How many of your HS graduating class broke 5:00 for the 1600 and how big was it?

Liar Liar Pants on Fire wrote:

god shamgod wrote:

The year I graduated the track team had had 6 people break 5:00 for 1600, two from my class. There was another kid in my class who broke 5 in previous years but not his senior year. One of the six was a chick.

Liar! There has never been a single case in all of recorded history of a chick even running a 1600, let alone one under 5:00.

My bad, did I write chick? I meant a missy or a lassy or sweet thing or babe. Chick was a total misstatement.

4 in a class of 285 (if you went to an all boys school, you should have to double your class size).

Myself 4:34

Runner B 4:42 (senior XC - didn't run track as senior)

Runner C 4:54 (senior XC - didn't run track as senior)

Runner D 4:58 (8th grade - didn't run in HS)

We had another guy who was an 800m runner that ran 2:02 that we tried to pace to sub 5 in gym, but he only ran 5:05. My best workout companions were underclassmen when I was a senior.

Flagpole- You may have already stated this at some point on this site, but what high school did you run for? I ran for a WBL school in the late 70's, early 80's. I think we're about the same age. Wondering if I ever raced you. Seems like you're a tad faster than I was though, so we may have never gotten on the track together. Just wondering.

crazy raisin wrote:

For mine, I was one of only four, though one guy's wasn't even totally official: 4:43, 4:49, 4:59, 4:59. We could have easily had one more (my friend who was a 1:59 800 runner). Class size was 214. I always thought we were a weak distance running school - there were lots more basketball players who probably could do it if they put in a season of training - but then again maybe 5/214 isn't so terrible. What about other people's?

Oh and PE/conditioning miles not run on a track don't count - those are almost always short...

I don't know how many there were my senior year (1982) because 5 minutes was not a standard anyone was paying attention to. In fact, that was the girls' standard and 3-4 girls made it 2 years after I graduated (they were State XC champs).

Our "B" 4 mile relay team ran 18:09 and I'm pretty sure all of those "second 4" ran under 4:40 in high school. So we did have at least 8 under 4:40. We won the State XC title that year (1981).

Our senior class had about 450 kids and the school was a mix of working and middle class families.

My sense is, our success that year had to do with talent and leadership (of the top runner who reoriented the standards for everyone).

Graduating class size was 320.

Six of us in the class broke 5:00 at some point in high school.

My 4:50 junior year was the only mile I ever ran in a race, I always ran the 800 except for that one time.

I was the only one out of a class of 320, one of my buddies could have but only ran CC and then did Basketball and Baseball.

We didn't run the 1600. We ran the mile ( and the deuce). Big time.

Student wrote:

I don't know how many there were my senior year (1982) because 5 minutes was not a standard anyone was paying attention to. In fact, that was the girls' standard and 3-4 girls made it 2 years after I graduated (they were State XC champs).

Our "B" 4 mile relay team ran 18:09 and I'm pretty sure all of those "second 4" ran under 4:40 in high school. So we did have at least 8 under 4:40. We won the State XC title that year (1981).

Not the first story of how many great runners there were in the early 80's... I remember guys running 16:40, on JV, thinking they were slow... Just goes to show a lot of talent is out there, if/when you can get people motivated to run.

One good friend of mine was a 1:59 800 runner, loved to run, wanted to run cross, but seemed to be injured from basketball 9 months out of the year. 11th-12th grade he'd show up in 2:30 800 shape, get down to 2:15 in a couple weeks for the first dual meets, get to 2:00 a couple weeks later, and the season would be over.

Another good friend in my class played basketball, ran 5:20 miles, beat lots of track runners in PE, almost joined cross... I'm sure he'd be a sub 5 guy before his first season was over.

Another guy in my class was a soccer player, finished 3 seconds behind the fastest in our class in the PE mile. He joined track, but chose to focus on throwing instead of running.

These are just people I knew pretty well, there were probably more... I am certain if we just got a couple more guys to run 4:40 would have been the new 5:00 for us too...

I was the only one in the school (of 300) of my class (of 90). I went 4:54 to 4:48 to 4:24 over the course of 5 weeks, and it was generally ignored.

god shamgod wrote:

Liar Liar Pants on Fire wrote:

Liar! There has never been a single case in all of recorded history of a chick even running a 1600, let alone one under 5:00.

My bad, did I write chick? I meant a missy or a lassy or sweet thing or babe. Chick was a total misstatement.

No, my bad really. I really should not have assumed that you might have a non-negative IQ.

lol ZERO. And my graduating class had apporximate 620 kids.

Class size was 200 (800 for the high school) 17 guys broke 5:00- Not sure how many were seniors- mostly 10th and 11th graders. So, say 15 out of 400 (grades 10/11) with two seniors who ran 4:29.

Ellery Queen wrote:

lol ZERO. And my graduating class had apporximate 620 kids.

Well, shucks, I thought my class might take the coveted Futility Award. We officially had a class of 393 kids--I had always thought it was around 400, but of course several could have dropped/failed out in the last few weeks of the school year.

I lived on an island in the middle of the Pacific and we didn't have any tracks that were *exactly* 400m or 440y--but it doesn't matter, I'm confident that no one in my school, my year, broke five--not even the 20- and 21-year-olds in my class (they were into other activities, as you might guess).

2/~400, I think, which sounds pathetic for a team that won the largest division at state that year. I went 4:25 (4:23 my Jr. year), and a 50"/1:57 member of our 4x8 ran like 4:54 in his one early season crack at it. We had a Soph./Jr. or two around 4:40, a 1:56.2/17:15 5k xc guy who never ran it, and a Burundian, Jehovanis, who could have likely broken 5 but who knocked up his girlfriend and elected not to compete.

3/270

4:35

4:40

4:44

We had 6 guys. Class size was 328, so 1.83%

Me 4:20

4:32

4:32

4:33

4:35

4:50

For the 800 we had 1:54, 1:57, 2:01, 2:02, 2:04, 2:07

Yeah, oops...6400 meter relay or 4 x 1600 meter. My bad.

I might have been there wrote:

Flagpole- You may have already stated this at some point on this site, but what high school did you run for? I ran for a WBL school in the late 70's, early 80's. I think we're about the same age. Wondering if I ever raced you. Seems like you're a tad faster than I was though, so we may have never gotten on the track together. Just wondering.

I am 46, so a little younger than you. I graduated from high school in 1985, so all my HS running was from fall 1980 to spring 1985. Also, I went to two different high schools, finishing my last 2 years at Perrysburg HS.

800 - 2:03 (too short for me)

1600 - 4:32 (open) and 4:30 in a relay

3200 - 9:48

5000 CC - 15:48

If you ran in Ohio, you likely ran 2.5 miles in CC, as I had to do my first 2 years; changed to 5,000 meters when I was a junior.

I was the only one in my HS class. Therefor 1 out of approximately 260.