I agree, but I was going through some stats of area runners from my old high school; I found a girl whose PR in the 1600m was only 5:30 in high school, yet she went on to be the #1 runner in cross country at a P5 conference. She walked on, obviously. Who would've thought, right? Some women are late bloomers, not sure if this applicable to men, too.
Some people are late bloomers, I even found another athlete like this in the same conference- again, a female athlete who walked on to a Div 1 school and ended up being their #1 runner. it's odd, but sometimes even high school times don't show a female athlete's full potential.
of course, sometimes it goes the other way, too. E.g., a high school star will not improve in college.
Yeah but the bigger proof is that as a girl, once you hit sub4:55 as an 8th grader you are destined for greatness. Pretty much automatic national contender.
Lexy Halladay (will be a freshman next year at Mountain View, Idaho) is up there as well: she ran 4:26.90 to win the Portland Track Festival open race today. Fellow eighth grader Madison Elmore (Eugene, Oregon) also ran 4:31.
Add in athletes like Taylor Roe (4:47 for 1600m in 8th grade last year), the plethora of Montana girls the last couple years, Gracie Ping, Kelsey Chmiel, Morgan Foster, Claire Walters, etc. there are a LOT of great young girls out there right now.
There seem to always be a bunch of promising 7-10th grade female runners, but unfortunately puberty hits and they fail to improve. A recent exception is Hasay and maybe Ostrander (but time will tell yet with AllieO).
However, I will not expect her to be the next star. Pre-pubescent girls are infamous for putting up insane times and then failing to improve. Young boys can expect to receive massive improvement due to testosterone and growth spurts. A girl in high school probably won't grow much more, and will almost certainly gain 15-30 pounds.
Good assessment. How are we feeling about this now?