The Thrill Is Gone: An Essay on Becoming Numb to Progress

This essay is not a MAGA manifesto. This is not my reflection on how we are living in an age that needs to go back to where we once came from. No, rather this essay is a collection of thoughts on how we have advancement has made us numb to greatness. 

I’ve written many times about my ties to running. For decades, running has been a part of my life…as a competitor, as a profession, as an identity and as a fan. It’s this last bullet that I’m struggling with lately. As a fan of the sport, it is hard from me to be thrilled anymore. The thrill is gone. 

In high school, I remember scouring the nascent internet running sites for details on some of the most famed high school runners of all time - Alan Webb, Dathan Ritzenhein, and Ryan Hall. Seeing what these three were doing in the sport at such a young age filled me with inspiration and excitement. Webb crushing the mile in his senior year with a time of 3:53, Ritz winning Foot Locker Nationals 2x and Hall going 4:02 in the 1600. At the time, all of these were next level accomplishments.

Perhaps it’s because these were my peers, same graduating class, but I like to think the thrill gleaned from these three athletes was due to bearing witness to unprecedented performance. Since the dawn of the modern olympics, we have all been in pursuit of Citius, Altius, Fortius - faster, higher, stronger. Seeing any of these unfold with incremental, yet realistic advancement, kept us on the edge of our seat. 

Webb’s 3:53 mile at the 2001 Prefontaine Classic was a race for the ages. He was toeing the line with all-time greats - Hicham El Guerrouj, Bernard Lagat, Kevin Sullivan and the like. The race was filled with many stories - the young buck vs the vets, El Guerroug vs Lagat, the ghost of Pre. The race was bubbling over with anticipation and the suspended disbelief of what could be. The race and running at-large were filled with thrill. At the time, it felt like we were witnessing that which was unthinkable, an American-born high schooler running 3:53 mile. It was fun.

Fast-forward to today and running is devoid of all of this - the stories, the drama, the unprecedented. Times that once would be admired in awe are now weekly occurrences. Storylines are in inauthentic. There are multiple commercialized high school national championships. The world’s best runners rarely competing and dodging competition. It’s all just so uninspired. It’s all just non-thrilling.

The subjective evaluation is not lost on me, so let’s throw in some detail to illuminate the point. Between 1964 and 2001 a sub-4 min mile was run 7 times by three different high school athletes. In 2001, Webb ran sub-4 twice, and a high schooler didn’t break 4 again until 2011. Thus far, in 2025, 7 high school boys have run sub 4. A feet that use to come around every decade is now happening monthly. And this isn’t exclusive to high schoolers, absurdly fast times are being regularly posted by professionals. 12 of the top 25 all-time mile times have been run in the last 4 years. Each pro race now posts sub 3:50 miles as a matter of expectation, not exception. What once was rarely witnessed is now table stakes. The thrill is gone. 

So what is going on? Clearly humans haven’t had some meteoric improvement in potential. There hasn’t been some magical unlock that everyone is tapping into. Training and workout regimens aren’t materially different today than they were decades ago. So what is going on? To answer this, let’s let Mars Blackmon take the mic…GOTTA BE THE SHOES

In 2016, Nike released the first carbon plated shoe, aptly known as a “super-shoe”. The shoe was the Nike Vaporfly 4% because it touted a 4% improvement due to limited lost energy. In the following 9 years, nearly every major shoe company has their own version of ’super-shoes’ and they continue to advance and enhance athletic performance. And it’s this advancement that is making us numb to barriers being broken by humans. 

When we see week-in and week-out times being posted that make the loyalist of running dorks respond with “oh, another 3:47 mile by some random no-name runner” it’s hard to be excited. What was once novel is now mainstream. What once was a display of pure human talent is now an esposé of advanced technology. I recognized that running is a fringe sport and many have zero concern for it. As such, this deep-dive through the lens of running may have lost many of you. Nevertheless, when you take a step back, I assume that when you think about the broader narrative at play, you too feel this numbness, this lack of thrill surrounding your daily life. 

Remember back in the early days of WWDC and Steve Jobs Apple announcements…Those conferences were amazing displays of advancement and wonder, always capped off with “One More Thing”. We all sat entranced by the never-before-seen. We all rushed to get the next new thing. We all saw tomorrow coming to life today. 

Maybe it’s just me, but those days of wonder and awe have officially jumped-the-shark. WWDC is now filled with commentary on camera advancements or some ridiculous headset that will never hit mass market. As of late, conferences are anchored to the future of AI, with subsequent news articles highlighting the potential negative impact it will have on society. We are now in an age of announcements that strike more fear than aspiration, more moral-questioning than altruistic evangelism, more apathy than affinity. At the moment, it feels as if our advancement is less concerned with doing big bold things in pursuit of human potential and more concerned with doing things because we can. This begs the question, “simply because we can, should we?”

I am far from a technology naysayer, nor am I suggesting that advancements in performance apparel shouldn’t be sought after. This essay is not advocating for days gone by. This essay is simply suggesting that as we pursue advancements in technology, be it software, hardware, softgoods or the like, it does come at a cost. For me, that cost is excitement, edge-of-the-seat anticipation, bated-breath. The thrill is gone.