HOW ’BOUT that supernova of records across the 800–5000 spectrum reported in this issue? And not just records. Boggling rafts of fast times generally have flashed across December (think four led by Ethan Strand and Parker Wolfe under the 3000 CR plus Dorcas Lemngole nipping Parker Valby’s 5K CR at Colyear-Danville), then January and now February. It’s come mostly on the men’s side, though hang on. Indoor’s not yet over.
A quick rundown of the names (see news stories in this issue and For The Record for details):
800 — Josh Hoey AR, Cooper Lutkenhaus HSR, Tinoda Matsatsa AmCR.
1000 — Hoey AR, Matsatsa CR.
1500 — Strand =CR, Yared Nuguse AR, Cam Myers WJR, Gary Martin =CR, Jakob Ingebrigtsen WR.
Mile — Myers WJR, Strand CR, Nuguse WR, Myers WJR again, Ingebrigtsen WR.
3000 — Strand CR, Grant Fisher WR, Biniam Mehary WJR.
5000 — Fisher WR.
Phew! I’m fatigued though smiling just trying to keep track.
The flare on the oval has rewritten all-time lists and fired out head-swiveling stats: 10 Washington milers under 4:00 in a single meet at home on their newly reconfigured 307m track, 36 milers sub-4:00 at Hemery Valentine, 29 under the same (used to be?) barrier at Washington in the Husky Classic on the same weekend.
Between the Hemery and Husky meets, 16 men ran sub-3:55. A friend, whose tally I’ve not double-checked counted 92 sub-4s in our Latest Results links in one week in mid-February.
For an older feller (still a kid at heart), it’s hard to wrap one’s head around. Oh, to be 30-something like I once was, and at the time quietly skeptical of the suggestion Emil Zátopek could or should be compared to Haile Gebrselassie. What I’m watching happen has to be the greatest ever, right? 😁
Even today, I harbor impossible to prove suspicion that Geb training 30 miles a week and racing in 1950s shoes on cinder tracks might have bettered Emil’s WRs. I admit this even though I revere Zátopek and his feats.
Times and conditions change. You can’t go home again if home is a bygone era.
Times have changed, indeed. Fisher’s WR double within 6 days? Mind-blowing no matter which era, which shoes, or on which tracks — masterpiece running. Ditto for all the other records in the recent raft.
Admit it, though, if you’re over 30 (or maybe the cutoff is 40?), the revolution — spurred on by still improving super shoes, tracks like BU’s, the new Armory oval, the upgraded Dempsey, and, many coaches now suggest, bicarb loading — now 5 years in full swing has taken some getting used to. True no matter how golden this age looks to be for talent — and also intelligent preparation by its athletes and their coaches.
“It’s not so much the volume of new marks,” a friend and veteran chronicler texted me, “as the fact that all the greats of yesteryear are being washed overnight… because of a shoe.
“I carry 100-deep all-time lists for [preps in one state] and am dreading a wave of no-namers breaking into the lists because of the purchase their Pops just made.”
I feel that statistician’s pain — and try to file it mentally as growing pains of a sports fan. In 10 years, I’ve been telling myself for 5 years, we’ll again understand, as we used to, what “fast” is.
Give me a hammer-and-tongs race, or even a gut-checking solo effort (Fisher reported seeing stars over the last few laps of his 5000). I’ll still watch and the adrenaline will flow.
As a like-minded peer wrote to me, “Well, just about everyone worth their salt has access to some sort of super shoes at this point, so it should still be a level playing field. I’ve never had a problem with running tech (not doping!) leading to faster times. We [he and me] are of the era when it was a great treat to run on an all-weather track in high school, because we knew we were going to PR. I was always psyched because our league finals would be at [the nearest Div. I college facility] with their ‘rubber’ track!”
I’ll leave you with a graph from coach and statistical analyst Peter Thompson. It shows how NCAA indoor men’s times 800–5000 have shot skyward since ’21. There’s no room to show here but a comparison of indoor mile and outdoor 1500s strongly suggests the undercover super-ovals, not just the shoes, are a significant part of the story.
