Login | June 23, 2025
Running world records falling like leaves
PETE GLADDEN
Pete’s World
Published: June 23, 2025
Over the past several months I’ve gotten dizzy watching one professional runner after another break world records - almost on a weekly basis - and I’ve had to ask myself, “What in the heck’s going on here?”
As of late America’s Yared Nuguse broke the mile world record at New York’s Millrose Games with a 3:46:63, only to have that record broken the same week by Jakob Ingebrigtsen who bettered Nuguse’s record by over a second.
What’s more Ingebrigtsen then went on to smash the 1500m indoor world record with a 3:29:63.
Then we had American Grant Fisher run a stunning 7:22:91 3000m indoor world record at Millrose, breaking the previous world record by over a second.
And if that wasn’t enough Fisher went on to break the 5000m indoor world record in Boston with a 12:44:09.
Now for those who aren’t track savvy, that 5000m feat is analogous to running three consecutive 1600 repeats in under 4 minutes each.
But I’m not done.
Finally, there’s Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo who absolutely obliterated the half marathon world record by running a mind-numbing 56:42.
And again, for those who aren’t run savvy, that accomplishment averages out to about 4:20/mile for 13.1 consecutive miles.
So all this record-breaking got me curious.
And after a little digging through the Internet I found that some of running’s top analysts believe this flurry of world bests can be attributed to several key factors.
Running shoe technology
I briefly touched upon this subject in a Legal News column back on Nov. 6, 2023, Women’s Marathon Record Obliterated, in which I discussed the high tech running shoes used by Ethiopian marathoner Tigst Assefa - shoes which some curmudgeons in the running hierarchy want banned.
Today’s pro level running shoes, termed “super shoes” consist of springy layers of specialty foam and carbon fiber plates, thus allowing the shoes to actually give back energy to the runner with each and every step.
Experts claim these shoes provide runners with 2 to 4% more efficiency per stride - a percentage which is absolutely game changing.
Electronic Pacing Lights
Have you ever watched a race where there were lights surrounding the track that blinked as the runners ran alongside them?
Well, these LED lights are turning out to be a heck of a lot more accurate than human pacers, this because they allow the runners to know to the second whether or not they’re on record pace.
Running Track Technology
Not only are today’s shoes more high tech, so to are today’s running tracks claim the experts.
Now when I was a track and field athlete in high school we had a state of the art rubberized track.
And let me tell you, that track was fast as heck compared to the cinder tracks.
Well, I’ve come to learn that today’s tracks make those old rubberized tracks of the 1970s seem as slow as the cinder tracks had felt to me.
And this is because they’re made of materials, much like the new running shoes, that return energy back to the runners with each and every stride, thereby helping to perpetuate a runner’s momentum.
Add to that banked turns that help to reduce the centrifugal force which tends to pull a runner to the outside of the track.
High tech training and recovery
My gosh, this area is a column unto itself.
Today elite level runners can attend altitude training camps thereby enabling them to train high and race low; they can wear devices like GPS, HRV, lactate and sweat monitors; they can sleep in hyperbaric oxygen chambers; and they can utilize cryotherapy and infrared therapy to speed up the recovery process after brutally tough workouts.
What’s more the coaching and training has come such a long way that virtually every component - nutrition, hydration, physiology, biorhythm - of an athlete’s life can be analyzed to the nth degree.
Diet and nutrition
Today’s pro runners typically train in tandem with a dietitian who likely has graduate degrees in sports nutrition, exercise physiology, exercise science and kinesiology.
Thus, a runner’s nutritional and hydration regime is as exacting as the runner’s physical training regime.
With all this being said, I guess it really shouldn’t be much of a surprise that running, like every other sport, is reaping the rewards of decades worth of technological as well as intellectual innovations.