10-Year Old Sets Age Group WR With A 5:01 Mile ... What Happens To This Kid?

Age group "world" records are broken every week. They are meaningless. Some kids develop faster or grow faster, some parents use fake birth certificates or lie about their age.

Mari Gibbs ran around a 5:03 for a girls american age-group record for 10-11 year olds in the 70's. I don't remember the exact time. She burnt out just like Andrea Kirkcorn, Kiki Lantry, Andrea Stone, Sharon Hulse and others who ran fast early on.

Rojo, if you run into Deena Kastor, you should ask her. She was a phenomenal youth runner at (about) that age for a youth track club that produced alot of prodigies during her era. Obviously she bridged the youth/HS/College/Pro gaps pretty well. That club produced a ton of prodigies during Deena's era (Brian Dameworth and Amy Skierz most notably), but a bunch that were equally as good and were non-existent in HS. Would be interesting to hear her take on what fostered so much talent in one youth track club, and what qualities or support she had that maybe others didn't.

LetsRun.com wrote:

What do you think happens to this kid down the line when he's older? Does he continue to run fast and get really good or will be be burned out and tapped out by the time he's in high school?

What has happened to previous young phenoms like this? What would you do if you had a son/daughter who was really talented and wanted to train hard for stuff like this, what would you do?

He has a coach and says he'd been training hard for this, so he must do some kind of decent training.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/06/jonah-gorevic-sets-10-year-old-age-group-mile-world-record-501-55/

reader of the forums wrote:

What is the name of the person who's record he broke?

There is your answer.

Bernard Lagat ran sub-5 in diapers.

reader of the forums wrote:

What is the name of the person who's record he broke?

There is your answer.

Nehemiah Skandera

ran a 4:53 as a 13-14 year old. Not getting better. http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Athlete.aspx?AID=1285866HS basketball team won state title as a sophomore but he only averaged 7.8 pts a game.

Find out what happened to him wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIqVvRh_cEY

basketball and phenomenal runner at a young age. Finding out what happened to this kid will likeley answer your question

Congratulations to this boy! Wouldn't we rather having more young kids striving for greatness? Why over analyze it. Sometimes I think the envy out there would rather see a kid doing drugs and wallowing in mediocrity.

Self esteem comes from achievement! Way to go!

word. wrote:

There have probably been four hundred elementary-school age Kenyans and Ethiopians who have broken 5 minutes en route to their daily 10-mile morning run to school.

Kenyans and Ethiopians don't run miles. The U.S. white-boy records are reserved for U.S. white boys.

How do you know that they "burnt out"?

There are no guarantees for anyone. Most of them, of they had not run as kids, would never have run at all.

Get while the getting is good is my advice. The life of a struggling pro distance runner is not pretty, let's face it, and even if they reached beyond their potential, they'd get a college scholarship at best, then possibly a life as a doormat in pro races.

Get your glory as a kid and have a normal life is my suggestion.

Manchester wrote:

LetsRun.com wrote:

What do you think happens to this kid down the line when he's older? Does he continue to run fast and get really good or will be be burned out and tapped out by the time he's in high school?

Neither. He may continue to run and progress at a consistent rate, he may even be pretty good, but once more of his peers start training to run (and hitting puberty) they will likely pass him up.

10-year-old age group records are weak because very few 10-year-olds care about running at that point.

Nice armchair quarterback hail Mary.

John Lawton had run a 5:06 mile as a 10 year old back when I was running age-group in the late 70s/early 80s and if I'm not mistaken, that stood as the record for about 3 decades - I think some kid ran a 5:05 a few years back. I can't recall if Lawton even ran in h.s., but he definitely wasn't a national level runner while in h.s.

This happens literally everyday. Probably even younger. Some kids in East Africa run faster than this to school...barefooted...with no training!

If he'd ran this off of little to no regimented training (running around the playground, playing soccer, baseball, etc.) I'd say, yeah, he might do well later on. I mean really!? Who sets up a training schedule for a 10-year old!? Give it a few years - the rest of his age group will catch up, he'll start losing a few races and that'll be it.

Oh, and he started running when he was 4. Yeah, my 4-year-old runs around too. The difference is I don't have him doing 10x400 w/30 seconds rest.

Paul Thomas was similar. Ran 4:35 for 1500 a few months after he got started running as an 11 year old. Successful in HS, probably had some competitive regrets in college, then ended up being National Champion in duathlon when it was a bigger sport in the US than it is now, and still races with professionals on the bike currently.

So, kid could have a world class body and love to workout like PT, or...not.

I agree. Not impossible to become great, but kids develop at different speeds and he may just be ahead of the curve. I was 4'8" and 85 lb when I started HS and ran about 6:00 for 1600. One of my freshman teammates was 6'0" and 150 lb and ran 5:10. We both progressed, but guess who was faster our HS senior year.

reader of the forums wrote:

What is the name of the person who's record he broke?

There is your answer.

yesstiles wrote:

The Assuma twins of the late 1970's in Rialto, Ca were an exception. They were age-group phenoms as far back as elementary school, and ended up running sub-8:50 2 miles in high school, and sub-4 in the mile in college.

Swimming says... wrote:

A look at the historic US NAG Swimming records indicates that there is a correlation between setting national records at a young age and national and international success later on.

Is there a database for NAG record progression for T&F that one could make similar comparisons?

But swimming is way different. Distance runners peak about 8 years later than swimmers.

I would not say they are the exception, a large number of young phenomns do go on to success at the next level. But being great at at age 10 is certainly not a predictor of 'greatness' at age 17 or 25. Even if this kid does not get a whole lot better, he will still make a contribution to some H.S. team. What happens a lot of times is a kid like this will end up running 4:20 in H.S. and people will say the kid burned out, yet 4:20 is a very respectable time, but noadays it does not make national news and people will think the kid dissapeared.

I and looking at my AAU track champs booklet from '06 and '07, and I see as litle kids, young pheonoms like Olivia Ekpone, Hannah Cunliffe, Kendall Baisden, Ajee Wilson, Robert Griffin and many more who went on to H.S. and some level of college success. One year I recall seeing Craig Lutz, Nicole Blood, Jordan Hasay, St Geme, Alex Kosinski, Sara Bowamn and Marie Lawrence being at the same youth XC meet. A lot the kids do go on to some level of success, but I think people remember the ones like Briana J, who set all sorts of age group record, but did have nearly the same success at the next level; however, she actually did have a successful H.S. career and ran for 4 year at a D1 school. People remember mostly the ones who got away and the ones who didn't have the same success as they did as a youngster.

they say that doing other sports early on is better than specializing, when studying NCAA athletes. Specialize around 15 and you have a better shot at the elite ranks, according to what I read. How many runners did other sports until that age?

Swimming:

Jim Ryun (1:44 WR/3:33.1 WR/3:51.1 WR)

Alan Webb (1:43/3:30/3:46.91 AR/8:11/13:10/27:34)

Eric and Mark Mastalir (8:40s guys in hs?)

Soccer:

Erin Donohue

Andrew Wheating (1:44/3:30)

Galen Rupp (3:50i/7:30i AR/12:58/26:44 AR)

I wrote that just so I could write their times down. There must be many others.

thousands of kenyan 10 year olds have ran sub 5

There is a kid out of WV now running comparable times at a young age. He won the 11/12 old age group 1500/3k this year while still 10 but turning 11.

1500 link

http://www.usatf.org/events/2014/USATFYouthIndoorTFChampionships/results/1500m11-12B-F.asp

3000 link

http://www.usatf.org/events/2014/USATFYouthIndoorTFChampionships/results/3k11-12B-F.asp

So pretty good almost sub 10 3k / 447 1500. And if u see pictures he is not very tall. Both of those times are records USATF National Youth Indoor Track & Field Championships.

I have also scene 5k\'s in the low 1700\'s. It will be interesting to follow in a few years.