When Valby says she didn’t train that hard in high school, people will come on here, acting like they are in the know, and blatantly accuse her of lying. They’ll say she was running “high mileage”.
Just go to milesplit. There is a video out there where her local tv station comes out to interview the local ‘phenom’ with her high school coach. I was shocked when I first saw that video. She does some toe-touches to warm up. She looks awkward and ‘pudgy’ compared to the typical high-caliber runner.
Maybe she had a week or two, or a month here and there of running ‘high mileage’, but with that video (and other videos and photos), I find it hard to believe she was training even close to the level of the ‘prodigies’ that train year-round, and certainly not at her Div I level of training now.
Newbury Park had it dialed in. They were training their athletes at a high collegiate/pro level. That video tells me there is no way Valby was training like that.
So it is all relative.
But she obviously was talented. Just compare the size of a collegiate-level female la crosse player to that of a runner. Relatively speaking, which of the two looks ‘pudgy’?
I agree that a multi-sport high school athlete will typically have more muscle mass and body fat than the highest level high school runners, but to call them 'pudgy' is ridiculous. That is my point. Obviously Parker is and was incredibly talented, not arguing that at all. My comment was more about the language around high school female runners. How many other incredibly talented high school runners could have gone on to have Valby-like NCAA careers if they let their bodies be a bit 'pudgy' in high school and sacrificed a few seconds in their mile time?
Valbystans need to pause for a minute and realuze that Valby's 10k time is a full minute and 30 seconds faster then the next fastest runner in the NCAA, Hilda Olemomoi. A minute 30 faster than a 15:06 runner. And she runs on an arc trainer? Nico Young? One second faster than Habtom Samuel, that is it.
Yes, her training and weird answers will be under a microscope.
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