American high school JUNIOR runs 3:39.0!

And a Happy (early) 65th Birthday to J.R.!

webb was better.

That's a career I would love to have had. Pretty much could retire from running in his mid 20s.

yeppppp wrote:

webb was better.

This, my friend, is what is known as...AN OPINION!!

Sure,...Alan Webb ran a faster time, but relative to the world record, AW wasn't close. Give Jim Ryun the benefit of better understanding of training and better track surfaces, and he most likely would have been AW's superior.

Anyway, it's silly to make comparisons across generations like this because there are too many factors at play. In any event, I think your opinion is misguided. But mine is no more substantiated because, after all, it's also an opinion.

the 3:39.00 is the american youth 1500 record to this day.

jacob burcham is a major threat to that record this year, burcham has said the 3:39 youth record and the 2012 world junior champs are his main goals this year. good luck to him.

ryun also still has the american junior records in the 800, 1500, mile, and 3000, most people are shocked ryun has the 1500 and mile american junior records, because everyone thinks webb broke those records, but webb did not. http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/index.php/tafn-lists?list_id=31&sex_id=M&yyear=2008

douglas burke wrote:

the 3:39.00 is the american youth 1500 record to this day.

jacob burcham is a major threat to that record this year, burcham has said the 3:39 youth record and the 2012 world junior champs are his main goals this year. good luck to him.

Burcham get the record?

He doesn't have a prayer at it. Especially when he'll have the Kenyans running circles around him on the track while he races.

Here is a thought for you wrote:

yeppppp wrote:

webb was better.

This, my friend, is what is known as...AN OPINION!!

Sure,...Alan Webb ran a faster time, but relative to the world record, AW wasn't close. Give Jim Ryun the benefit of better understanding of training and better track surfaces, and he most likely would have been AW's superior.

Anyway, it's silly to make comparisons across generations like this because there are too many factors at play. In any event, I think your opinion is misguided. But mine is no more substantiated because, after all, it's also an opinion.

Interesting: did we really have a worse understanding of how to train in the 1960's than we did in the late 90's (when Webb and Ritz first showed up)?

Seems like the 60's produced a whole lot better runners... Ryun, Lindgren, Pre, Riley, Danielson, Liquori, Sullivan, Dulong, etc. ... seems just as good or better than the era of Webb, Ritz, Sage, Hall, Powell, Jennings, Sanchez and Riley. That was, after all, essentially the beginning of the first "golden era" of American distance running vs. the end of the "dark era".

I'll give you better tracks and shoes, though (and the comforting benefit of knowing great feats such as a sub-4 mile can be achieved, as they had happened before).

douglas burke wrote:

http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/toplists/inout=o/age=y/season=0/sex=M/all=y/legal=A/disc=1500/detail.html

lol taking Kenyan junior records seriously. You're funny.

Webb was good but Webb's overall highschool portfolio is not even close-- even forgetting what era they were running in -- just based upon time alone.

High school athletic achievements:

-In 1964 Ryun became the first high school runner to break four minutes for the mile, running 3:59.0 as a junior at Wichita High School East in Wichita, Kansas.

- Established the high school and U.S. open mile record 3:55.3 as a senior in 1965, a record that stood as the high school record for 36 years until broken by Alan Webb's 3:53.43 in 2001. It is also the last time an American male high school athlete broke an open American record in a major outdoor track and field event. In this record race he beat the reigning Olympic champion and former world record holder Peter Snell of New Zealand.

-His 3:58.3 to win the mile at the 1965 Kansas High School State Meet is still the record for the fastest time ever in a race that includes only high school competitors.

-Today he still holds five of the six fastest mile times in U.S. high school history (all sub-four minute), with Alan Webb’s record race holding the other spot.

-With five sub-four minute miles he is the only high school athlete in history with more than two such times. (Alan Webb has two, while Marty Liquori, Tim Danielson, and Lukas Verzbicas have one each.)

-He is the only athlete to run a four minute mile as a high school junior.

- After his junior year he qualified for the 1964 Summer Olympics in the 1500. He made it to the semifinal round, where he was eliminated.

- As a high school senior he was voted the fourth best miler in the world by the experts at Track & Field News.

- ESPN.com has him rated as the number 1 high school athlete of all time, beating out people such as Tiger Woods and LeBron James.

Jim Ryun just was too amazing! AW doesn't hold up against him. Ryun was consistent in his youth. My cousin idolized him. We read everything we could lay our hands on in regards to his workouts. What can you not say about the guy?

3:55 is no 3:53.

trolololololololololol wrote:

3:55 is no 3:53.

2001 is no 1965

Did anyone else notice Robert Griffin (Baylor) on there for the 400h at 49.22?

douglas burke wrote:

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/index.php/tafn-lists?list_id=31&sex_id=M&yyear=2008

yeppppp wrote:

webb was better.

Ryun made the U.S. Olympic Team after his junior year in high school(1964). Yes, Webb's mile team beat Ryun's 3:55 ( by 2 seconds) but Ryun won a silver medal in 1968 and made the 1972 Olympic Team. It's debatable whether Webb could beat his training partner (Andrews) over 1500 meters right now.[quote]yeppppp wrote:

Hey Bud wrote:

[quote]yeppppp wrote:

webb was better.

Ryun made the U.S. Olympic Team after his junior year in high school(1964). Yes, Webb's mile team beat Ryun's 3:55 ( by 2 seconds) but Ryun won a silver medal in 1968 and made the 1972 Olympic Team. It's debatable whether Webb could beat his training partner (Andrews) over 1500 meters right now.

yeppppp wrote:

Well gee...Ryun made the US Olympic Team during a time when only AMATEUR athletes were allowed to compete, and most East Africans still didn't have a clue that they could dominate the running scene? That's just staggeringly fantastic isn't it?

webb could've run sub 4 as a junior as well, but he was injured and shut down early, running only an early 4:03.

ryun's 1:44/3:51/8:25 junior times are unbelievable, particularly for surfaces in that era.

trolololololololololol wrote:

3:55 is no 3:53.

Have you ever tried to run a PR mile on a cinder track? We used to run on both rubber and cinder in high school, and there is no comparison. My guess is you can't come within 2-3 seconds of your PR. My guess is if Ryun had El G pacing a 3:49 on a rubber track in front of him, Ryun would still have the record. I even think Ryun went out in that race close to 2 min for the first half, if he had run more even splits that undoubtedly would have put him closer to 3:53..