I 100% disagree and thank goodness my son didn't listen to you!
Freshman: 24:00 cross and 2:35 (800)/5:50 (1600)/13:15 (3200)
Sophomore: 20:58 cross and 2:18(800), 4:55 (1600)/10:40 (3200)
Junior Year: 16:55 cross and 2:07, 4:38, 9:45
Senior Year: 15:50 cross and 2:05, 4:24, 9:22
Yes. he had a pretty crazy improvement curve.... but he was driven and had big goals (from not being the worst on the team, to making varsity, to breaking 10, to sub 4:30 and sub 9:30). He achieved all of them and is now running successfully in college and still improving and loving running.
You typing that doesn’t make it believable but I’ve been around distance running for a long time and I’ve never seen a progression in even the same universe as your son’s. It would be a disservice for a coach to tell a kid that’s getting lapped twice in the 3200 that he has a future in the sport.
If your story is true, you let out a lot of details.
I see no reason why that progression would be unbelievable, I had a somewhat comparable improvement throughout high school.
9th grade - could barely run 5 miles continuously, 20:30 XC, 5:23, 12:something
10th grade - longest run was 7 miles, avg day was 3. 18:50 XC, 4:59, 10:58
11th grade - COVID, took 3 months completely off
12th grade - 35 mpw, mostly at 9 min pace and just racing into shape.16:30 XC, 2:05, 4:35
Now obviously his son's senior year was way more impressive than mine but he could have been training way more seriously with higher mileage, more consistency, legit workouts. Likely he had a huge puberty spike from 9th-10th that helped, just as I did.
Because my son is still running in college I don’t really want to embarrass him… but I’m sure there are people on this board who know him, ran with him at one of Vermont’s running camps and know that progression is absolutely not only 100% true, but quite frankly not even that unbelievable. I have also been around a long time, ran D1 and had equipment sponsorships with a number is shoe companies. I can assure you, I’m not making it up.
My son in particular entered hs without much of an athletic background other than rec baseball and rec soccer through 5th grade. He did bo athletics in middle school.
When he went out for cross as a freshman he was about 5’9” and maybe a buck 15. He grew about 5” between fresh and sophomore year… but was still probably 130 at 6’2”.
His frosh year he ran 5days a week, about 3m a day. I actually don’t think that is all that unusual. He was not good. Very uncoordinated and looked like he was running through sand. No energy return at all.
Summer before soph year he wanted to get good. Ran 30mpw over that summer and made a big jump. In the winter or soph year avg about 40 and had his first intro to threshold work twice a week.
Before Junior year he averaged about 50mpw all summer with a peak of 60 and followed summer of malmo. Did the same thing all winter.
Everything soph and junior year was in 6 days.
Before senior year and throughout he got up to 60s pretty consistently (in 6). Same thing with summer or malmo over the summer and winter.
He never had an injury and rarely missed a scheduled day. He attributes it to a day off. His easy days were also run 7:15-9:00 pace. He doesn’t hesitate to go slow.
These are facts and how he improved. Not sure what else to tell you without showing you his logs.
This OP is making a classic mistake of completely forgetting what it’s like to be a kid. For whatever reason, the OP is assuming kids think like he does. Of course some kids DO think that way, and but they were never going to be decent anyway, because that mentality stops one from being decent, never mind good.
Our sport is about competing, meaning training and making the effort, not staring at lists and record boards. By this reasoning, no one would play high school football because they saw an NFL game and realized they’re probably not going to be a yoked beast with speed, aggression, and that sort of injury tolerance.
That’s so true. I’m embarrassed to say that after his freshman year I thought, “well, guess sports just really isn’t his thing”. I follow the sport closely and knew how bad he was. He had no clue how far he has to come. He just knew that he didn’t want to be last anymore. After sophomore year it never occurred to him he wouldn’t break 10 or couldn’t be the best kid in the state. It was really not until senior year that he realized how good some guys are. But by then he wasn’t discouraged.
OP, not every hs runner obsessses with strava and what others are doing. When my son was in hs I knew vastly more about what the top kids were doing then he did. He was pretty oblivious.
While the sport itself is finding and training talents younger and younger, it is at the expense of the mediocre runner who is just falling further and further behind.
Who cares? I mean, what is the solution? Have fewer really fast kids so the slower kids feel better about themselves? Most people are mediocre runners. That’s life. Only a few are really good. That’s what “being good” is.
There are always goals you can set. Self improvement is why most people keep at it. It’s fun to see yourself getting better. Maybe their goal isn’t to qualify for state, maybe it’s to make the district team. Or maybe it’s to run a sub 5 mile for the first time. You don’t have to be Olympic champion to care about being the best runner you can be