Global Track Check In

Laura Muir at the European Championships

This past weekend, I watched most of the European Indoor Championships in Glasgow because yes, I am that cool. I’m not really sure how much we should be taking away from an indoor event some seven months out from the World Championships in Doha, but I have to say I was very impressed with the performances from Laura Muir.

In the 3,000 meters, Muir went up against Konstanze Klosterhalfen of the Nike Oregon Project. Koko had been a tare since joining up with the most infamous training group in the USA, including a dominate 4:19.98 to win the Millrose Games Mile and an 8:32 in the 3k in Germany a week later. But Muir absolutely smashed Kloserhalfen in their duel at the Euro Indoors, dropping an 8:30.61 with a blazing final k.

Two days later, Muir lead wire to wire in the 1500, easily outclassing the rest of the field, including the world #2 in the 1500 this year Sofia Ennaoui. Again, she torched the track in the final 200 meters with a kick that I didn’t know she had available. It seems like a new weapon she recently added to her arsenal and it makes her very dangerous in the more tactical world championship finals (where she has had her fair share of struggles).

It’s still very early, but the Scots on Team Muir have a lot more to celebrate recently than Shelby Houlihan fans here in the states might.

Indoor Track

In case you haven’t noticed, indoor tracks have become pretty darn quick. Right up the east coast in Boston, one track in particular has stood out. On Sunday, Yomif Kejelcha absolutely smashed the indoor world record in the mile (and came within inches of breaking the 1500 record en route) with a 3:47.01. That’s not only 1.45 seconds faster than anybody in history, but when you compare it to outdoor times, it’s the fastest mile we’ve seen since 2007: Alan Webb’s American Record (shout out to the ghost of Steve Scott).

But this wasn’t the first moment of glory for this indoor track. Just a year earlier, Edward Cheserek ran a then #2 all-time mark of 3:49.44 on the blazing fast surface. And before all of that, Galen Rupp owned a permanent wing on the track where he chased American Records in everything from the 5k to the mile (he tapped out a 3:50.92 in 2013).

By the way, it wasn’t just Yomif blasting the all-time list on Sunday. Johnny Gregorek dipped under 3:50 with his 3:49.98 mile to move to the #6 position all-time and Sam Prakel matched Marcus O’Sullivan’s 10^th ranked mark. Neither have ever topped that outdoors which probably isn’t all too shocking when you consider Olympic Gold Medalist Matt Centrowitz’s outdoor best is “just” 3:50.53.

So that’s really the point I was (quite long-windedly) getting around to here. Are indoor tracks actually faster than outdoor tracks? When guys who are likely 5k specialists such as Kejelcha, Cheserek and Rupp are soaring to some of the fastest miles of all-time (marks they will likely never equal outdoors), should we begin to give more credence to the idea that indoor facilities are really the fastest we have available?

IAAF World Rankings

The IAAF has come out its new world ranking system and they seem ready to publicize it. The list is all over their official website in some form or another, categorizing runners current rankings, equivalent result scores and meet categories.

In case you haven’t seen (because only about 1% of the track community has), the IAAF has set up a system that aims to standardize performances based on the time (results score) and place in a given meet. The bigger the meet (the highest being the world championships/Olympic games), the more potential placing points that are available. The rankings then take an average of these performance metrics and rank the athletes in a given event based on said average. There’s a full, much more detailed and complex explanation available for those who are into that sort of thing on the IAAF website (I’ve already read the whole thing unsurprisingly).

If you’re any sort of track fan, I think it’s a lot of fun to click around the rankings. There are certainly some flaws (the NCAA meet results do not place out very well against many top Euro meets, despite the fact that it had likely the best competitors in the world in the men’s and women’s 400 hurdles and men’s 400), but I think it’s really helpful to have a starting point metric for, say, where one of the USA’s pole vaulters stack up against the best in the world.

What I find particularly interesting is the fact that the points are normalized across events so, in theory, you can rank a steeplechaser against a triple jumper or a marathon runner against a decathlete. I don’t think they actually intend to use this part of the rankings for anything (the individual event rankings could be used for future global championship qualifying), but it’s a fun little activity. Beatrice Chepkoech, recent world record holder in the steeple, ranks #1 on the women’s side while the USA’s 200 meter man Noah Lyles is tied with 400 hurdler Abderrahman Samba of Qatar. Freshly minted marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge comes in at #3 (my wife says he got robbed).