8th grade girl runs 4:51 mile

RunDaddy's right, you don't run 4:51 without the right type of training. The question isn't is she undertraining, it's is she overtraining. And unfortunately, this is an extremely difficult question that even elite athletes with lots more experience and coaches, can't figure out. Track and Field News's status quo is a laundry list of athletes succumbing to injuries from overtraining. Is she achieving these times by pushing the envelope too far and increasing the likelihood of injury, or is she training appropriately allowing her body to recover fully between hard workouts? Only time will tell. If she gets injured or her times plateau, it's the former. If she stays healthy and continues to make incremental improvement, it's the latter. Because there's no sure way to know if she is fully recovered nor to know if the beginnings of a stress fracture lie just under the surface, it's best to err on the side of caution, especially at this age. I would recommend a day off from running after any hard workout and a full week off every 4 to 5 weeks. Her enemy isn't going to be training too little, it's training to much.

Cack certainly has me convinced that it's body type more than absolute size. Perhaps the prevalence of small runners is due to the fact that people as tall and thin as Cack are just incredibly rare. Anyway, she's gotta be 3-4 inches taller than me and 30 lbs lighter and I'm not much over my racing weight at 8%.

I think Marion Sutton may have retired, and yes, she is tall!

I just was using it to highlight *height* plays a big factor in weight figures. There's a big difference between 120 @ 5'0 and 120 @ 5'10. I don't remember how much is accepted as accurate, but I've seen figures ranging from 2lbs per inch to 5 lbs per inch. I dislike absolute weight cut offs with no consideration for height as they aren't very accurate, and it just seems unfair! Anyway, it's a pet peeve of mine, so I didn't mean to jump on you.

RunDaddy wrote:

What more "knowledge of the situation" do I need? A 13 year old girl runs 4:51. She's doing speedwork, including some racing on weekends. I can read well enough to read between the lines of Mr Rubio's cheerleading. I've been around this sport long enough to smell bullshit. I'm supposed to believe because she doesn't put her hands on her knees after intervals she's not running hard? Please.

Believe what you want to believe. I'll trust what I've seen over the years.

RunDaddy,

She's talented, it's that simple. She was a non-factor 12 months ago, never saw her at a local race or track meet or anything having to do with running at all. I remember her coach telling me he had a talented girl come out for his team last spring. She ran several meets that culminated with a 4:34 (1500), 9:48 3k and 4:36 1500 on successive days in Eugene last June, both national age group records in her first season of running track without previous XC or road racing experience. She effectively was a sub 5 miler and a sub 10:30 two miler at 12 years old, 6 months after taking up the sport. Based on this is a 4:51 solo mile at 13 years old unrealistic? Do you really think she ran the 4:34/9:48 on tons of event speciofic training? I was there each week and can tell you from where I was sitting it was a light work load.

The workouts I referred to where what I saw last spring at the Cuesta College track every week. In my experience the work load I see her doing should not equal anything close to what she's running, but the fact remains, she's is.

Joe

No doubt she's talented. A teenage girl has to have amazing talent to run that time even with a ton of event specific training. I'd like to see her splits - were they posted earlier? As you know, the mile is about 50/50 aerobic/anaerobic energy sytems. Without the anaerobic work, it's hard to imagine she could tolerate the lactate build up in the second half of the race to keep the pace. I assume she went out fast, because most kids her age have a hard time with pacing unless they already have a fair amount of racing experience (ahem). If she closed quickly I'm still throwing the bullshit flag.

Of course, she is getting some anaerobic work in swimming. And I've seen some swimmers over the years do some amazing things on a little training.

Jordan has not raced since National JO XC Dec 11, 04. She took about four weeks reducing her running days per week meeting once a week to do a light run on grass. In mid Jan. we started to meet twice a week. No speed work has been involved since before Nationals. Please note, I have a youth program with other children not as gifted, but not to shabby either. The point is Jordan is part of a team and gets no special training sessions by herself. After observing her the last few weeks, I felt she was strong enough to run the Cuesta Open mile and not injure herself. Even with this low key training, I felt she could run 5:00. Here are the splits I asked her to shoot for and what she actually ran. 440 - 1:10/1:06; 880 - 1:17/1:13; 1320 - 1:18/1:17; last 440 - 1:15/1:14. And she did it with a smile on her face and crossing the line barely winded. She is running the West Zone Indoor this weekend in Spokane just to get some indoor experience. Then nothing for at least a month. She would not and I would not let her race if she was not still having a blast. Her parents and I have a very close eye on her. It is what it is.

Jim Barodte, Youth Coach

San Luis Distance Club

and people blast the kranicks and nicole blood (who also ran 4:50 as an 8th grader) but why would you ask someone who hasn't been running much and who your mile goal time is 5:00 to go out in 70?? at least the kranicks had the defense that nicole had run a 4:42 before (and who knows maybe the kranicks suggested a more conservative opening pace)

It doesn't matter what this girl is doing or not doing for training. If she trains in a traditional high school program I can assure you that she'll go backwards like everyone else when she hits puberty.

Our country has not seen one single female youth all-star go on to do anything significant in the future no matter what training she was doing as a kid. Until that happens it is just better to let her running do the talking.

That simply isn't true. If you read a few posts up, you'll note that Suzy Favor was a youth star (2:14 800m at age 12). She trained in a traditional high school, won a ton of high school titles, and has done a lot of significant things in her career, to say the least. Regina Jacobs ran 2:09 at age 13, ran in high school and ran a 4:00 1500m in 1988 (before she turned to drugs). And Decker of course was on the world scene at age 14.

Nothing is guaranteed to anyone but, as far as I know, every great female runner has to go through puberty.

It looks like too many people are living vicariously here. Why do they need to get on the message boards about a 13 year old. Just carry on with your business and let happen what will happen with the kid...

You really love that word 'vicariously' don't you Wow...?

Note to all Letsrun Message Board users, according to Wow if you dare comment on someone younger than you, you are guilty of living vicariously through them

Gee. Who can blame the girl's coach or dad for being excited and watching the national boards? I'm excited and don't even know them. I know a great time when I see when, and can smell an overtraining situation when there is one. This girl has the talent and looks to be doing things right. Amazing athletes do amazing things.

No guarantees about the future but it looks bright.

Good luck to Jordan and your program. I wish you all the best.

My only point was that a mile is too long a distance to PB at without the athlete being able to tolerate the lactate build up in the back half. She clearly has done speed work in the fall, and some of that is still with her even though she didn't do much over Christmas. Plus her swimming, as I mentioned before. So when the original post says she hasn't done speed work, that's not really accurate. Studies have shown that fitness stays with a well conditioned athlete a lot longer (5-8 weeks) than previously thought.

As for child prodigies reaching the highest levels, some have and some haven't for a bunch of different reasons. Conversely, runners like Radcliff were good in their young teens but not great.

Radcliffe consistently placed in the top five in national championships as an under-15 (13-15 age group) - she was fourth. She won the national championships as an under 17 (15-17 age group) and ran for england in 15-17 too.

I'd say that's pretty great.

Sorry. Maybe I'm wrong about that. I was down at the Bedford track last year where my daughter was competing and I remember talking to some local about Radcliff and he made it sound as though she was very good, but not off the charts phenomenal as a young teen.

Anyway, here's another one: Lynn Jennings. I don't think she even started running competitively until she was in high school. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

It\'s a common perception that she was a bit crappy when younger. She won the world XC champs (junior race) as a late teen and I think the year before that came relatively high up. She did run for England quite early on though (early/mid teens)

Burn out is only SOMETIMES and option. Most people just assume she's gonna burn just because she can hit some insane times now. But fact is, some people can handle these ungodly high heart rates and can recover from a 16:40 5k like it's nothing. As one of you said you know her, I'm pretty sure this could be done off base. But once she does happen to start speedwork, well then you'll see some SERIOUSLY crazy times. Good Luck Jordan!!!

P.S...why doesn't someone just find her email or something and ask HER parents these questions..an email adress isn't that hard to find these days..Anyway stop talking garbage her, and tell it to someone else.

What the hell are you talking about?? I never said she was going to burnout. I never made any prediction whatsoever. All I said is that's hard to believe a 13 yr old girl can go 4:51 without some anaerobic work. She's obviously a tremendous talent and for all i know a tremendous person from a wonderful family. I'm certainly noto going to e-mail her family like you recommend in your very incoherent post.

Regarding burnout....you can pull up the history of many of the top runners on Dyetstat, and find that they have been running since 7th and 8th grade. So, the burnout is obviously very individual. Yes the overbearing parent can add to the problems, but many of the girls we read about in 11th, 12th, and in to college were running successfully at teh ages of 11, 12 and 13.