Most impressive improvement you have ever heard of???

a sophomore alternate on my high school 4x800m team ended up having to run at the state meet. This was a kid who our team thought was going to be very good but he had only run 2:05 or 2:06 and so we wrote off our chances because our teammate he replaced was a 1:58-59 guy.this kid was so nervous he was basically shaking and we all kind of gave up hope to get on the podium (top 6). That helped us relaxed in a weird way and we all ran really well, including this kid who ran like 1:58. Our team ran 7:51 and got 4th place and it is still my favorite race from high school.i think the kid ran 1:57 in the open when he was senior so he didn't get much better but he was the mvp for us

iSprint wrote:

In one race, one season, from HS to college, etc.

stories like that give me the warm fuzzies

I was on the team with a girl who improved her PR from 57 to 52 in the 400 over the course of one season. Every race was seriously crazy to watch.

true story brah

Was at Indiana with big Bobby K, and a sophomore when he came in. Even though he was a super stud prior to college, winning nats that first year was really something else. Miss you Coach Bell!

A DIII guy I raced against once in a while and became decent friends with. Guy was a 2:08/4:53 guy freshman year of college. Was injured his entire sophomore year and didn't run for nearly 12 months. Missed most of his junior indoor season but did run 1:58, a near 10 second PR, before missing the last 5-6 meets. Was on crutches from January until March. Started running again in April, got down to 1:55 by the end of the month. Ran a good XC season his senior year off of little training then runs a 4:15/1:50 double at the end of indoor.

He also brought his 8k time down from 29:3x to 24:5x over three years.

Mo Farah

True story.

I know someone who knows someone who would run a 4:00 marathon. Then, on a whim, he goes out and just kills a race.

3:11:45.

Seems legit, too.

iSprint wrote:

In one race, one season, from HS to college, etc.

My son went from 4:31 1600 as a Jr to 4:15 as a Sr in HS.

Went from not planning to run at all in college to walking on a top 40 DI program. Is now top 7 on their XC team.

All in 18 mos.

Don't give up hope just because you weren't recruited as a Jr!

This dude I heard of went from a 1:46.12 to a 1:42.51 in 1 season. Tuka or something was his name. Great talent.

Hey this is the Jen Carey story!!!

Bolt going from 10.03 to a 9.69 100 in one year.

I didn't run much in high school. My PRs for 2-mile and 1/2 mile were 10:00 and 2:00. Granted I only ran each one - the 1/2 was first meet of the year and ran it on the first leg of 4 x 800. I mainly played basketball in high school. I walked on late in cross country season on good D1 team. I had played a ton of pickup basketball so got much fitness from that. I worked out twice with team and they put me on varsity the next race. I ran like 31:30 on fairly tough course. Had never run more than 1 mile in race but once before then.

this kid as freshman in high school was caught drinking in class and was forced to join a sport (or be in serious trouble) starting his sophomore year. He was straight @ss at XC and was right around 20:XX at the end of the year and worked down to around a 2:15 split for a 4x8 and a 5:10-5:15 mile at the end of outdoor track. He put in good work over the summer and ran 17:2X in xc and 4:37 or 4:39 for 1600 that spring. So the improvement from getting drunk in school, to the #2 or #3 guy on the team is absurd. Plus he still has a year left to improve.

For me the most impressive - or at least most memorable - improvement was that reported by the late, great Cancer Guy:

"I started running in 8th grade. Ran slow (like almost 20 minutes for 2 miles slow). I kept at it, got into the 16's at the end of high school and ran around 15 flat for 5k/32 for 10k in my mid-20's. Nothing amazing, but, going from nearly 20 minutes for 2 miles to running sub 10 was pretty good in my book."

He passed away on Christmas Eve 2012 at much too young an age. See

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4428533&page=0

if you don't already know his story and are curious to learn more.

Carey took off even more time in a race half as long...you should read her story:

http://ucsbgauchos.com/sports/w-track/2012-13/releases/20130613cylpwr

Ran 58+ in HS, was not recruited at all but walked on to a D1 team, PRed in one race her 1st year, stayed on the team but didn't improve again until her senior year, when she made it to D1 NCAA nationals and went on to race in the individual 400 at WORLDS in 2013...

I think maybe slowest HS runner to ever make it to worlds?

And also most drastic improvement in one year at the D1 level.

I just honestly don't think this story can be beaten.

You should actually check out the grid on this page:

http://ucsbgauchos.com/sports/w-track/coaches/Anderson-Travis

A lot of improvements from Anderson in one year. His coaching record is pretty amazing, given the schools he has worked at so far.

I cut my mile time in half in high school. As a freshman trying out for (and failing to make) the soccer team, I could barely jog/walk it around 11 minutes. Then I ran in the 5:20s by senior year. That's not fast by LetsRun standards, but considering I can from being a couch potato to that in a few years, I'll take it.

A kid I know went from 17:35 at the end of one XC season to 15:55 early the next XC season. Only ran like one race before his sub 16 that same year, something like a 16 high. Then he had some issues with injuries and ended up running 16 lows in the last couple meets after he healed up.

Went from a 2:08 opener in college and improved 2 seconds a week until I ran 1:59. At the same time went from splitting 54.x to splitting 50.low in the 4x4 in 3 weeks. (Went 54.x, 53.x, 52.x, 50.low).

I took my 2000m steeplechase from 7:05 to 6:20 in a year, same time period I took my 10km from 38:20 to 35:34 on a soft grass track in a slow race