Jenna Hutchins Runs 15:34 at Five and Dime To Break Katelyn Tuohy's 5000 US HS National Record

Let me jump in here I see a lot of bewildered looks on peoples faces....If you just pick couple of professional runners and look back at their career you are committing the Sharpshooter fallacy..... As has been said it's pretty clear that the majority of women go through changes which slow them down as a distance Runner

Of course if you look at professional runners you're going to find, or be more likely to find, the exceptions to the rule as well as the girls who were able to weather the storm so to speak...But the bottom line is that all women have to deal with developmental changes which aren't ideal for distance running, this is basic developmental physiology.

What do you mean, as a track coach, I would routinely have young men who came to me as lean mean running machines as freshman and sophomore, only to slow down their Junior and Senior year because suddenly they had started to Blossom and had to deal with breasts and hips and Newfound body fat even though they were training the same as always... I mean what planet are these guys posting from? Apparently on that planet both men and women equally bear the brunt of childbirth, and the effects of getting ready for it!

America’s Next Great Running Hope, and One of the Cruelest Twists in Youth Sports

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/sports/katelyn-tuohy.html

No, the real challenge is solving one of the cruelest puzzles of youth sports: Why do so many gifted teenage female distance runners fizzle out by their early 20s, unable to capture the speed of their youth?

since 1980, just one female winner of the Foot Locker National Cross Country Championships has made an Olympic team, compared with seven male high school champions.

Bill Pierce, a professor of health sciences at Furman University and the co-founder of the Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training, said it was nearly impossible to project an elite girl’s future success in distance running because the female body changes so much during the teenage years.

Running fast over long distances requires great lung capacity, but also great strength relative to body weight, as do figure skating and gymnastics.

They are nothing but skin and bones and lungs in their early years,” Pierce said. Then, he said, the girls mature but don’t necessarily develop the strength required to move a larger body so swiftly.

It’s hardly a coincidence that many girls at the top level of the sport as juniors have struggled with disordered eating and other body-related issues. They include Melody Fairchild, who in 1991 was called the greatest high school runner ever. Fairchild dreamed of making an Olympic team from the age of 12, and she was such a dominant runner as a teenager she was certain it would happen. It never did.

Looking back on those years, Fairchild said she, like so many other young, talented runners, failed to understand that the ups and downs she experienced as her body evolved were normal. Nature was doing what it is supposed to do for young girls as they become women — add fat and prepare the body for reproduction. That otherwise healthy development, however, does not help an elite runner maintain her speed.

Fairchild was 5-foot-4 and 95 pounds and essentially prepubescent when she was dominating in high school. After her freshman year of college, she took a year off. She gained 20 pounds. She returned to school and competition and had to learn how to run again with a different physique. She called the bodies that so many elite female runners compete with in high school “a terrible tease.”

“That is not a sustainable thing,” Fairchild said in an interview from her home in Colorado, where she is a personal running coach. Even more dangerous, she added, is the message young women get when they are encouraged to fight to regain their high school physiques. “We want them to embrace being in a strong woman’s body.”

Given those dynamics, Fairchild and others say, women who aren’t high school champions may actually have an advantage. Karissa Schweizer of the University of Missouri is considered the top college distance runner of the moment. Schweizer never won a state cross-country championship in high school and didn’t even qualify for the national championships.

I have rarely seen any of these HS girls' record-setters display the running form that Mary Decker maintained throughout her career. I am not surprised that when these girls get older, they can't maintain the high turnover of when they were young, and lacking elite running technique, they don't excel at the international level when in their 20s.

An 7th grade girl's mother would drive her the few miles to train with a HS coach. Also in 8th grade. The girl had the indoor 2-mile national record for age 11.

As a freshman, she was 2nd in the state for the mile and won the 2-mile. No surprise, except surprise that a girl had beaten her in the mile. The times were fast for back then.

By her junior year, her physique had changed and she was burnt out from running so much prior to HS. She was still talented, but no longer motivated. She had the technique to run faster than most, but maybe not to race the elite college runners.

rojo wrote:

Saw that he ran 4:05.70. Did we ever figure out why Harrison is running a mile on December 12th?

I always liked running a few track races off of cross country fitness in December before taking a break for the holidays. If you do it every year it provides a nice benchmark of your progress.

Except for the fact that he already took a break. This is the start of his track season, not the ending to a cross country season.

Hutchins beats Astro wrote:

Except for the fact that he already took a break. This is the start of his track season, not the ending to a cross country season.

OK so then why the confusion about why he's running a mile? Because it's track season now.

Because 99% of high school runners only compete in track meets that their coach takes them to as part of a team except for maybe a postseason meet when they are trying to run a PR. Driving yourself to a preseason meet when you don't plan to PR is normally frowned upon by coaches.

This young lady was interesting to watch.

her turnover was incredible. I was wondering how she could go faster, then in the last couple of laps when she dug down bit, she started getting more off the ground, and her arms got a little better. She is an interesting runner to watch. I hope all you fools don't get all crazy as she has along way to go, and many changes to grow into.

Tuohy has issues, despite being well coached. She tends to over stride a bit early in the race, which of course will lead to some knee issues. Hopefully she can survive it all.

Tuohy's stride is perfect. When people first compared her it was to Zola Budd's stride.

If she overstrides early in races it was because she was simply running. She never used pacers or pacing aid and generally was just trying to run fast.

Hutchins stride is clipped. It does not lend itself to getting much faster. That can be adjusted but none of the top 5k runners run with such a clipped stride.

The big picture is this: Running a 15:30s 5000m is nice. The trick is can you grow into running 15 and below. That requires a longer stride.

First it was ridiculous that she would break 16 at Runninglane. She broke the record in 15:58. A few guys didn't like it so they try to say the course ran faster than a track. She would only run 16 flat on a track. Then she runs 15:34 at a low key meet with no crowds cheering her on. The people who didn't like that try to discredit it as a paced race. But the pacer didn't really contribute much so they then say but, but,but, her form isn't as good so her upside may not be as much as Tuohy. This is ridiculous. She broke 2 national records in a month. There are no style points or points for the course or the wind or the pacer. The only points are for setting the records. Why not predict a great career for a 16 year old who is the best high school runner of all time instead of predicting that her future will be limited?

More silliness.

Now I think I am going to have to root for Hutchins given how delusional you are being. She needs to be shielded from delusional "fans' like you and all that bad karma. And remember I can tell every such statement you have made about other runners. I would almost call it a curse. Anyone know an incantation I can say to save her career?

Tuohy's form is not that great either.

Hutchins needs 2 seconds a lap to qualify by time (and not some point system) for the Olympic trials. If she shifts focus to her 800m and 1600m performances, she can chase the 3200m record. If she does that as well, she has a chance of breaking 15:10. If she continues on a distance rampage, she will be Icarus and not Daedalus, and fall short of 15:10.

Are you still trying to validate the CC course from November?

And yes her form has to be corrected. There is not one top pro 5000m runner with that form. The last person whose form she reminds me of, Brie Oakley, has been dealing with a slew of injury issues.

astro wrote:

And yes her form has to be corrected. There is not one top pro 5000m runner with that form. The last person whose form she reminds me of, Brie Oakley, has been dealing with a slew of injury issues.

Once again:

Don't see it. But you never know again.

Form is overrated. She can easily go 30 seconds faster with a that same stride.

Uh huh.