Some 40 years ago, I ran 5:06 mile in 6th grade and a 2:56 marathon in the 7th. Most weeks I was around 20ish miles and rarely over 30. I do remember doing lots of intervals hard bc I loved doing them. My parents didn't push me. I pushed myself. After the marathon, I had one injury after the other. I would get injured. Lay off. Then come back trying to catch up doing too much too soon, get injured and start the process over. From 8th-10th grades, I was making less progress while the others in my area eventually started beating me. I quit after the 10th grade and still regret that decision.
Two main reasons - one is early puberty, which has already been mentioned a bunch. Also at that age, it's easy to out train your competition to become a phenom.
The average middle school runner is probably training between 15-25 miles per week and doesn't train full time year-round. Running 30, 35, 40 miles a week all year round is going to make you look like a super star. But when everyone else hits puberty and starts running more mileage in high school, the advantage disappears, and they regress back closer to the mean.
Two main reasons - one is early puberty, which has already been mentioned a bunch. Also at that age, it's easy to out train your competition to become a phenom.
The average middle school runner is probably training between 15-25 miles per week and doesn't train full time year-round. Running 30, 35, 40 miles a week all year round is going to make you look like a super star. But when everyone else hits puberty and starts running more mileage in high school, the advantage disappears, and they regress back closer to the mean.
This is 100% in line with my opinion. In running especially, training matters a lot and there are very few "kids" training to run fast. So big fish in small pond.
My daughter ran middle school XC, which basically consisted of 3 or 4 days per week of practice for like 6 to 8 weeks. I doubt they ever ran more than 2 or 3 miles a day (some days they only did drills). There were always 1 or 2 kids on the team who were in an outside running club and those kids would beat everyone else by 1+ min. You could have easily picked them out of a lineup (racing shoes, runners build, etc.). For the most part kids like that don't maintain the same advantage once a larger pool of kids start training year round in high school.
I’d post pictures of Danny Simmons winning races in middle school, but that’s probably a bad idea. He’d be the poster child for what you look for in a winning middle school kid who will keep winning - the smallest skinniest little kid on the podium. When the tiny too young looking boy is winning, it’s a pretty good sign for ongoing development.
i think we are also leaving out mentality. some young talents can become almost show-off-y in ways that don't work when everyone catches up. we had a kid who used to sit on the ball and mock his opponents. we caught up to him in junior high. by HS he was gone. i always thought at least some of it is you have to keep progressing and what wins you games one age doesn't later on. even me as a college player, one of my favorite ways to score goals growing up was chip keepers. this works better when the keepers are smaller. when they can touch an 8 foot cross-bar it becomes only situationally useful.
guy who set some of our school records told me he hated organized sports when i tried to get him playing weekend warrior after college.
to what degree do you think that it's that the non-school youth system is swiss cheese? in soccer we give or take some summer time off would play year round. schools would then sponge off the select teams and put little effort into skills work, instead emphasizing mostly conditioning, set pieces like free kicks, and team scrimmages. i always thought this was a mistake, as it might feel like they have the players for a few months here and there, but it might total a year of their HS development.
setting aside distance runners doing XC and TF, track tends to be a school sport for a few months during the spring. i would think this is different than the club model in europe. i would think a european TF project would be working out more year-round. i think we have some limited youth track team stuff with regionals and nationals but where i lived we had no idea it existed. we maybe knew of "foot locker" after XC season. i mean this is the equivalent of soccer select and it's swiss cheese. people discuss the hit and miss nature of TF coaching in this country, whether you get a "football coach," but in other sports this is evened out by you go play in some sort of travel setup when the season is over.
the mileage stuff is crazy talk. i don't see either a bunch of kids eager to rack up mileage or a bunch of parents like i want my 10 or 12 year old running a bunch of miles a day. don't even think it's wise for long term musculoskeletal.
i mean half the reason people come on here asking for offseason training plans is we have it set up where most of the year is offseason unless you also do XC. heck in my state before a certain date in the year we're not even allowed to practice the sport in athletics period with coaching. in most other sports except maybe football the athlete does the majority of their training and playing time outside then decides if they want to parachute in for HS varsity. in my soccer experience recruiters came and saw me exclusively in select, which was at a higher level -- i didn't need HS soccer at all, other than it was fun to compete for my school.
compared with, say, the college setup, where with XC, indoor, outdoor, you can be busy from august before everyone else shows up for class, to may after they have left. give or take some schools kind of shutting down after XC in november then starting their indoor in january.
Training does little for young runners. My daughter ran 5:05 in 7th grade gym class. She ran 5:02 in track season. She graduated high school with a 4:58 PR.
re norway (speaking of jakob) i thought they came about it differently, like through some age it was kind of like YMCA-style, informal, encouraging, pro-participation, don't keep score type stuff, some limited instruction, emphasis on fun, what some would bemoan as a "participation trophy" approach, then you hit a point in your teens and it's do you want to get serious. only then does the switch flip and it's later than here. then you get the training. hopefully you have the passion to sustain the workload.
Training does little for young runners. My daughter ran 5:05 in 7th grade gym class. She ran 5:02 in track season. She graduated high school with a 4:58 PR.
Dubious claim all around. Your kid ran a JO winning time in gym class with no training?
Girls 1500 Meter Run 13 years old 2023 =================================================================== JO Games: J 4:36.79 8/2/2012 Daesha Rogers, Miami, FL Name Year Team Finals H# =================================================================== 1 # 9538 Sydney Johnson 10 Saint Johns, FL 4:44.50 3 2 # 9450 Eva Delaney 10 St Johns, FL 4:49.91 3 3 #10758 Maddie Ramirez 10 Aldie, VA 4:51.87 3 4 # 3824 Ndanu Pope 10 Greensboro, NC 4:52.51 3 5 # 9718 Abigail Wallace 10 Mc Kenzie, TN 4:54.98 3 6 # 4559 Karsyn Hitchcock 10 Olathe, KS 4:58.32 3 7 # 1436 Ella Lustig 10 Sykesville, MD 5:00.18 3
A big factor is also likley overtraining young, then burn out and injuries later. I have a girl who ran club starting at 10. Coach would make a big deal about how fast she was and how she will have a great high school and likely college career. Except she was mid pack in the club races. When asked why she is mid pack if so fast the response was this is a marathon not a sprint and the desire was not to burn her out or injure her. Fast forward to HS and she is now ahead of the pack. Easily beats the kids who in club would beat her.
There are of course those who are phenoms but they are rare.
Training does little for young runners. My daughter ran 5:05 in 7th grade gym class. She ran 5:02 in track season. She graduated high school with a 4:58 PR.
Dubious claim all around. Your kid ran a JO winning time in gym class with no training?
Girls 1500 Meter Run 13 years old 2023 =================================================================== JO Games: J 4:36.79 8/2/2012 Daesha Rogers, Miami, FL Name Year Team Finals H# =================================================================== 1 # 9538 Sydney Johnson 10 Saint Johns, FL 4:44.50 3 2 # 9450 Eva Delaney 10 St Johns, FL 4:49.91 3 3 #10758 Maddie Ramirez 10 Aldie, VA 4:51.87 3 4 # 3824 Ndanu Pope 10 Greensboro, NC 4:52.51 3 5 # 9718 Abigail Wallace 10 Mc Kenzie, TN 4:54.98 3 6 # 4559 Karsyn Hitchcock 10 Olathe, KS 4:58.32 3 7 # 1436 Ella Lustig 10 Sykesville, MD 5:00.18 3
Dang. Lifetime PRs for Daesha Rogers were 4:54 for 1600 grades 6 and 7, and 2:10 in 11th. Did not compete after that.