Is it due to more confidence? Better training methodologies? Or more taboo factors like track material improvement or better running shoes?
Is it due to more confidence? Better training methodologies? Or more taboo factors like track material improvement or better running shoes?
I'd wager that it's increased participation in athletics as a whole by females, thus increasing the talent pool from which to draw from. In the past, cross country was seen as too rugged for girls to join. It was also considered strange for girls to train on the streets back then. Nowadays, I see more girls jogging on the streets than boys.
Wonder if insta and facebook are a big reason for more girls deciding to get involved with fitness as a whole?
Coolbeans wrote:
I'd wager that it's increased participation in athletics as a whole by females, thus increasing the talent pool from which to draw from. In the past, cross country was seen as too rugged for girls to join. It was also considered strange for girls to train on the streets back then. Nowadays, I see more girls jogging on the streets than boys.
The Mary Cain impact...she put down some great times, and showed the current generation what was possible.
better genes
I think we have a handful of girls that are outliers all at the same time and then added confidence attributed to what the professionals like Houlihan and Schweizer are doing. I predict that times will fall back slightly in a year or two.
I don't think increased participation is the reason. Over the last 10 years, boys participation has increased from 239,608 to 269,295 (12.4% increase) while girls have increased from 201,968 to 219,345 (8.6% increase). I think it may have more to do with (1) barriers being broken and (2) much more publicity of these achievements, particularly due to the internet. This is happening for both boys and girls.
Look at US boy 4:00 milers. There were four total through 2010. In the last 10 years, seven boys have done it.
On the girls' side, I think the success and publicity of Mary Cain inspired a lot of girls to push paces that they may have been too timid to try before. "If she can do it, so can I." Since Cain, there has been an explosion of talented HS girls: Katelyn Tuohy, Alexa Efraimson, Katie Rainsberger, Kate Murphy, Elise Cranny, Christina Aragon, Sammy Watson, Athing Mu, Marlee Starliper, Brie Oakley, Caitlin Collier, Ericka Vander Lende, Camila Noe, and now, Jenna Hutchins.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/267951/participation-in-us-high-school-cross-country/
Well, in CT it’s because boys can compete as girls.
Maybe all females are stepping up their game now since they know it’s only a matter of time before they have to compete with boys
I'd say that it's training. Over the decades, very few girls (also their coaches and parents) were willing to grind out high mileage and train at an"elite level. Nowadays, the top female athletes are expected to do high level training if they want individual glory. If Amber Trotter or Melody Fairchild were in high school today, they'd still be studs because they didn't leave winning to chance. The 10:00 two mile barrier was a huge deal. Now it's much more common because more girls train to run 9:xx. And if I'm being honest, a sub-16 5k should've happened a long time ago. 12-13yo girls regularly dominate high school running, but not open running. So why is a 13yo better than an 18yo in highschool, but a 19yo college runner easily destroys the 13yo? Training.
Obviously these girls have amazing talent.
Are any of them getting coached by whomever happened to be at their local school, or have they pretty much all found national caliber coaches to help get their training spot on?
bartholomew_maxwell wrote:
Is it due to more confidence? Better training methodologies? Or more taboo factors like track material improvement or better running shoes?
It may be shoes in the future, sadly.
I have yet to run on a track faster than the early '80s U of Florida blue tartan track, but maybe there are faster tracks out there.
More confidence? Sure.
Very few girls competed when I was in HS, and there were few opportunities.
Overall fitness improved with all the soccer leagues for young girls.
I remember very few teenage girls that were in shape, and now there are a multitude of gyms for everyone., not just for HS or college students.
More opportunities to race.
Better training?
Fewer coaches that are not good. Not sure there are more elite coaches.
Internet?
Absolutely. Everyone is competing against the top times in their state and in the USA, and even against the times of teenage girls from other countries. And lots of attention on the internet for running a fast race.
After reading your list of names, I realized that another girl who was not a high schooler probably inspired some of the improvement. It may seem odd to say it now, but similar to Cain who is now slower than the very girls that she inspired, Grace Ping inspired many of the current girls while she was winning and placing high at national level meets while only in junior high.
Whatever it is its amazing to witness. A real renaissance. Obviously better training regiments are a massive factor but I do agree with those who say its partly about realizing whats possible by witnessing it. I saw the same thing happen in girls soccer because of the USWNT. And a real driver for these kids is social media. Melody Fairchild couldnt look at her phone and see dozens of her peers and older female athletes posting their times, their work outs and endless food blogs and other information about injuries, mental health, nutrition and hydration and getting "swole". Now its ubiquitous. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing and what all the trends are instantly.
Ive been evangelizing this year for months now considering how fast so many of this current crop of girls are. I think its been somewhat overlooked because people assume covid would cause a down year for these athletes because its impacted their ability to train and blown up so many races. But quite a few kids seemed to have thrived under these conditions and not gone backwards at all. And thank god for that.
Could be they grew up on soccer and are moving to running-which gave them a good base and speed development.
I'd like to see statistics on whether the entire pack has improved from first to last, or whether the improvement is isolated to the elites at the front of the pack. Certainly, improvement can be attributed to more year-round and purposed training, and more emphasis on strength training and cross-training. However, I think the purposeful training is limited to the very top athletes.
The machine that is youth soccer could be a cause, but it also is a deterrent. As "no-cut" sports, XC and T&F have always been the go to place for those lacking the skills to make the cut in the "popular" team sports. However, many of the team sports that once were relegated to their "season" are now year-round sports between both high school and club participation, and many club coaches do not want their players playing in high school, or at least not participating in a high school sport other than their club sport. This is particularly so with soccer, and is increasingly so with field hockey and lacrosse. Where those sports seasonally conflict with XC and/or T&F, the players aren't running.
There are also simple teen issues at play. I live in a school district with one of the largest high schools in my state. Just by percentages who'd think it would be able to field five to seven XC runners with pretty good times, but it struggles to do so because XC is not seen as a popular sport, and because the school is large, it offers a wide range of team sports and other activities. It's produced several top individual runners over the years, but never assembled a full team of talented runners. XC and T&F just aren't popular at the school and I don't believe the benefits of the sports have been properly "marketed" to the student body.
I keep going back to the North Rockland weight room video. That's some hardcore stuff for high school that might be a turnoff to some, but I think the challenge it presents is also an attraction and shows that XC and T&F is more than just individually running around and includes a collective team effort.
Hutchins Rules the World wrote:
After reading your list of names, I realized that another girl who was not a high schooler probably inspired some of the improvement. It may seem odd to say it now, but similar to Cain who is now slower than the very girls that she inspired, Grace Ping inspired many of the current girls while she was winning and placing high at national level meets while only in junior high.
Grace Ping was never that good though. She placed well at a couple national cross country meets, but no higher than 6th, and ran 4:50s for the mile and 10:20s for the two-mile on the track. The barrier-breakers were the people like Cain and Tuohy (Cain on the track and Tuohy in cross country). They totally redefined what was possible for high school girls. Cain made a world championship final in high school, and ran 4:04 for 1500. The high school record before her was like 4:12. Tuohy absolutely shattered every single major course record in the northeast in cross country. Let's run down the list:
13:21 at VCP (previous record 13:53 by Jess Lawson, now a 4:11/8:59 woman at Stanford)
16:45 at Bowdoin Park (previous record 17:16 by Aisling Cuffe, who ran 15:11 at Stanford)
16:52 at Sunken Meadow (previous record 17:45, also by Aisling Cuffe)
16:21 at Holmdel Park (honestly not sure, record appears to be 17:28?)
She also ran 16:06 to set the XC 5k national record, and 16:37 to set the NXN course record. Hutchins is a phenomenal runner, very much on the level of Tuohy, as her 170+ speed ratings, 15:58 XC 5k, and 15:34 track 5k indicate, just like Efraimson was on the same level as Cain, but it takes a lot more to break that barrier than it does to rise to it.
It’s simply there’s better information available due to the internet. Better info to train and chase times. Also, if you’re high school coach is lousy or you want to start earlier then high school to train at a high level you can. Now you can be coached through technology from the other side of the world.
Yep. There is so much ridiculous boosterism on this site but an athlete cannot aspire to break records or rise to standards that do not exist. When Tuohy set the 5000m record she broke the previous mark by nearly 20 seconds. Other than scheduling a 5000m run, she did nothing special in planning her run, did not try to find a pro race or invitational, did not arrange to have any help at all, and choose a venue, an indoor 200m track, that was hardly ideal in a regular high school race. She then proceeded to run absolutely hell bent for leather, which is why that run captured so many people's imaginations. Does anyone think given where and how she ran that race that she could not have run under 15:34 if that was what she was gunning for, that she could not have arranged an easier venue and pacing help? But that is not how records work. Rather someone has to set a standard (such as a 4 minute mile) and then subsequent athletes can aspire to beat it, which is exactly what happens.
Settle down. I didn't say that Ping was as good. I merely said that she likely inspired the current group of girls because they were in junior high when she was. They saw her win Griak as a 7th grader. And you forgot that she finished 2nd at NB Nationals to Kelati in 2016. It is insulting to her to say that her accomplishments are not huge for anyone, let alone a junior high schooler. If a junior high girl finishes 2nd at a national meet this year, other junior high girls will notice.
The reason the times have been really good over the last few years is cross training. All of the elite girls cross-train like fiends. And that's what you got to do if you really want to be an elite middle distance Runner
I think the fact that they're hitting the weight room swimming bicycling probably in a way that few other girl runners in the past have really helps
That combined with the fact that there's been a lot of attention and the sport is growing in popularity
Also probably doesn't hurt that most girls probably haven't been going to high school for the last year which certainly allows more time for training , but that's just for what's going on this past year not the last 5