Wassup Letsrun. I was wondering if anyone has any stories of any high school or college runners that have had insane improvements over the course of a season or career. I find stories of kids who who from zero to hero overnight really inspiring. Or kids who started off really slow but consistently chipped away at it for several years and got really fast. I knew a few guys who were like this.
A runner who graduated the year before I entered high school had run 18:01 for 3 miles (the main distance in the state I was in) as a freshman in XC. In track he improved to 4:47 and 2:10 by the end of the season for the 1600m and 800m. Over the summer he made major jumps in his fitness and his high school XC season he ran 14:40. A mind boggling 3:20 second improvement from the year prior. Sophomore track he ran 9:13 for 3200m and 4:14 for the mile. This is the single biggest improvement in a year I have ever heard of. My coach would always tell this story to our team to show that you didn't need to start great to be great.
In terms of longer term improvement I knew a kid from the other high school in town who joined track as a sophomore. He was a Mid distance guy. In XC he ran around 16:30 all 3 seasons he competed and in track he finished his senior year with a PR of 2:06 in the 800m-his main event. He ran at a D2 school and ended up running 1:56 as a freshman-1:54 as a sophomore 1:51 as a junior and 1:51 again as a senior.
So if you have any stories of teammates, former teammates or just people you have heard of that started off slow and turned out pretty elite please share. I really like hearing stories like these.