Indoor times are getting faster. Way faster. The mile record has been broken back to back years (fairly dramatically this time around). The top 3 times in the state championship race rank among the top 6 or so times in meet history.
After the best 800m in state history a year ago, things were practically topped again this season with a whole new crew of Lewis, Graca and Ritz. Lewis came within 3 hundredths of a second of besting the state record. If he had, it would have been the 5th time in 7 years the state record was broken, an absurd amount of times for a record. Elias Graca's 1:50.86 probably wins 99.99% of state championships in the nations history, but it was silver on Sunday. Sam Ritz's 1:51.79 would have been top 12 or so all time nationally in 2009. Now it's fighting to hang in the top 7 of just the PA all time list.
Even the 3k, relatively tame by most standards time wise, produced 3 sub 8:40 marks for the top 3 finishers, an unthinkable series of marks as recently as 2005.
Now to be fair, give a record enough time and it will fall. What's the saying about records being made to be broken? If you look at the distance meet records outdoors they are basically all from recent years (CB South, Magaha, Wilson). However, the indoor records have been largely demolished and our standards for what is "good" have been dramatically altered. Just ask Alek Sauer who finished 4th in the 800m in 1:52.99, a mark faster than the meet record prior to 2009.
Some of this could do with over emphasis on indoor track. With the competition increasing, it takes more and more effort to maintain a state champion caliber effort. As a result, it's become harder and harder to hold that effort level through an entire year.
Since 2008, 3/21 indoor state champs have won individual outdoor titles in the same event, roughly 14%. Now some of that stat is misleading. A variety of those champs ran in the independent league and therefore could not defend their title. For example, Ritz already is in a position where he can't defend his title (unless we start giving real credibility to the meet of champions races this June). Lewis may switch to the 400m for spring given his team goals (although I certainly see it as unlikely). It's already been well documented that McGoey will have his hands full with the expected upswing in talent to the longer stuff.
Meanwhile, the 4x8s have had few problems defending their title outdoors. Since 2007, the indoor champ has taken gold again at Shippensburg every season but 2 (both years a D3 team won the title, in fact D3 Conestoga Valley also won in '06 to break up a repeat).
That's another piece of the puzzle here. Although D1 certainly tends to have a stranglehold on the state outdoors, we are often reminded just how strong the teams from other parts in the state are when they too have consistent opportunities to run fast times at fast meets. D3 has had 0 indoor state champs and Matt Wisner's 1:54 for 5th is among the fastest D3 times ever indoors. The guys nearby include 1:51/state champ types (Alec Kunzweiler and Andrew Rotz).
Basically I just threw a variety of stats with no clear conclusion at you in the last few paragraphs. Admittedly, that may be confusing. But I think that's the point. Trying to predict anything from indoor times in tricky. Trying to predict state champion performances is hard (take it from the guy who went 1/5 on Sunday).
So let's appreciate another phenomenal year on the indoor oval and pull up a chair for the next great show.
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