I have 15 year olds that have run between 17 minutes and 15:16. It is a new world and I won't even mention the 11 year with a 16:47 5k. Times are pretty irrelevant placing high at your district, regional, and state meets are all that matter. Good luck
I have 15 year olds that have run between 17 minutes and 15:16. It is a new world and I won't even mention the 11 year with a 16:47 5k. Times are pretty irrelevant placing high at your district, regional, and state meets are all that matter. Good luck
Just had freshman girl run 17:00 at states. 25 sec ish record. Her big sis won nationals a few years ago. Look the heck out. But for the other 99.9% of girls anyway, the mendoza line seems to be right about sub 18 for pretty elite freshman.
Who gives a singular sh*t if someone is "good locally". There are regions of this country where you can win a small school state title as a senior only being a 17:00 runner. When you post on letsrun you should expect to be compared to everyone in the US if not the World.
Well, I think a lot of HS runners would be happy to be make varsity, win a meet, win an invite, or win state. Those kids are "good runners."
The fact that "everyone basically sucks compared to Rocky Hanson and Connor Burns" is sort of immaterial to 95% of runners and their friends/families who are proud of what they see at the meets where they live.
Would you be proud to win a US championship knowing that you had no real shot to beat Kajelcha or Kerr or Jakob when the "real racing" starts? Would you consider yourself to be "good" if you made an Olympics team but had zero chance of even making the final in your event?
Why do you even love the pursuit of self-improvement if, for example, you know and admit that a 17 year old Jim Ryun from 60 years ago is still better than all the sucky HS runners who have ever come after him (except for Webb and Kessler)?
what on earth are you talking about? It has nothing to do with whether kids should be happy with their performances or not. What sort of sentimental "everyone gets a trophy" nonsense is this?
A 25 minute runner is good for a freshman on his team if hes the best freshman on his team. Being "good" is obviously relative. I went with national relevance since this is a national (and international) forum. A freshman that is running a 18 minute 5k is not relevant or good to anyone who doesnt know the kid personally.
You might be right! But we both are guessing at what the OP wants to know.
I assumed the OP was a kid (or parent) who was asking, "what does a good 9th grader run these days" because they were curious about how their kid will perform on the team and in their league.
You assumed we were talking about the phenoms out there who have redefined running at a young age, kids who can run 14:xx at Running Lane and so on.
We still don't know what the OP was really asking because nobody defines their terms ("good") on this website...
You might be right! But we both are guessing at what the OP wants to know.
I assumed the OP was a kid (or parent) who was asking, "what does a good 9th grader run these days" because they were curious about how their kid will perform on the team and in their league.
You assumed we were talking about the phenoms out there who have redefined running at a young age, kids who can run 14:xx at Running Lane and so on.
We still don't know what the OP was really asking because nobody defines their terms ("good") on this website...
They didnt say elite, so im guessing like what's a standout freshman look like state-wise? maybe.
Its trended faster but this is mainly due to Freshman training more seriously as middle schoolers rather than being more talented. I ran at a decent program in high school, we won states a few times and were always at least contenders for years. I was the best Freshman on a team of 60 guys running low 19s. I ran in middle school, but my middle school program was like 3 days a week of basic fundamentals of track. I ran D1 track and ran 4:10 in the mile in college when all was said and done. There were guys that came into the program years after me who ran like 30-40 miles a week as middle schoolers. They would run low 17s and or high 16s as freshman, but they would not improve that much after that. We had a kid run 17 low as a high school freshman but only 4:20 and 15 low as a college senior. Moral of the story is that especially at a young age mileage can be disguised as talent. I thought these kids were way more talented than me, but it turns out they were just running more at a young age.
Its trended faster but this is mainly due to Freshman training more seriously as middle schoolers rather than being more talented. ... Moral of the story is that especially at a young age mileage can be disguised as talent. I thought these kids were way more talented than me, but it turns out they were just running more at a young age.
Yes, they just find their ceiling a lot sooner. This is a good observation.
That said, it can still be a good thing because a lot of runners quite after HS either way, but if they started younger, they get two more years (7th and 8th grade) to train well. This gives them 6 total years to see if they are any good.
When I was in HS, if you weren't good after four years, you almost always quit running. For some of us, it took a lot longer to get to our potential (which in my case was still terrible, but at least I got there eventually).
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