Average high school 3200, 1600, and 800 meter times

I agree with the other guy - 3200m is probably the weakest, though it's not much weaker (11:15-11:23 seems about right considering the 1600). The 800 is the only outlier (with that 800m time, I'd expect the median 1600 to be more like 5:10ish).

cbenson4 wrote:

Go to most high school varsity track meets, and the only place you might see 11:24/5:15 is in last place.

No way. You haven't been to many meets lately.

Or you are only going to big time meets.

I'm actually surprised that these "average" times are this fast. Are these people's PRs for the season or are all times for every runner entered in the database. It would be interesting which of the two methods would lead to a faster average. Obviously PRs will be faster but also faster runners tend to run a ton more meets than slower runners (at least twice as many if you include invitationals).

I think there is probably a lot of underreporting of bad performances. I'm shocked that the slowest time for a guy is in the 14s for the 3200. I am 100% certain that at least one athlete got cramps and jogged in in 15-16 minutes. If you don't go to invitationals and only go to dual meets you will see just how awful the non-traveling teams are. Even the traveling dual meet teams can suck badly as well.

For example my school had guys who could not run 30min for a 5k on the team. They wouldn't go to away meets, but they would still be able to compete in the home dual meets. They barely broke 16 minutes and I doubt the coach ever reported their time to a database. Why would a coach bother to do such a thing? I was our top miler at 5:10! Our average miler was probably in the 5:30s and our average 3200 runner was probably 12:50 or so! Our guys team would probably lose in a dual meet against the top girls programs and guess what we actually won a dual meet here and there. This is in CA, the best state in the nation. You don't hear about the crappy programs because they aren't worth talking about and the coach does not give enough of a damn to enter our times in a database for the $100 bonus he gets for teaching 7 classes (of which the 7th after school period is track).

likely average times are really

800: 2:25

1600: 5:25

3200: 12:10

Both the Athletic.net and Quikstats databases are based on season bests. Not average performances, and not personal records.

You are right that there might be some runners missing from either of the databases, but it's probably more complete (in Iowa and Washington) than you'd think, and missing marks aren't just marks from slower kids, but rather lazy coaches neglecting to include their athletes in the database.

Using my patented methodology

Boys

3200 - 9:40

1600 - 4:32

800 - 2:03

Girls

3200 - 10:45

1600 - 5:05

800 - 2:18

Riverdale Runner wrote:

Using my patented methodology

Boys

3200 - 9:40

1600 - 4:32

800 - 2:03

Girls

3200 - 10:45

1600 - 5:05

800 - 2:18

...which is horribly flawed.

For 2012-2013, from that list on Quick Stats Iowa:

Mean for 800:2:20.5

Mean for 1600:5:18.5

Mean for 3200: 11:27.9

Excel might have done some weird rounding things, but it passes the eye test, and 10 minutes was the max I was going to spend doing this.

I am a runner in Iowa and my 4:56 1600m soph year was top 20% in the state (#321) on the list. You were looking at 2011-12's archives. Jason Thomas of Dowling Catholic ran 4:10.14 and Josh Evans from Linn-Mar ran 4:10 also. The 3200 top time was 9:10.97 set by Thomas Pollard of Gilbert. The QuikStats is my bible. Anyone who wants to check it out, http://www.quikstatsiowa.com

I agree with most of what has been said, but these are the averages for all grade levels. I find it hard to think of the average senior running a 2:18, because that does suck. I ran faster when I was 12. Average times IMO would be:

sr: 2:11

jr: 2:12

so 2:18

fr: 2:24

8th: 2:30

7th: 2:38

Dude get off of here; I actually won a meet with a (admittedly sluggish) 3200M time of like 11:25 just last week. Obviously there was no one to pace with and I honestly didn't work too hard, but if your looking at a typical D3 school competition, this is a link to a pretty average meet. http://www.accuracetiming.com/results/crickets_2015.htm

These were my PRs in high school:

800m - 2:18

Mile - 5:01

3200 - 11:21?

I made varsity and usually came around 3rd place in dual meets. No I'm not a girl.

cbenson4 wrote:

hmmm..... wrote:

You don't have a concept of average do you? 11:24 and 5:15 sound about right.

Go to most high school varsity track meets, and the only place you might see 11:24/5:15 is in last place.

So you're saying that they're just slow in Iowa?

If you look at the overall distributions of times from Iowa this year (which are probably similarly distributed to what you'd find anywhere else), they're not perfect bell curves. They're skewed to the left, with a long right tail.

An interesting place to look is at the 75% percentile. So, about in the middle of the faster half, call it mid-pack varsity. For the 800, that's 2:12. For the 1600, that's 4:58. For the 3200, it's 10:44. Intuitively, that feels pretty average to me. It will probably get you into a varsity race at a lot of schools, but not win very often.

If you look at the histograms, the peak for the 800 is in the area of 2:08-2:20. For the 1600, the distribution is slightly bimodal, with one peak at 4:55-59, and the next around 5:10-5:19. For the 3200, the peak is at 10:30-49, but it's a bit noisy and it might be better to call it 10:30-11:20.

I have had my teams go to meets where the host coach would only post times for those who were in scoring position for the meet. If you go to meets like this with your entire team, but only take your studs to "better" meets, then you would have skewed data. My last guy in the 3200 ran just 7 laps in about 16 minutes, so that would likely make him the worst in the state.

I guess I'm well below average wrote:

These were my PRs in high school:

800m - 2:18

Mile - 5:01

3200 - 11:21?

I made varsity and usually came around 3rd place in dual meets. No I'm not a girl.

Mine were a tad better and I was always first or second in dual meets. Got smoked in real meets.

NumberFinder wrote:

For 2012-2013, from that list on Quick Stats Iowa:

Mean for 800:2:20.5

Mean for 1600:5:18.5

Mean for 3200: 11:27.9

Excel might have done some weird rounding things, but it passes the eye test, and 10 minutes was the max I was going to spend doing this.

Good work. That's all it takes to get a good answer in the age of the www.

And those times are close enough to the national average.

Only a silly person would argue that a 5 min mile is the average for HS boys.

You have the national HS average which is totally uninteresting, and is 5:18 or so. Then you have the average of lrc posters, which is around 3:58. The real average is thus 4:38. Everything below this sucks royally, even for a HS girl.

I have a hard time believing that the worst 3200 time is 14:55. I ran 16:00 early in high school and I had several emanates who ran even slower.

Wow, this quickstats thing is great. I went to high school in Iowa back in the day and I wish it was available then. It also makes me feel like I used to be kind of fast -- I ran 1:57 and 4:24 my senior year, and was state runner-up in the 800 that year. I was easily the number one distance guy on our team (one of the bigger high schools in the state) starting in outdoor track freshman year and I didn't break 4:30 or 2:00 until senior year, so the averages don't surprise me that much. Interesting stuff -- thanks for posting.