“Doctors and scientists said breaking the four minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt.” Roger Bannister, the man who said this, was the first person to ever run a sub-four minute mile, defying previously set limitations with a time of 3:55 (three minutes, fifty-five seconds). For nine years prior to this crucial race, breaking four minutes in the mile was widely viewed by experts, doctors, and professionals as impossible for the human body to undertake. It was written off as something that humans would never achieve, something that would kill anyone who even tried it. Roger Bannister, a medical student at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School, flipped the switch on all of these assumptions on a random day in May, 1954. His astonishing — and impressive — race left the world wondering: is there really such a thing as “impossible”? What are human limits, and how can we push them?
Since 1954, we’ve now beaten Bannister’s mile record by sixteen seconds with El Guerrouj’s incredible race in 1999, setting the new record at 3:43. This “trackflation,” as some refer to it, is defined as, “The constant theory that track times are getting faster,” according to junior cross country athlete Brian Moran. He goes on to explain that, “It’s a theory… but it’s also kind of happening in real life, too.” For example, if we continue talking about the mile, the new high school world record set in 2024 is 3:57. It was raced by a teenager, with high school-level training, but still defied past human limitations. For context, the agreed-upon best age for running mid-distance to long-distance events is generally someone’s late twenties to early thirties. This high school mile was raced by an eighteen year old, meaning he was around seven years younger than what we refer to as the “peak”. Additionally, previous records are smashed practically yearly in different events in track and field, such as Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s American women’s 400 meter (one lap around a track) record of 47.78 seconds set just this past September. Even locally, senior Emmy Freeman talks about her experience in the competitive running field, explaining that, “From my freshman year, the qualifying times were easier to reach, but now… it’s kind of hard.” We all know it: we’re getting faster. Times are dropping. Internationally, it’s getting harder and harder to keep setting records, and yet we still do keep setting records. So, how does that work?
When asked what he thinks about trackflation and the science behind it, Brian told me, “I think that the times are getting faster, but also we’re developing and researching new methods to create things that help us run… like better spikes and better synthetic tracks now that don’t necessarily give us an unfair advantage, but they help maximize the natural potential that we already have.” When researching spikes, which are the shoes many track runners prefer to wear while racing, there’s a noticeable difference between older models and models today. When El Guerrouj set the world record in the mile, he was wearing Nike’s Zoom Miler spikes, which were specially designed for him. However, these spikes, along with many other older models, featured a PVC plate, which is the hard plastic bottom of the shoe. Many popular newer models use carbon plates instead, which are said to reduce muscle fatigue, have a lighter weight, increase stability, and propel the athlete forward. In fact, carbon plated spikes have been scientifically proven to enhance performance 2-4% in experienced runners. Based on this information, if El Guerrouj had been wearing carbon inflated spikes during his mile world record race, he could have theoretically run around nine seconds faster, with a time of approximately 3:34. This is just one example of technological advancements for modern athletes, contributing to the faster times we’ve been seeing. Emmy agrees, saying, “I think that spikes help with track, because I used to be a sprinter and I would just not run in spikes, and that was really detrimental. As soon as I put on those spikes, you know, I got moving, times instantly dropped.”
In all of this science and physical proof of trackflation, the question remains: will it keep going? Are we going to continue to get faster? And, how far is too far? Emmy argues, “Our bodies can’t take, like… it’s physically impossible [to run a one minute mile],” but according to a study published in January of 2010, humans theoretically are biologically able to run speeds up to thirty-five or forty miles per hour. This is due to the human body’s muscles’ capability to contract fast enough to achieve this speed. Now, this study was more focused on sprints, but forty miles per hour roughly translates to a mile time of 1:30, or 22.5 seconds per lap (around 20.5 seconds faster than the current 400m world record). Current top speeds reached by sprinters are closer to twenty-eight miles per hour, so we could possibly continue to get faster for a long, long time. The times professionals are hitting today may seem insane, but while humans keep inventing new technology, we also keep pushing the boundaries of what is biologically possible. If Kelvin Kiptum was able to run a marathon, or 26.2 miles, at a pace of 4:36 per mile, who’s to say we can’t run much faster than that for one mile?
In conclusion, while trackflation may seem like a big deal to athletes today, coupled with the quick strides we are making in technological advancements as well as the scientific theories of the speeds humans could potentially reach, it seems like we may still have a ways to go before we really begin pushing the limits of our bodies. Even if we reach the theoretical fastest times we can get, how will we ever really know if we’ve actually run as fast as physically possible unless we keep pushing ourselves? Among very competitive professional runners, anything seems possible, especially if it’s in order to win the glory of world titles. As Brian puts it, “Obviously there’s natural limitations, but then on the other hand, to quote (marathon runner) Eliud Kipchoge, ‘no human is limited.’ If you think about it, as long as there’s more than one person who wants to win, it’s probably going to keep getting faster.”
