Why is it kids real young running very impressive times never really do much after that

It's the same thing in all sports. I played baseball with a fellow 13-year old who had 5 tool skills including 300'+ plus power that went on to be a mediocre player on the HS team as a Senior.

I was a superstar youth who got burned out.

This topic is really tired... We should celebrate the accomplishment of fast kids when they achieve them. Not project anything beyond the results. Too many here would rather shrug and sneer about "burn out" and bet against them rather than congratulate them. If a 12 year old girl runs a 16:40 5K we should be applauding her not trashing her or screaming about overrunning. Even if she never runs faster than that in her life. And the "future superstar!" comments are almost as bad as the "who cares/flash in the pan" comments. Not every child's goal is to win gold at the olympics. Some of these kids go on to do other sports or other things entirely as older teens/adults and their early accomplishments as a runner shouldnt somehow be seen as signs of failure but rather one step in their broader journey.

.[/quote]

Shaun Crawford 100 meters - age 11

Usain Bolt 200 meters - ages 15-18

Kirani James 400 meters - age 14

Jakob Ingebrigtsen 1500 meters - ages 15-19

Armand Duplantis pole vault - ages 7-12

Raevyn Rogers 400 meters - age 14, 800 meters ages 11-12

Mary Decker 800 meters and mile - age 14

Sydney McLaughlin 400H - ages 14-19[/quote]

You left out Kiplimo, ran 27:26.20 10k and 13:24:40 5k at 15 and was an olympian at 15.

I've always considered "burning out" a state of mind. You lose your motivation to keep pushing yourself for any number of reasons. You're tired of giving 100% or tired competing. If you're overachieving at age 10 and "burnout" by age 20, I can understand that if you've been laser focused and constantly pushing yourself for 10 years.

This is Jim Kiler wrote:

It's not "burning out," that's impossible.

I would guess they enjoyed it while it came easy, but when they had to work harder, they flamed out.

I. Rex wrote:

This topic is really tired... We should celebrate the accomplishment of fast kids when they achieve them. Not project anything beyond the results. Too many here would rather shrug and sneer about "burn out" and bet against them rather than congratulate them. If a 12 year old girl runs a 16:40 5K we should be applauding her not trashing her or screaming about overrunning. Even if she never runs faster than that in her life. And the "future superstar!" comments are almost as bad as the "who cares/flash in the pan" comments. Not every child's goal is to win gold at the olympics. Some of these kids go on to do other sports or other things entirely as older teens/adults and their early accomplishments as a runner shouldnt somehow be seen as signs of failure but rather one step in their broader journey.

Exactly right.

My guess is you're a member of the Garrison family or something.

Lots of spectacular athletic performances by really young athletes are due to being at the front of the growth curve. They're more physically mature than nearly all of their competitors. When my oldest son was eight he was on a baseball team with a kid who had a devastating fastball. No one could hit him. As a high school senior he had about the same velocity on his fastball as when he was eight. That happens with all sports.

And kid's change a lot over the years. An eleven year old kid who is serious about and good at something is not necessarily going to be seriously interested in that thing by the time he gets to high school or college. Even if he is that physical advantage he got by being ahead of the growth curve can be gone as others catch up and even pass him in physical development and he may not be much better than average at a thing he was once great consequently losing interest. I was at a talk once by a guy, can't recall his name, but he's spent years looking at youth sports. A comment he made that I think is bang on the ,mark is that in terms of indications of how good a kid will be at a sport is that nothing before puberty matters.

the young wrote:

I have seen it time and time again. A little girl or boy running incredible times at 9,10,11 or whatever. I am talking times that are good regional times for pro women in some cases, but you will probably never hear about them after that. There was a family of kids in the 80s who ran very impressive times, but never did anything as adults, basically they just gave it up. I can't think of any fast kids doing anything as a pro. I don't recall any 14 year old running super impressive times, and end up making the Olympics. I know they might be one or two out there, but most never do anything, infact most never get any faster.

Can’t believe we haven’t gotten to the most important question yet: What’s gonna happen to Rheinhardt? He’s been running great times since before he even knew the meaning of puberty.

It is the opposite for girls. Most of the female phenoms are 100% prepubescent.

10k wrote:

It is the opposite for girls. Most of the female phenoms are 100% prepubescent.

Lydiard would talk about that in terms of female distance runners. He said that lots of young phenoms get bigger in the hips, get heavier, when they mature and cannot run as fast as they did before maturity. I think that underscores the comment about nothing before puberty mattering.

Star wrote:

At a young age, you have kids who train racing against kids who don't train.

Pretty much. Same thing for kids who train in HS (say 60mpw) who don't perform as well as the undertrained crowd(say 40mpw) in college. And obviously the younger the kid, things like maturity matter. My brother was 6' in 7th grade and grew like 1" more. I was 5' and didn't hit 5'9 til summer before my senior year.

The decline is most obvious among girls. It could be that late puberty slows them down in college. But I wonder if it has more to do with chronic injuries, especially stress fractures because of delayed puberty. There is also the trauma of not having a childhood if the parents are overbearing.

Where would you put Mary Cain in this topic?

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

I've always considered "burning out" a state of mind. You lose your motivation to keep pushing yourself for any number of reasons. You're tired of giving 100% or tired competing.

If you're overachieving at age 10 and "burnout" by age 20, I can understand that if you've been laser focused and constantly pushing yourself for 10 years.

This is Jim Kiler wrote:

It's not "burning out," that's impossible.

I don't think burning out (or overtraining beyond the point of being able to recover) is a state of mind. Well, maybe for some it is. But, though poorly understood, there does seem to be a real physical component to it. Think of someone like Salazar, who famously burned out and tried everything under the sun to get back to his former level. You'd have a hard time convincing me that it was just a "state of mind" and he was tired of pushing himself hard.