Alan Webb's 3:53.43 vs. Jane Hedengren 4:23.50: Which is the better record?

Sadie doesn’t hold any national records and she didn’t win any national titles, so no, she’s definitely not in the running for GOAT. Not even close … there’s a ton of other runners that had “longevity” too. Melody Fairchild, Sara Bei, Anita Siraki, Kim Mortenson, Emily Sisson, Jordan Hasay, Mel Lawrence, Hannah Thompson, Rylee Blade, … the list goes on and on. Definitely not Sadie Engelhart, mostly because she’s mostly a mid-distance star, but nothing else.

You want great longevity over their high school career … Mel Lawrence finished second, second, second and fifth in her four years qualifying for Footlocker Nationals from 2003-06. Did Sadie even finish fifth at XC nationals once during her career?

You're probably right.

Zola Budd was 6 months older than Jane, when she ran that 4:17 mile . . . barefoot!

Well, Sadie held mile record for a year.

In your list of greats, only Fairchild and Hasay really in discussion of greats. All the others too brief of a career or not fast enough.

Sara Bei Hall unique with her long hs, college, pro career.

Hasay is particularly important as with her freshman fl win, she was visible in media for 4 years of hs and then at Oregon. She really put the recent string of hs girl stars Baxter, Cain, Lane, Tuohy, Engelhardt, Hedengren on the map, as the first of that group, and maybe still the best known.

Engelhardt must have turned down your prom invite, it's really hard to argue with 4x CA XC champ, and 4x premier US miler and USATF 1500m oly trials q.

Sure she could have run better in her 4 nat xc races, and sure she is overshadowed in her sr yr so far by Hedengren...but she is very good.

Yes, Thank you 🙏 !

It's Webb and it's not even close. Webb was 4 seconds behind El G that day and was top 5 in a Diamond league level meet. If Henengrin is that close to Faith in a 1500 or mile I will come back and retract this, until something like that happens you will have to chill. She is a very good runner, but Webb is a high school legend, who backed it up with oly trials wins, world champs finals and a us Mile record

...and Kessler’s 3:34.36, run in May of his senior year at age 18 and 2 months scores an 1184.

Jane by far! The reason being the mile is not her primary event. It's the two-mile, 5k, and soon to be 10k and 8k cross-country. In fact, this might be one of the last few times we ever see her in this event/1500m.

We will see if it stands the test of time. Webb's record has.

One other metric: Webb's 3:53 in 2001 was the fastest mile by ANY American that year.

Mile may not be Jane's primary event . . . but the following calculation below indicates it may her best event at this time.

Believe comparing men's records to women's records is not relevant.

Believe comparing US hs girl's records to US women's records is relevant, given the senior records were set by women who went through the US grade school/hs/college systems that current girls are following.

So:

4:23 is 7 seconds slower than the US mile record of 4:16 . . . a 2.73% difference.

14:57 is 38 seconds slower than the US 5000 record of 14:19 . . . a 4.42% difference.

Suggesting: either Jane can run a lot faster, right now, over the longer distance . . . or, her current training is better suited for the mile.

Lean towards the latter, as her 2 mile hs record of 9:34 is 25 seconds off the US 2 mile record of 9:09 . . . also significantly slower, being a 4.55% difference.

Given these metrics, and going into 2025, taking 5 secs off Englehardt's prior hs mile record of 4:28 is astonishing but believable. However, taking 28 seconds off Leachman's prior hs 5000 record of 15:25 is, well, just astonishing.

As her training intensifies in college -- and no injuries incur as a result -- expect Jane's 3000 and 5000 times to drop significantly while her 1500/mile times creep downwards over time.

So, given all the above, would love to see Jane race a fast 1500 against pro competition before she's off to college. Her 4:23 mile projects to approx a 4:03/1500 -- which is Efraimson's hs record. So, another hs record in her sights if she wants it.

The original claim was that her four year career could be considered the greatest HS career ever. The shortcomings that this poster and Rojo and others are pointing out are not meant to imply that she didn’t have a great high school career, only that it was not the greatest high school career ever — a fairly obvious point with which you explicitly agree (according to your earlier post).

Sadie is not in the discussion. I wouldn't even consider her the greatest CA cross runner...that would go to Claudia Lane who won 2 national championships. The national championship races that Sadie competed in were not close to being competitive. Way down in placing. That alone says it all.

One thing that always seems to be lost is that NXN was run in awful conditions the past two years and is really an outlier meet. This, is why there were so many topsy turvy results. The gelatinous conditions favored small, light runners who don't do well at track but excelled in mud. From a pure time perspective in the 800, mile and two mile SE clearly has a legacy of being one of the top HS runners ever. Titles are not everything, particularly when conditions are awful at "marquee" events. Anyone who knows anything about running doesn't place too much stock in NXN.

It’s important to keep things in perspective. As good as Jane’s times are she’s still ~13 seconds slower than other runners her age globally. Birke Haylom is 8 months older but ran 3:53 in the 1500 last year. Thats a pretty wide gap. Also she would be embarrassed in a field with the top 1500 runners. Alan Webb would have at least been somewhat competitive.

Yeah well El G ran 3:49 in that race, 6 seconds off his best. If Pre goes 3:49 this year, it will be one of the most disappointing races of all time unless there’s a crazy finish

Webb because it is 30 secs faster.

But what about the impact of super-fast super-shoes and legal PEDs like the Maurten sports gels?

Jane has access to those things, but Webb didn't. I'd give Webb the edge in any comparison.

Its Webb as plenty of others have stated.

I'll just add that if this board still exists in 2051 rightly or wrongly we/they wont be discusing Jane Hedegrens 423 HS mile. If im wrong ill apologize lol.

Also I dont think she will be going on Jimmy Kimmel later this week sadly.

Rudy Chapa's 1976 10,000 HS record of 28:32 was only 3.7% off the then-world record of 27:30 when it was set (and would have been a world record 20 years earlier). It is of course a MUCH less commonly run distance for HSers, but it qualified him for the 1976 Olympic Trials and no HSers has come within 23 seconds of it before or since. Maybe it's better than either Webb or Hedengren in terms of all-time HS performances? And of course both Jim Ryun's 3:55 mile in 1965 and Gerry Lindgren's 8:40 indoor 2-mile in 1964 are far superior relative to their peers, as perhaps is Mary Decker's 2:02.4 indoor 880 (worth 2:01.8 for 800 and an indoor world record at the time) at age 15 in 1974 and even Kim Gallagher's 2:00.07 outdoor 800 in 1982.