Recently at the Valencia half marathon, the Spanish and Portuguese half marathon record were broken (both faster than Ryan Hall's 59:43) and a native-born Italian guy also ran under Ryan Hall's AR. I would guess that very few posters here have actually heard of these guys (Carlos Mayo, Samuel Barata, Pietro Riva) and are aware of their 10k PRs (27:25, 28:03, 27:50, respectively). American Abbabiya Simbassa (10k pr of 27:45) even showed up in 2022 and ran a 1:00:37, currently tied for 5th all time for Americans. We have a number of active Americans with faster 10k PRs in the peak of their careers that have never even attempted a half marathon and for some reason seem completely allergic to the distance (calling out Grant Fisher, Woody Kincaid, Joe Klecker, Sean McGorty, and all their coaches). Guys like Rupp and Korir waited until the twilight of their track careers to take a crack at it. Fyi, it takes like a week to recover from a hard half marathon, 10k training easily scales up to the distance, and it's not going to ruin your career or even your plan for the season.
Furthermore, the top lists for the half marathon are littered with times from Valencia, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Ras Al Khaimah, The Netherlands, and other European destinations. Very few African and European elites even bother with considering American half marathons to run a fast time (I'm sure elite sponsor money and travel is an issue but our courses and field depth don't offer much as well). To my knowledge, the only non-doper to run under 59:00 minutes on American soil was Geb in Tempe, AZ, in 2006. The fact of the matter is that very few American half marathons provide the money, fast courses, race organization, and deep competition that will lead to record breaking performances.
My point is that it's an absolute joke that Ryan Hall's half marathon record still stands with the 10k times our guys are running these days. Only 4 Americans have ever run 1:00 or faster in the current age when super shoes and unbelievably deep races are so easily accessible. Athletes, coaches, and sponsors need to get their crap together and make a serious attempt at the half marathon record in actual elite fields abroad (Houston doesn't count) rather than do their manicured half dozen track races a year in controlled environments. Stop avoiding road races until the injuries pile up or you lose your speed! Emily Sisson didn't wait to run fast on the roads and look at her career. Kiera D'Amato took a risk by traveling to Australia for the Gold Coast Half and broke Sisson's AR. And I don't want to hear anyone complain about money because any major American marathon costs just as much as flying to Europe for a big race these days.
I write this as a guy that recently traveled to Europe for a fast half, ran a PR, and concluded it was totally worth it. Anyways, that's my speech, thanks for reading.