilities, the shoes will make a less significant change on a percentage basis vs. the 4:02 college guy.
It's not 6th year seniors either. Such a stupid argument.
To add.
Another reason you don't see 3:25 is because the logistics of even setting up a race for 3:25 is so difficult. You need perfect pacing, perfect venue, perfect weather, at peak fitness, at the right time of the year, the right incentives, etc. It's legitimately so much easier to set up 8 heats of sub-4 opportunities at BU every weekend because there are dozens of guys in the area who can take a field through in 1:58 in a controlled and ideal environment.
Since the shoes have been released we've seen dozens of world records (3k indoors, 1500 indoors, 5k, 10k) national records (indoor mile, 5k, 10k) etc. The long standing 3:26.00 and 7:20 are inhuman marks and even bouncy shoes won't guarantee even the likes of Jakob a shot. However, they do offer a big boost to the 4:02 miler at *insert random New England school* at 3:59.
The only argument that superspike defenders have is that no clean athlete wearing them has broken the world record IN ONE EVENT of a guy who took every type of drugs known to man. It's such an idiotic argument.
The only argument that superspike defenders have is that no clean athlete wearing them has broken the world record IN ONE EVENT of a guy who took every type of drugs known to man. It's such an idiotic argument.
These morons expect a 3:26 every year.
I’ve never talked about 3:26.
I was talking about Jakob running 3:31 at 17 in 2018 pre « superspikes», 3:30 at 18 with « superspikes », 3:28 at 20 with « superspikes», 3:29 at 21 with « superspikes ».
According to your conversion Jakob at 18 is slower than 17 years old Jakob even though his world ranking improved a lot ? Heck even 21 years old olympic champion, world 5000m champion and 1500m silver medalist Jakob is slower than 17 years old Jakob who didn’t wear « superspikes » ?
The only argument that superspike defenders have is that no clean athlete wearing them has broken the world record IN ONE EVENT of a guy who took every type of drugs known to man. It's such an idiotic argument.
These morons expect a 3:26 every year.
I’ve never talked about 3:26.
I was talking about Jakob running 3:31 at 17 in 2018 pre « superspikes», 3:30 at 18 with « superspikes », 3:28 at 20 with « superspikes», 3:29 at 21 with « superspikes ».
According to your conversion Jakob at 18 is slower than 17 years old Jakob even though his world ranking improved a lot ? Heck even 21 years old olympic champion, world 5000m champion and 1500m silver medalist Jakob is slower than 17 years old Jakob who didn’t wear « superspikes » ?
You're assuming that progress, at approaching the limit of human performance as obvious by the number of sub 3:28 performances in history, is linear. You're actually not thinking critically at all. It is OBVIOUS that the benefit of super spikes in terms of seconds gained decreases as you approach world record paces because the the true benefit of the footwear comes in training not racing. This should be obvious for anybody with more than a dozen brain cells. It explains the explosion of fast miles and up across high school and college age males (and females, albeit to lesser extent). You're entire argument against the benefit of super shoes is that a single runner has yet to run 3:27 or faster at age 22 after running 3:31 at age 18. That's your entire argument. It's insane you don't realize how weak it is.
I was talking about Jakob running 3:31 at 17 in 2018 pre « superspikes», 3:30 at 18 with « superspikes », 3:28 at 20 with « superspikes», 3:29 at 21 with « superspikes ».
According to your conversion Jakob at 18 is slower than 17 years old Jakob even though his world ranking improved a lot ? Heck even 21 years old olympic champion, world 5000m champion and 1500m silver medalist Jakob is slower than 17 years old Jakob who didn’t wear « superspikes » ?
You're assuming that progress, at approaching the limit of human performance as obvious by the number of sub 3:28 performances in history, is linear. You're actually not thinking critically at all. It is OBVIOUS that the benefit of super spikes in terms of seconds gained decreases as you approach world record paces because the the true benefit of the footwear comes in training not racing. This should be obvious for anybody with more than a dozen brain cells. It explains the explosion of fast miles and up across high school and college age males (and females, albeit to lesser extent). You're entire argument against the benefit of super shoes is that a single runner has yet to run 3:27 or faster at age 22 after running 3:31 at age 18. That's your entire argument. It's insane you don't realize how weak it is.
your* entire argument. Additionally, all I have to do is point to the TFRRS descending order list and the insane number of records across high school, NCAA, US, other countries, and world records that have been obliterated since 2021, the first full season where super shoes where ubiquitous. You cannot explain any of that away in a rational way that doesn't end up at a singular catalyst -- the shoes. You're just saying "Oh So JaKob GoT sLoWeR...YeaH rIgHt". That's it. That's your argument. Jakob hasn't run 3:27 or faster yet, therefore, the shoes are not a significant driver to the decrease in times we see across the sport.
Were the same discussions had back in the 70's when PA11 plastics changed the spike plate world? Or in the 80's when air meshes changed it? Or in the 90's when carbon fiber plates changed it?
None of that even comes close in comparison to how much recent shoe tech has improved times. Some would argue that US times from the 90s didn’t improve at all from times US runners were running in the 70s and 80s.
I was talking about Jakob running 3:31 at 17 in 2018 pre « superspikes», 3:30 at 18 with « superspikes », 3:28 at 20 with « superspikes», 3:29 at 21 with « superspikes ».
According to your conversion Jakob at 18 is slower than 17 years old Jakob even though his world ranking improved a lot ? Heck even 21 years old olympic champion, world 5000m champion and 1500m silver medalist Jakob is slower than 17 years old Jakob who didn’t wear « superspikes » ?
You're assuming that progress, at approaching the limit of human performance as obvious by the number of sub 3:28 performances in history, is linear. You're actually not thinking critically at all. It is OBVIOUS that the benefit of super spikes in terms of seconds gained decreases as you approach world record paces because the the true benefit of the footwear comes in training not racing. This should be obvious for anybody with more than a dozen brain cells. It explains the explosion of fast miles and up across high school and college age males (and females, albeit to lesser extent). You're entire argument against the benefit of super shoes is that a single runner has yet to run 3:27 or faster at age 22 after running 3:31 at age 18. That's your entire argument. It's insane you don't realize how weak it is.
But that’s exactly what I was saying :
« What they allow you to do though, is to train faster and do hard sessions in spikes more often without having dead legs the days after like with the old no cushion spikes. And if they improve your recovery obviously they will improve your performance, just like some doping methods do (e.g. : testosterone etc.). »
I think you’re mistaking me with somebody else. I literally said the main benefit to me is during training and not the race, meaning the top athletes (who are probably already doping and/or optimising their recovery and training to the max) don’t benefit as much as highschool/collegiate/subelite runners. We all agree on that. And we all agree on the fact they made most people faster so I don’t understand what you’re trying to argue.
What I don’t agree on though, is the fact that they help you run much faster DURING the race. Obviously it depends on a lot of factors, like pace and biomechanics, but I don’t think it’s more than 1 second DURING the race if we’re already talking about people who are running at sub 4 mile pace, hence the Ingebrigsten argument.
To me, anyone claiming they would have run 3:56.8 with dragonfly, on the day they ran 4:00.0, in modern spikes, on a modern track, is probably crazy delusional and/or has never worn them in a race/training session.
I don’t know if there are any studies but maybe we could try to measure the oxygen consumption of a group of elite runners with and without super spikes at 4 minute mile pace and see if there is a big correlation.
But again, to me the main benefit is in training, and this benefit is huge, almost like doping for highschool/collegiate/subelite runners.
This post was edited 3 minutes after it was posted.
The only argument that superspike defenders have is that no clean athlete wearing them has broken the world record IN ONE EVENT of a guy who took every type of drugs known to man. It's such an idiotic argument.
These morons expect a 3:26 every year.
Well the superspikers contend that these spikes provide a 2-4 advantage/mile, so one would expect the top times to be getting faster instead of hovering at 3:28-29. Unless you think that all the best 1500 guys conveniently got 2-4 seconds slower at the same time the spikes were released.
I don’t know if there are any studies but maybe we could try to measure the oxygen consumption of a group of elite runners with and without super spikes at 4 minute mile pace and see if there is a big correlation.
Just to clarify, measuring oxygen consumption is only meaningful below threshold pace. Above threshold, where you're using significant amounts of anaerobic energy, oxygen consumption is no longer a meaningful proxy for energy consumption. That's what makes these studies hard.
The 3:56.8 estimate is based on measuring the oxygen consumption of collegiate runners at 6:00 pace, which was 2% better in superspikes than in regular spikes. So it's clear that the spikes have a real in-competition (not just training) effect at 6:00 pace. Obviously there's a big difference between 6:00 pace and 4:00 pace, so making estimates requires a bunch of assumptions (which are based on other studies, not just pulled out of thin air, but are still imperfect).
I think zzzz's data makes a pretty compelling argument that the effect gets smaller as pace gets faster, so 3:56.8 is probably an overestimate of the effect. But at the other extreme, I find the arguments that the effect is negligible - i.e. that the spikes "work" at 6:00 pace but somehow stop working when you speed up - to be odd. It's reminiscent of the debate around the Vaporfly, where there was clear lab data that the shoes worked, but a substantial number of people continued to insist for several years that the benefits wouldn't translate into actual races (until, eventually, the real-world data became overwhelming).
I was talking about Jakob running 3:31 at 17 in 2018 pre « superspikes», 3:30 at 18 with « superspikes », 3:28 at 20 with « superspikes», 3:29 at 21 with « superspikes ».
According to your conversion Jakob at 18 is slower than 17 years old Jakob even though his world ranking improved a lot ? Heck even 21 years old olympic champion, world 5000m champion and 1500m silver medalist Jakob is slower than 17 years old Jakob who didn’t wear « superspikes » ?
You're assuming that progress, at approaching the limit of human performance as obvious by the number of sub 3:28 performances in history, is linear. You're actually not thinking critically at all. It is OBVIOUS that the benefit of super spikes in terms of seconds gained decreases as you approach world record paces because the the true benefit of the footwear comes in training not racing. This should be obvious for anybody with more than a dozen brain cells. It explains the explosion of fast miles and up across high school and college age males (and females, albeit to lesser extent). You're entire argument against the benefit of super shoes is that a single runner has yet to run 3:27 or faster at age 22 after running 3:31 at age 18. That's your entire argument. It's insane you don't realize how weak it is.
So Cheptegei's WR wasn't aided by the spikes then because the spikes don't have an effect at WR paces?
The superspike ideology is getting really convoluted at this point. They give you a 2-4s advtange/mile, but ONLY if your slower, but ALSO all the fast times/records at the pro level are because of super spike technology. It's hard keeping up with all the contradictions at this point. For a spike to only have a benefit for slower runners would be an amazing piece of technology, if true.
The Outside article is full of it. Two thirds of one percent improvement is at best 1.4 seconds for a 4 min mile.
They said that on average a 1% improvement in running economy translated to roughly a 2/3 of a percent (0.67%) improvement in performance. That was just the approximate conversion factor. There was no claim that the improvement in economy was 1%.
Your estimates are well documented and reasonable. There are confounding factors, however, which include the placebo effect (the runners all know that they are wearing the "superspikes"), the prevalence of pacing lights, which help to even out and hence optimize pace, the increased prevalence of paced races (the BU indoor meets, the Portland Track Festival, the LA meet, the Sound Running meets), and the increased # of older runners in the NCAA still competing instead of retiring and starting a job because of the extra COVID years. In my analyses of indoor times in the winter, there was a major effect of older runners still competing in college and that can affect the world rankings for depth.
The more interesting story really is the claim to a 6% improvement in running efficiency from training in flats. You have to be careful about switching over to flats because of the achilles issues, which I got from workouts in flats about a decade ago, but that's a much larger effect (3x) than superspikes were credited.
Lots of good points here, but a couple of important caveats:
1.) the 1000th performer each year probably isn't benefitting from the pacing lights.
2.) the improvement in economy from training in flats was based on a sample of TWO runners. (The original sample was bigger but a lot of them dropped out, quite possibly because of injury.) The study authors said they plan to follow up with a larger study. It will be interesting to see what they find. I bet they still find benefits, but much smaller benefits than estimated here with n=2.
Other important point that always gets lost in these discussions - these estimates are group averages. A few months ago the guys on the Doctors of Running podcast (a group of doctors of physical therapy who are also decent sub-elite runners - one of them ran a 2:25 marathon recently) noted that in the experiments they've found that the individual variation in the running economy effects of supershoes is astronomical. They've found a few people who run worse in supershoes, and a few whose economy improves by something crazy like 7-8%.
This has been said a lot but I agree with the posters saying its the cumlative benefit of training in the new spikes/vaporflys. I would agree that the road shoes are what really made the difference on the track. Doing hard workouts and tempo runs in those shoes leads athletes less tired and beat up than they other wise wouldve been.