What's reasonable to expect from a 1:55 guy going D1?

just curious here wrote:

Obviously it's a massive range. A guy could end up running 1:45, could also get hurt and never improve. But if you took all the guys that ran 1:55 in HS, went D1, and plotted out their eventual PR what time would the peak of the bell curve be?

You can expect a swift, head spinning move to the 3k-10k group....I myself ran 1:53 with :51 speed and got to enjoy my college career as a 5k 10k guy...I did not want to toil in obscurity for 4 years trying to run 1:49, which has no chance of making it to nationals, and wouldn't win most conference meets...so I moved up, pulled down some AA certs and called it good....

It has nothing to do with d1, d2, d3, naia, etc.

To directly answer your questions, I would say the average 1:55 guy in high school runs a 1:51 in college.

I ran with three college teammates who ran 1:55.x in high school. One ran 1:48 in college while barely training, one ran 1:50 while training very hard, and one ran 1:55 while training very hard (focused more on the 1500, although he "only" ran 3:56 in that).

Those three guys had 46/47, 49, and 51 400m speed, respectively.

The guy who ran 1:48, who knows what he could have run if he had actually cared to train hard. He was probably to most talented underachiever I've run with. He would run his first 800 of the year in the 2:02 to 2:03 range every year because he hadn't run a step over winter break. He would do the same thing over spring break.

One race at Stanford, his parents came to watch him run, and he panicked and tried to race as if he had actually been training over spring break the two weeks before. He went out in 52 with the leaders, came back in 69 for dfl by 50 meters.

6 weeks later he was sub 1:50 again. But I digress...

Thanks for the input guys.

i ran 1:55 high in high school and finished with a 1:51 high in college. 48 high 400 speed. considered moving up in distance midway through college but got mono during cross season and that never materialized. honestly i think i would have sucked at the 1500 anyway. i was an 18 min 5k runner in highschool XC and was just terrible in any strength type workout.

i'd put my work ethic at "average."

also, FWIW, my 1:55 was run going 58/57 and my 1:51 was on even splits. i was always sort of a weird runner. i think my best distance would have been 700m, which unfortunately doesn't exist.

I moved up to the 5k/10k in college and never ran a faster 800.

Let me remind all of you people that Clayton Murphy ran 1:56 junior year, 1:54 senior year of high school, then ran 1:42 for Olympic bronze. This talk about having to move up is bollocks. It might happen, it might not.

this was me wrote:

i ran 1:55 high in high school and finished with a 1:51 high in college. 48 high 400 speed. considered moving up in distance midway through college but got mono during cross season and that never materialized. honestly i think i would have sucked at the 1500 anyway. i was an 18 min 5k runner in highschool XC and was just terrible in any strength type workout.

i'd put my work ethic at "average."

also, FWIW, my 1:55 was run going 58/57 and my 1:51 was on even splits. i was always sort of a weird runner. i think my best distance would have been 700m, which unfortunately doesn't exist.

I feel your pain.

1:55 hs 800 guys place to shine is indoor conference. If you are speed based and scrappy try to get a spot in the 600. If you have endurance and good sense of pace, compete for the 1200 leg on the MR. Breaking 3 is more than respectable and will give you a shot on most mid to low tier schools-

Without sub 50 400 speed you don't have much hope of being a 1:49 guy. If your 400 is 51-52, better to focus on the 1500.

I ran 1:55 in high school and split 49/50. I ended up running 1:49 high. A 1:56 guy who ran for my same university ended up running 1:47, OT qualifier, etc.

It all depends on the person.

Ignorant letsrunners wrote:

Let me remind all of you people that Clayton Murphy ran 1:56 junior year, 1:54 senior year of high school, then ran 1:42 for Olympic bronze. This talk about having to move up is bollocks. It might happen, it might not.

Correct, thus me asking for everyone's thoughts on peak of a bell curve, not what the range is.

I've split 49.high if that changes anything.

It depends on what school you're going to. Many college coaches either don't know how to train athletes for the 800m or don't want to put their time and energy into it.

I went to an NAIA school. We had 2 guys come in my sophomore year who hadn't broken 2:00 in high school. Both ended up running 1:48. Coach was pretty creative with workouts, liked Coe's training.

All that's to say if the coach is a typical distance coach, don't expect too much. Look what his other athletes are doing.