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Updated 8/11/2020
One question common for humans to ask themselves is how they compare to humans of the past. In fact, we see this every day. Does the new social media age of connectedness help us or hurt us compared to past generations? Are we less sustainable than our grandparents? What is the town's population now compared to 1950? And, of course, the most important question: how do the winning times at state track compare to those of 30, 40, or even 50 years ago?
This is the first step in my goal to try to understand where we are at as a state. Inevitably we expect the times to improve over time, but do they really? The best and most complete way to look at this would be to average the finishing times of the first 5 or 6 places and see how they compare over time, but looking first at the winning times is a fun exercise.
As a disclaimer, there will be years with outlying times, such as freak athletes or terrible weather, but we are looking at trendlines here. If the best athletes in the state are getting better over time, the data should show that. Let's take a look!
*Note, you can click on pictures to enlarge them. I know the font is quite small.
The 1600 Meter Run:
In Class A Boys, the 1600 has been run every year since the start of the state meet in 1903. Until 1980 it was the mile, but I have converted every winning time over to our current metric system so as to have fluidity between years. In 1950, Class B Boys branched off from Class A and formed the two divisions that we still see today, even though schools have jostled around, and some schools that were Class A in 1950 are now Class B (Rubgy and Grafton are good examples). The Women's races didn't come around until 1972, but they started off as A and B separated. Here's the chart:
The 1600 Meter Run:
In Class A Boys, the 1600 has been run every year since the start of the state meet in 1903. Until 1980 it was the mile, but I have converted every winning time over to our current metric system so as to have fluidity between years. In 1950, Class B Boys branched off from Class A and formed the two divisions that we still see today, even though schools have jostled around, and some schools that were Class A in 1950 are now Class B (Rubgy and Grafton are good examples). The Women's races didn't come around until 1972, but they started off as A and B separated. Here's the chart:
Quick note: The x-axis represents years starting at 1903 and ending at 2019. '1' is 1903, and '117' is 2019.
Analysis: For the boy's races, it is readily apparent that there is an overall downward trend, most pronounced in the early years, but leveling off towards the end. Most years the winning time in Class A is faster than that of Class B, which is normal (more kids, more coaches, better facilities, etc). What struck me immediately was that after the early 1970s, there seems to be a flattening out of the times. Yes, there have been fast times, but the times seem to oscillating around a flat line, rather than a downward trend. In fact, in the 1990s, times actually slowed on average. My high school coach would tell me about the great runners of the first running boom (70s and 80s) and then a decline after that, and this seems to substantiate that. It seems here that the state's best haven't gotten better since the 1970s.
For the girl's races, it's a bit of a different story. There's not as many years overall, so it's harder to establish a pattern, but outliers skew the lines a little more. First observation: the disparity between Class A&B is much more, with the exception of the Krista and Lindsay Anderson years in the early 2000s where they completed dominated girl's distance running. Also, that huge dip down on the Class A girls side is Becki Wells, who is the fastest miler ever produced by this state (read more about her here). Overall, the Class B girls, even with the bouncing up and down, have trended downward even through the 90s and 2000s, while the Class A girls are really all over the place and show no general trend after 1980s.
The 800 Meter Run: The 800 was the other race that has been run since a LONG time ago, and it started as the 880-yard run in 1911. I've again converted all the times before 1980 over to the 800 meter. Class A Boys started in 1911, Class B Boys branched off in 1950, Class A Girls started in 1970, and Class B Girls branched off a year later in 1971. Here's the chart:
Quick note: On the x-axis, '1' represents 1911 and '109' represents 2019.
The chart for the 800 looks similar in many ways to the chart for the 1600. The times immediately go down quickly, but for the men they stabilize somewhat and for the women's oscillate more. In this chart, the Class A Boys start leveling off again in the 1970s after continual down-trend. The Class B Boys leveled off in the 1980s, and actually had been trending upward for 15-20 years after 2000, but there have been some studs recently that have lowered that. The Class A Girls only took a few years to get down into the mid-2:10s, but they have oscillated around that mark since. The Class B Girls trended downward straight into the Christine Bruins/Anderson sisters years in the early 2000s again, but immediately went up, so no clear trend overall is there.
The 3200 Meter Run:
This has been a relatively new event to the state meet. It first didn't appear until 1971, when both Class A&B Boys competed in it. The Girls A&B both started in 1982 after a couple years of the 2400 meter run. This event started as the 2 mile, but went to the 3200. I converted times over again. Here's the chart:
The chart for the 800 looks similar in many ways to the chart for the 1600. The times immediately go down quickly, but for the men they stabilize somewhat and for the women's oscillate more. In this chart, the Class A Boys start leveling off again in the 1970s after continual down-trend. The Class B Boys leveled off in the 1980s, and actually had been trending upward for 15-20 years after 2000, but there have been some studs recently that have lowered that. The Class A Girls only took a few years to get down into the mid-2:10s, but they have oscillated around that mark since. The Class B Girls trended downward straight into the Christine Bruins/Anderson sisters years in the early 2000s again, but immediately went up, so no clear trend overall is there.
The 3200 Meter Run:
This has been a relatively new event to the state meet. It first didn't appear until 1971, when both Class A&B Boys competed in it. The Girls A&B both started in 1982 after a couple years of the 2400 meter run. This event started as the 2 mile, but went to the 3200. I converted times over again. Here's the chart:
Quick Note: On the x-axis, '1' represents 1971, and '49' represents 2019.
In the previous graphs, it has been apparent that a downward trend has ceased starting in the 1970s. In this chart, where that's the starting point, we can see that for the Boys A&B there really hasn't been any significant change in the trendline over time, certainly not downwards. In terms of average and trendlines, there hasn't been much change for the Girls A&B either, but again the outliers are more pronounced. We can again see the Anderson years in the Class B Girls line, and the years following Carly Emil's performance on the women's (they form an X on the chart). In this chart you get to see the only distance record held by a Class B runner: the women's 3200. The state meet record is still held by Krista Anderson, and no Class A runner has been able to top it, before or since.
The 4x800 Meter Relay:
The newest distance event at the state track meet, the 4x8 was started in 1974 with both A&B Boys, while both A&B Girls started in 1982. It started as the 2 mile relay, but switched over to the 4x800. I converted the times over. Here's the chart:
In the previous graphs, it has been apparent that a downward trend has ceased starting in the 1970s. In this chart, where that's the starting point, we can see that for the Boys A&B there really hasn't been any significant change in the trendline over time, certainly not downwards. In terms of average and trendlines, there hasn't been much change for the Girls A&B either, but again the outliers are more pronounced. We can again see the Anderson years in the Class B Girls line, and the years following Carly Emil's performance on the women's (they form an X on the chart). In this chart you get to see the only distance record held by a Class B runner: the women's 3200. The state meet record is still held by Krista Anderson, and no Class A runner has been able to top it, before or since.
The 4x800 Meter Relay:
The newest distance event at the state track meet, the 4x8 was started in 1974 with both A&B Boys, while both A&B Girls started in 1982. It started as the 2 mile relay, but switched over to the 4x800. I converted the times over. Here's the chart:
Quick Note: '1' on the x-axis represents 1974, while '46' represents 2019.
This chart can be suggestive of strength and depth of the best distance teams over time, not just individuals. In the A&B Boys we can actually see a slight upward trend throughout the entire chart, while the B Girls show a downward trend for the first half, and then an upward trend for the second half. Only the A Girls show a downward trend throughout the chart, and that surprises me. I guess I expected all of these to be going down over time.
Summary:
I went into this expecting all of the charts to show nice downward trends throughout the years, and I was mistaken. In the first three charts, the individual events, the fastest high school distance runners in the state seem to, as a whole, not have improved much in the last 40 years (with the obvious outlier exceptions). What was most surprising was the in the 4x800 relay chart, we actually see some slight upward trends. Now, as I stated at the beginning, there could be other factors such as weather that come into play, but over the span of decades, if there was a trend to be seen, it would show up. I guess, for now my preliminary conclusion is that the best distance runners in the state haven't gotten faster in the last 30-40 years. However, my next blog post is going to look at the average time of the top 4-5 places in all these events, and then we will get a better idea of how our state fares nowadays. That blog post might take awhile though!
This chart can be suggestive of strength and depth of the best distance teams over time, not just individuals. In the A&B Boys we can actually see a slight upward trend throughout the entire chart, while the B Girls show a downward trend for the first half, and then an upward trend for the second half. Only the A Girls show a downward trend throughout the chart, and that surprises me. I guess I expected all of these to be going down over time.
Summary:
I went into this expecting all of the charts to show nice downward trends throughout the years, and I was mistaken. In the first three charts, the individual events, the fastest high school distance runners in the state seem to, as a whole, not have improved much in the last 40 years (with the obvious outlier exceptions). What was most surprising was the in the 4x800 relay chart, we actually see some slight upward trends. Now, as I stated at the beginning, there could be other factors such as weather that come into play, but over the span of decades, if there was a trend to be seen, it would show up. I guess, for now my preliminary conclusion is that the best distance runners in the state haven't gotten faster in the last 30-40 years. However, my next blog post is going to look at the average time of the top 4-5 places in all these events, and then we will get a better idea of how our state fares nowadays. That blog post might take awhile though!
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