My high schooler wants to completely commit to sub 16 5k or 410 mile. Who can I pay to make this happen?

Op back again.... wrote:

I’m not as concerned about meeting a specific number. My question wasn’t “can he do it?” My question is how can I help him reach his potential. It’s not unusual that a high school team isn’t the best way to reach potential, right?

All good points, but I think this depends on the quality of coaching he is getting at the HS level and the # of competitive races he can get into during the season. To me, the training is not all that complicated. As a 4 min miler, you know which direction to point him and can recognize when his training is appropriate or conversely, out of bounds. Throwing $ at someone to tell him what you already know not the answer IMO.

The most critical point that has not really been discussed: your posts make it quite clear what you want, but how bad does he want it? If you want it more than he does, which is often the case for over-interested parents, you've got a problem that no amount of $ or elite level coaching will fix.

My son wants a father. Who can I pay to make that happen?

Only the best wrote:

Forget about running partners . The kid should run his individual best paces in training, not someone elses . And its just good to learn to pace himself.

The Magic Wizard JS will take him to his best level if he is committed to do the job.

The average improvement for the top 500 seniors in milesplit in 2018 from their freshmen times was 17 seconds. It only took 2 hours to come up with this.

El Cheapo wrote:

I know this is a troll but a 4:10 mile is about a 14:30 5k.

Not on a legit cross country course it isn't.

4:10 (1600) is closer to 14:55 5k cross country course.

Like wrote:

Which is it though? Sub 16 5k is like 3-4 months of work for a reasonable talented kid with some decent training and recovery.

4:10 mile could be multiple years worth of work and may just be unobtainable genetically.

Sub 16 in 3-4 months? What Koolaid you been a drinkin'?

It's not merely a matter of doing the workouts. There must be people to learn from and people to

train with. There must be adequate competition. He could do 4:10 in high school but it's more

likely that he will do it in college IF he is properly prepared mentally.

That is thing most overlook in this thread. You must love to run. Also it is up to him to get it done.

I would put a 4:10 1600 runner between 14:20 and 15 minutes on the track and 14:50 to 15:30 for XC.

This kid most likely will run 4:30 in HS and 4:20 in college. He and his father will be disgruntled when he receives no D1 interest.

Trent Sanderson

Team Prep USA

This is posted by Donny Scatena

gahagand wrote:

http://assets.ngin.com/attachments/document/0116/3778/1600m3200mTraining.TomSchwartz.AllRightsReserved.pdf

Literally just follow this and your son will be fine. He may never run 4:10, but he will certainly reach his potential off of this.

There is more to it than that. Even the author of that presentation will tell you that.

It's incredible to me how everyone just blindly follows Tinman without even trying to understand what he is teaching. It's how you apply it to your athlete is what matters. Tom is not giving you all his secrets. He has a few in his back pocket.

You guys are funny. "CV, this....", "200's after that..." It's comical

Email Rojo and have him and JK coach him

.

Is it really true that 410 is what it takes to get recruited? (actually now I kept reading and see it's still pretty good)

Sub 16 isn't nearly as good as 16.

But sub 410 used to be a phenom.

Good input (mostly) so far. I agree that I can cobble together a decent training program or find a good online coach. The hard part is training partners. Most of you would agree that training with others is better than training alone. A good piece of advice was hiring a college D1 kid to run miles/tempos/hills etc with him over the summer so 70mpw is a little more tolerable. And maybe a partner will help to push the pace.

As for the 410 mile, I realize that’s a lofty goal, but I like that he’s thinking it. The reason that’s the number is because even the worst D1 or ivy schools tell me they require 410 or they won’t even look at a kid. I think that’s BS, but it’s what I hear across the board. If 420 is recruitable, then this is reasonable to try too. Again, seems like it’s hard to get there without a high mileage school program or solid training partners.

The average improvement for the top 500 seniors in milesplit in 2018 from their freshmen times was 17 seconds. It only took 2 hours to come up with this. https://mobdro.io/

Interesting. Can you share the ranked list? I'd love to know the range and to see, for instance, how common a 30-second improvement was.

The LR community is the least fact based group of so called runners that I have seen (not actually seen). Whether it is academics, running improvement, recruiting stats, or employment, nobody here seems to want to base their opinions on facts. Every kid that writes in and asks about their possible improvement, is given some anecdotal evidence of significant improvement. Yes, 1-1000 kids will improve by a minute through HS but if the average is 17 seconds, that is the most likely for each poster who is asking. It also means that for every kid who improves by 34 seconds, there is probably one who makes no improvement.

On the other hand, no statistician treats the average as the most likely outcome for someone who does more than the average amount to achieve an outcome. At the very least, a good statistician looks at variability (e.g., range, SD, etc). And if they want to be transparent and they go to the trouble to get 500 values, they record them and make them available so that others can judge for themselves how likely a certain better-than-average improvement is.

In Bayesian terms, we want to know how likely it is that a runner with a specific time as a freshman runs a 4:10 as a senior, given his specific attributes, training, coaching, etc. We don't want to know the sum of 500 runners' growth divided by 500. That doesn't tell us the most likely outcome for anyone.

Maybe that is what you want to know but don’t tell me what I want to know or what the other readers and posters want to know.

It tells you the average amount of improvement for those 500 kids.