How fast to be on average high school 4x400 team?

Why the concern with slow enough to make an average team? Why not be fast enough to make all high school teams?

I coach a small Catholic high school team (enrollment of 400 kids 9-12). For girls we need to run under 4:10 by end of season to be competitive and for boys under 3:25: so under 52 for boys and no slower than 62-63 for girls. We do it by smoke and mirrors, taking sprinters and middle distance runners to complete the teams. Better question is what does it take to be on the 4x800 relay teams? For boys I need 2:05 or under and for girls 2:32 and under. Anything slower and we won't make State for either 4x4 or 4x8 .

dancin man wrote:

[quote]Phillllyyyy wrote:

[quote]people forget how many bad teams there are wrote:

For reference, the exact 50th percentile team at this year's Penn relays ran 3:37--i.e., four guys going 54-55. Penn isn't a perfectly representative sample though--many teams that can't field a competitive 4x4 won't attend, small schools without the capacity to travel super far for more than a handful of invites a year won't attend, etc. I'd agree that the true average probably runs closer to 3:45.

You run a 54-55 quarter, you're on a varsity 4x4 at most high schools.

Interesting - if you look at GA - the middle ranked team (484 represented) number 242 ran 3:37.5 - looking at other states it ranged from 3:34 - 3:46 - so I would the 50th percentile is right around 3:35 - 3:40.

Good discussion so far. What about 4x2? Or 4x8?

people forget how many bad teams there are wrote:

If were talking average based on team/school, 55-56 seconds to make the relay team.

If you run 55-56 as a HS boy or 61-62 as a girl, you may not be one of the four best 400m runners on your team but a lot of sprinters double so you'll end up running the 4x400 especially in dual meets.

You have to be one of the top four fastest people on the team in the 400.

A 61 girl is not equivalent to a 55-56 boy. Not even close. I would say a 61 girl is equivalent to a 52 second boy. I have about 10 boys out of 24 total boy athletes including throwers who can run 56 but only a few can run under 53 by the end of the year. A 61 second girl would probably qualify for a lot of State meets but a 56 second boy wouldn't even run the 400 in the championship/qualifying meets because you'd have 5-7 boys faster.

This ^

People on letsrun are all people who actually care about running and the actual average high school program has some jokers who got cut from soccer. My high school had a good distance program (former teammate ran 3:50 1500 his senior year) but a bad sprints program and we would run at least two 55-56 guys at every meet except at rare championships where we could scrape together four 50-54 guys. If you're talking about the average high school in America, I think the number would be even closer to 56-57: a lot of schools barely have a track program or have some volunteer coach and kids who only practice 3 days a week. The average high school that a letsrun poster went to probably has an average of like 53 on their best relay

It can vary a lot year to year within the same program as well. My senior year we had 5 guys under 51. Within a couple of years if you could run 54 you were on the team.

It’s threads like these that reveal who has actually spent time at high school track meets. Hat tip to the poster with the Penn Relays times. About half the “track fans” on this message board have spent little time watching track meets.

1959 NOVICE 4x440 Champs NY PSAL ( novice- no one on team has won a medal at 440) third place team 56 high-54 low-55 .5-56 high.

Very small school in a rubbish area, our track programme sucks and most kids are into juuling or smoking weed.

Fastest boy on our 4x4: 55.

Slowest: 62

Fastest girl on our 4x4: 64

Slowest: 72

Out of 300 kids, only 3 can break 60. No girls have come close.

boye wrote:

under 52 for boys and no slower than 62-63 for girls.

... what does it take to be on the 4x800 relay teams? For boys I need 2:05 or under and for girls 2:32 and under. Anything slower and we won't make State for either 4x4 or 4x8 .

why are your standards so much lower for the 800 than the 400? And I mean they are WAY lower, about 10 seconds off the true equivalent.

This is pretty simple to determine using mlesplit or athketic.net. I looked at s randon state, IL, where the average 4x4 team ran 3:40 wich is 55 per guy. Thatbwould be a split snd woukdn't be the slowest kid on the relay but the aveage of the 4. Based on this, I can safely say that the answer to the question is no faster than 55 and most likely 56-57.

So besides spewing some generalizations from Penn, I decided to look at PA Milesplit. 531 teams in PA ran the guys 4x4. 265th was 3:38.98, 266 was 3:39.06. This all fits in with my original guess of between 3:35-40.

Just for shiggles, I went to Montana's sites, the middle tram there ran 3:43.46. Now PA has the 6th largest school aged population and Montana has the 8th smallest.

Now, I've gone to Alabama, the 25th state. 283 schools, #141 comes in at 3:47.01.

This sorta makes me think that my bias is off and that even 55 is too high for the "average" 4x4 across the country. It probably is closer to 3:45 of we are talking about the true average for this country which is then a 56/57 to get on with one kid probably running that 54.