Why do some letsrunners pretend that the normal age for a graduating senior is 17

I have a summer birthday and turned 18 before I even started my senior year. Almost everyone in my class of 400+ students were 18 when they graduated, and a few were 19. Depends on the school district I guess, but from everything I know, the vast majority of students in America are 18 when they graduate. Letsrun shouldn't make too big a deal of it anyway.

Meh...it happens...I graduated at 17...had a teammate in college who was literally the same age as me, we had the same birthday. And he was a grade below me. Always tried to brag to me about breaking my freshman school records, and I would just point out we were the exact same age and I still always beat him ;)

17 would be the 'normal' age during cross, then by spring,'normal' would become 18

Definitely depends on where you're from. At my school, I would say around 65-75% of the graduating class was 17. The remainder had just turned 18 and then there were maybe less than 5% who were older than that for some reason. In fact I remember that the oldest person in my elementary class had a December birthday (so he turned 18 the December before he graduated) and it was weird because he was a couple months older than the next oldest. Most schools around me were the same. We were a more suburban school district, while the more rural ones in the state seemed to have more older kids in it. I always joked that they needed the kids helping out on the farm when the were 6 instead of in 1st grade or because those country folk were a little slower and needed more time to develop, but I'm not sure what the real reason was.

So until, Lukas skipped a grade, I would agree that based on my experience he was pretty old (would have been turning 19 as a senior). Most the kids from my school didn't turn 19 until the summer before their sophomore year in college.

In NYS being graduated in the same year as your 18th birthday is normal.

I graduated a month before I turned 17. I was 8th in state cross country and 4th in the 3200 my senior year. I don't remember the reason why I went to first grade so young but nowadays parents hold their kids back to be that much more mature for sports. Hold me back 1-2 years and I'm going full D-1 scholarship instead of D-2 partial.

I'll graduate when I'm 17 but that's just because I have a summer birthday. I say 17 and 18 are both normal, 19 maybe a little old. I don't see much of a difference between one year (17 and 18 year olds) in performance but the difference between 17 and 19 year olds could be notable

Lukas Verzbiacas skipped his Junior year in High School and is now a senior. He is now 18 and that is the average age for a high school graduate. So when he enters Oregon in the Fall he will be 18. I'm glad Lukas will focus on running the next 4 years so that we can see what he can do when he only runs and does not do any triathlon training. Well, unless he get a running injury!

I have a October birthday and was 18 when I graduated from high school. My brother was 17 when he graduated from high school because he started school in California, their cut off date was January. My cousins wife has the same exact birthday as me but she graduated a year before me because she lives in Pennsylvania.