diff --git a/WORKSPACE b/WORKSPACE
index 4f90f06d881..9b79d04cde6 100644
--- a/WORKSPACE
+++ b/WORKSPACE
@@ -33,26 +33,36 @@ bind(
     actual = "@submodule_gtest//:gtest",
 )
 
+bind(
+    name = "gflags",
+    actual = "@com_github_gflags_gflags//:gflags",
+)
+
 new_local_repository(
     name = "submodule_boringssl",
-    path = "third_party/boringssl-with-bazel",
     build_file = "third_party/boringssl-with-bazel/BUILD",
+    path = "third_party/boringssl-with-bazel",
 )
 
 new_local_repository(
     name = "submodule_zlib",
-    path = "third_party/zlib",
     build_file = "third_party/zlib.BUILD",
+    path = "third_party/zlib",
 )
 
 new_local_repository(
     name = "submodule_protobuf",
-    path = "third_party/protobuf",
     build_file = "third_party/protobuf/BUILD",
+    path = "third_party/protobuf",
 )
 
 new_local_repository(
     name = "submodule_gtest",
-    path = "third_party/googletest",
     build_file = "third_party/gtest.BUILD",
+    path = "third_party/googletest",
+)
+
+local_repository(
+    name = "com_github_gflags_gflags",
+    path = "third_party/gflags",
 )
diff --git a/third_party/gflags b/third_party/gflags
index f8a0efe03aa..30dbc81fb5f 160000
--- a/third_party/gflags
+++ b/third_party/gflags
@@ -1 +1 @@
-Subproject commit f8a0efe03aa69b3336d8e228b37d4ccb17324b88
+Subproject commit 30dbc81fb5ffdc98ea9b14b1918bfe4e8779b26e
diff --git a/tools/run_tests/run_microbenchmark.py b/tools/run_tests/run_microbenchmark.py
index 262c05b4218..d709cfc92a4 100755
--- a/tools/run_tests/run_microbenchmark.py
+++ b/tools/run_tests/run_microbenchmark.py
@@ -93,7 +93,9 @@ def collect_latency(bm_name, args):
                                        '--benchmark_list_tests']).splitlines():
     link(line, '%s.txt' % fnize(line))
     benchmarks.append(
-        jobset.JobSpec(['bins/basicprof/%s' % bm_name, '--benchmark_filter=^%s$' % line],
+        jobset.JobSpec(['bins/basicprof/%s' % bm_name,
+                        '--benchmark_filter=^%s$' % line,
+                        '--benchmark_min_time=0.05'],
                        environ={'LATENCY_TRACE': '%s.trace' % fnize(line)}))
     profile_analysis.append(
         jobset.JobSpec([sys.executable,
@@ -105,7 +107,7 @@ def collect_latency(bm_name, args):
     # consume upwards of five gigabytes of ram in some cases, and so analysing
     # hundreds of them at once is impractical -- but we want at least some
     # concurrency or the work takes too long
-    if len(benchmarks) >= min(4, multiprocessing.cpu_count()):
+    if len(benchmarks) >= min(16, multiprocessing.cpu_count()):
       # run up to half the cpu count: each benchmark can use up to two cores
       # (one for the microbenchmark, one for the data flush)
       jobset.run(benchmarks, maxjobs=max(1, multiprocessing.cpu_count()/2),
diff --git a/tools/run_tests/sanity/check_submodules.sh b/tools/run_tests/sanity/check_submodules.sh
index 0b68319d290..cfe4e2731c0 100755
--- a/tools/run_tests/sanity/check_submodules.sh
+++ b/tools/run_tests/sanity/check_submodules.sh
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ cat << EOF | awk '{ print $1 }' | sort > $want_submodules
  44c25c892a6229b20db7cd9dc05584ea865896de third_party/benchmark (v0.1.0-343-g44c25c8)
  78684e5b222645828ca302e56b40b9daff2b2d27 third_party/boringssl (78684e5)
  886e7d75368e3f4fab3f4d0d3584e4abfc557755 third_party/boringssl-with-bazel (version_for_cocoapods_7.0-857-g886e7d7)
- f8a0efe03aa69b3336d8e228b37d4ccb17324b88 third_party/gflags (v2.2.0)
+ 30dbc81fb5ffdc98ea9b14b1918bfe4e8779b26e third_party/gflags (v2.2.0)
  c99458533a9b4c743ed51537e25989ea55944908 third_party/googletest (release-1.7.0)
  a428e42072765993ff674fda72863c9f1aa2d268 third_party/protobuf (v3.1.0-alpha-1)
  bcad91771b7f0bff28a1cac1981d7ef2b9bcef3c third_party/thrift (bcad917)