For several months each year, the primary cultural export out of Boston, Massachusetts isn’t sugary iced coffee in a styrofoam cup, gritty, Affleck-tinged movies about male loyalty, or even discourse around whether or not the Celtics’ core will “turn it on” before the playoffs.

No, it’s fast times thrown down on Boston University’s now world-famous indoor track. Seemingly every weekend from December to checks calendar March, now, apparently, the top runners at every level flock to the trampoline-like oval inside of a tennis practice facility just off of Comm. Ave to chew up and spit out the record book. And with the non-championship portion of the professional indoor season now fully sewn up, it was only fitting that the Center of the Indoor Universe churned one last batch of ridiculous performances, for good measure.

Heather MacLean showed up with the stated goal of bettering her placement on the global list just to guarantee her spot at World Indoors – and instead had herself an absolute day in the mile. She obliterated the just-set facility record in 4:17.01 and in the process broke the American indoor 1500m record: 3:59.60. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss: MacLean said she didn’t know what the pace lights were set at and simply ran hard from the front, and look what happened. Yared Nuguse ran 3:47.22 to win the men’s mile in the fifth fastest time ever indoors, and somehow everyone was disappointed. His mark would have broken the Internet(‘s top-visited running news websites) five years ago. Alas, such is life for a former world record holder, publicly proclaiming his desire to reclaim said record, and falling short.

Graham Blanks took time—7:29.72 worth of time, to be precise—out of writing his senior thesis to win the men’s 3000m, and cap off a tidy first professional indoor campaign. In the women’s 5000m Josette Norris held off a late charge from Emily MacKay after 25 laps, getting a small new PB of 14:44.80 to MacKay’s huge new PB of 14:45.81 (a 28-second improvement now U.S. #3 all-time indoors), both under the Tokyo 2025 standard. And Nico Young’s 12:51.56 5000m makes him the second fastest American ever over the distance, indoors or out.

Plenty of other pros did what they needed to do—like Sam Gilman, who, assuming he is granted leave from the Air Force, ought to be headed to World Indoors now. His 7:34.69 3000m puts him comfortably within the quota once the other Americans are removed. Similarly, Luke Houser and Sam Prakel’s 1500m splits from the mile sent them into the top 30 bubble needed to represent Team USA, negating any need to dive deeper into the U.S. Indoors results to come up with two entrants.

You’d be forgiven if your eyes have glazed over a bit at yet another rundown of Boston-based distance results with words like “all time list” and “record attempt” sprinkled throughout. It’s basically what happens whenever this facility is unlocked. But rather than grumble about time trials and pace lights (which weren’t really helpful in either mile race!) and pros skipping out on U.S. Champs to ship up to Boston, let’s take a different approach. Let’s meet them where they are. And where they are is Boston

This is where the pros want to race. Case in point: Sage Hurta-Klecker, who seemingly made a trip (alongside a large OAC contingent) out just to win the women’s 1000m (2:36.13) by over 20 seconds then pace the mile. Others, like her teammate Dylan Jacobs, squeezed a precious race effort in before his Team USA debut in Nanjing, taking a crack at a World standard in the 5000m. Let’s recognize that, and instead of trying to dissuade them from making the pilgrimage, let’s make the pro season work for everyone.

There are great things about racing at BU. It’s easy to get to for athletes and spectators alike. The tightly packed stands can create a deafeningly loud crowd willing to turn up and turn out for athletes like Grant Fisher and Graham Blanks. It’s usually a tightly-run, well-oiled machine.

There are also not-so-great things about BU. We’ve already kvetched about the spectator-unfriendly meet schedule, and the continued integration of collegiate and professional running dilutes the impact of the latter. Time-trial style racing can be exciting, but races like Nuguse’s mostly solo (with some company from teammates Mario Garcia Romo pacing and Olli Hoare sticking to his heels) mile attempt tend to create a high-stakes binary where the perceived success or failure of a whole race hinges on one athlete.