Kid in HS in early 90s. Came out for the end of cross. That winter he ran an indoor split of 60 in 4x400. In the spring ran just under 5:00 for 1600. Next cross he was varsity. I don’t remember what he ran indoors but by outdoor he was a state placer with 4:22 1600.
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I went from 5:37 freshman year to 4:32 sophomore year
Fr : 19:41
So : 16:23
Jr : 15:43 - So far
A girl on my team started her freshman XC season last year at a 25:53. She wasn't a new runner but definitely wasn't training seriously as a middle schooler. She finished last season with a 23:37 and ran 6:30/13:45 during track.
This season, after some killer summer training that our coaches gave us, she has now ran 19:58 on one of the hardest courses in the state! Could very much run close to 19 flat on a fast course!
I went 6:10 to 5:19 in 8-9 months as a 12-13 year old
47ft to 59ft In the shot put
Although if was from zero at age 9, but my son somehow discovered track and ran 4:40 for 1500m at age 10. Zero to hero
I think Hobbs Kessler had a big jump…..maybe 4:17 as a junior to a 3:34 1500m the year after
My sister went from 25 high to 18 her first year of cross country. I know this because I managed to beat her in our first race, also running 25. But I never got anywhere near 18.
The 4:17, as 1600m
In high school, I only ran my senior year. I did play basketball my freshman and sophmore years, my junior year I worked after school as a hod carrier and was about a half a pack a day cigarette smoker. I smoked up until my 1st day my senior year and just put out a cigarette as the cross country team was going for a run. A friend talked me into going and I ran in jeans and high top tennis shoes I believe. I kept up for one mile and then fell way back and about killed myself trying to finish before the girls team that started with us. I was hacking up black crud and that was the last day I smoked cigarettes. I stuck with it and was #4 by the enf of the xc season. In track the next spring, I ran a 4:48 mile, a 2:04 880, and was running :54 on the 4x440. Didn't run much that summer but wanted to try to run at college so started training about a month before school started. Around the end of that year, I was running 3x6/5 of a mile at 5:00 min/mile pace with a 5 min rest in between twice a week. Didn't do much in track season following spring because we had very few home meets (I wasn't good enough to travel) and I also caught pneumonia. A month after getting over the pneumonia, I ran a summer 1500m fun run and only ran 4:35, but I also went out in :58 accidentally in the lead. I thought u did fairly well doing the 3x6/5 of a mile at 5:00min/mile pace with 5-min rest only after having been running for about 16 months after being a smoker. Never really did much after that. Alway got sick or injured. Did 1:58 1st race of a season indoors. Ran some :51 400m in some practices and 22.3 200m in practice.
This season we had a girl go from 23:08 to 19:23 just in seven weeks. It was more a case of untapping talent from someone who didn’t train over the summer and was new to the sport.
4:48 freshman year to opening Soph season with a 4:24 off of just basketball. no offseason run training. finished season at 4:15. There was 6 weeks of practice before that meet. So not nothing.
obviously have seen BIGGER improvements. But that's the most impressive.
I knew of a college runner that went from 15:56 for a 5k to 14:42 in one year. That was crazy.
I’ve seen someone go from 26:15 to 20:00 in one season, and still one race to go. He went from not running and complaining when the coach to him and another kid, “it’s cross country running not cross country walking.”
I went from 37' to 31'30 for my first season in a running club, for 10k, at age 35.
Pretty happy with that, but I'm not sure how special it is.
Edit: if this thread is about high school/college only, then disregard my post!
Beginners luck wrote:
I think Hobbs Kessler had a big jump…..maybe 4:17 as a junior to a 3:34 1500m the year after
This isn’t true. He ran a 4:08 full mile in 2020 pacing Nick Willis and mason ferlic through 1209 in 3:02. Still, getting down to 3:51 next year is wild.
Didn't Jim Ryan run like a 5 min mile as a sophomore and broke 4 minutes as a junior? attempts were 3:59.0
My best friend in high school had a crazy progression in-between his first cross season and second/third, then didn't really improve the last year of high school. And he made that huge improvement between freshman year and sophomore/junior year on only 45ish miles a week. Not really sure why he kind of plateaued because we ran all of our mileage together so I knew he was doing all the training year-round.
2014 -- 19:45 (standout race; much faster than other times that season)
2015 -- 17:38 (consistent times during season)
2016 -- 16:14 (consistent times during season)
2017 -- 16:56 (a bit better showing than most of the season)