This past weekend, when Noah Bontrager of Indiana's Westview High School broke the tape in the boys mile at New Balance Nationals, he did so in 3:59.48. To track and field fans and athletes born in the past 20 years... big whoop, right? Sub-fours are an annual occurrence. Last year alone we had two high schoolers go even further and break 3:58!
But to anyone who came of age in the sport even half a generation earlier, a sub-four mile being the requisite to win a high school national championship remains jaw-dropping.
If you ran your first high school cross country race in 2005, at that point only one U.S. teenager had ever run a sub-four mile indoors: Alan Webb, in 2004. Back then, just four high schoolers had broken four, indoors or out! (That figure is 27 today!) Skip ahead to that school year's outdoor season, and if you dipped under 4:10 in the mile, you were ranked in the top six nationally. (Last year sub-4:10 barely slotted you inside the top 90.)
Drastic improvement in results aren't limited to boys middle distance racing. All but a small handful of indoor and outdoor national records for both boys and girls have been set in the 2020s.
In a world increasingly obsessed with nostalgia, spurred on by vibey TikToks and Instagram reels that misrepresent and glorify the past, made by people too young to remember it, it's important to recognize that some things are actually better now than they used to be. And that's certainly the case with being a high school track and field athlete.
You don't even need to look back to the stone ages--when kangaroo skin spikes, Olympic medalists chain smoking, and cinder tracks were the norm--to appreciate just how far we've come. Join us on a brief, supershoe-, double threshold-, and bicarb-aided stroll down memory lane, all the way back 20 years, for a recovery jog with the median high school distance runner from 2006.
Welcome, time traveler!
We're going on an easy five-miler. At least I'm pretty sure it's a five-mile route. Today we'll find out for sure.
Hold on. Can we wait for my new watch to connect to GPS? Pretty slick, huh? You better believe this bad boy will beep loudly every mile!
When we get back to campus, I'll jot down our time and distance in a notebook so that when I get home and have access to the computer I can manually input that data into a spreadsheet. Technology, huh? What a world!
Huh? What's this "Strava" thing you keep talking about?
Anyway, for now let's keep it easy. Got a big workout tomorrow: 8 x 400m at mile pace with three minutes rest between. It's going to be a blood bath. We did the same workout yesterday--sure hope I can go faster this time around. For some reason, I've had shin splints for six months.
What's my "lactate threshold?" You mean what's the most milk I've ever had in one sitting, right? Well, I took the "gallon challenge" last weekend. It was sick. You didn't see my new profile pic on MySpace?
Yeah. I heard about the gallon challenge from the internet. There was a crazy thread about it on a running messageboard? Didn't you see it?
Hm… yeah if that's what a "meme" is, it's a "meme." Haven't heard that word before--did you make it up?
You whip out your iPhone. I stop running, completely flummoxed.
You've been running with a little TV in your hand this whole time?!
By way of further explanation, you pull up Instagram, navigate to No Context XC Track's profile, and hand your phone over. I clumsily poke at the screen, ingest approximately 10 seconds worth of contemporary internet content and lose consciousness. When I come to, my nose is bleeding. You help me up.
Whew! My brain hurts. Ah man, better get back to it. If I want to qualify for State I really need to shave a few seconds off my mile… sub-4:30 or bust!
A car drives past dangerously close. As it zooms away, its driver leans his head out the window and shouts "RUN, FORREST, RUN!"
Man… that happens at least four times every run… huh? You don't get the reference?
I pause my enormous GPS watch and spend 10 minutes recounting the plot to 1994's Best Picture winner Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hanks, in excruciating detail.
...So then yeah, the movie ends with Forrest Junior riding a bus. Say, do you mind checking my form? I'm trying to be more floaty, practically kicking my own butt with each stride?
What do you mean "why don't I just look at pictures or videos from my last race?" It was an invitational in a city of a million people, not the freakin' Super Bowl. You think there were photographers? Okay, Hollywood! Just tell me how my stride looks. Just like El Guerrouj, right?... You don't know who El Guerrouj is?!
We'd made it about 200 meters before I pause my big old watch again to give a long and confusing hagiography of Hicham El Guerrouj, 1500 meter and mile world record holder, and 2004 Olympic gold medalist in the 1500 and 5000 meters. Disinterested but nervous to interrupt, you nod along, then offer up Matt Centrowitz as another example of a middle distance runner with a smooth, powerful middle stride.
Ah, I know about ol' Matty Centro--I hear he won the Nike Indoor Nationals 2-mile. I wonder how fast he ran?
You pull out your magical phone again and pull up MileSplit. "9:20.38," you inform me.
9:20? I've run 9:20! I would have won NIN if Coach had remembered to enter me. For Sure.
You toggle over to my MileSplit page to fact check my blatant lie. You are polite about it, but gently call me out for my dishonesty. My PR is 10:31. That was the first time anyone had ever verified my race results. (Lying about results used to be very easy!) Humiliated, I steer the subject back to Centro.
Uh… anyway… Centrowitz. I'll have to keep tabs on that guy. He's going places… say… what kind of shoes are you wearing? I can't help but notice they don't have a hard piece of plastic bolstering the arch, nor do they have gel, air, springs, or any other visible propulsive mechanism in the heels?
You try to describe how despite their lack of goo or shocks, they've got great energy return due to a carbon plate, and describe how Eliud Kipchoge broke two hours in an unofficial marathon wearing them. This time it's my turn to call you out for making outrageous claims. But you stick to your story and I let it go. Besides, I'm still curious about your bizarre moon shoes, which appear to have nothing in common with the toed, minimalist footwear worn by a handful of my teammates.
They're racing shoes, you say?... And you say somebody set the marathon world record in a pair? Impossible! They clearly weigh more than 5 ounces and you're too far off the ground. Everyone knows the fastest shoes are ballet slippers that dissolve off your feet at the end of each competitive season. Yours have waaaaaay too much foam!
Uh oh. I've disrespected pebax. Now it's your turn to pass out. When you regain consciousness, you are back in the present--your own time--with a greater appreciation for modernity and its many wonders.