What is my potential? I'm a high school freshman.

Impossible to tell. Looks like you're off to a great start, though! Just keep working to improve, and the times will take care of themselves.

I see the potential here. Ultimately, you control your destiny though so keep on training right and make it happen for yourself. We believe in you!

12grade 5k (If you quit making excuses): Sub 15:10

It’s impossible to know. There’s often a big improvement in 1 year and typically during the junior year. We had a guy that improved from 9:44 as a Sophomore to 8:58 as a Junior. There were also runners in my section that didn’t improve much from their Sophomore years.

You’re just going have to train and see what happens.

I began pulling data from Milesplit about 10 years ago and have created my own spreadsheet with around 75,000 high school runners that had data for 1600/mile for 3 of their 4 years in high school. From that, I took the average time for all freshmen in 10 second intervals (4:20-4:30, 4:30-4:40, 4:40-4:50, etc.). I then calculated the "typical" trajectory for each of these groups and built a prediction model in which you type in the freshman 1600m time and look at what the "typical" athlete runs in subsequent years (obviously using every athlete is a HUGE variation in location of the country, coaching, etc.). I don't have a degree in math nor do I want to hear from all the anecdotal stories or BS knowledge from the typical LR poster. This is straight from the data...and 75,000 boys is a phenomenal sample size to generate the power need for stats and reliable assumptions.

If you have a good coach, you will probably progress more than what the calculator suggests. BUT, taking your 1500m time and converting it to 1600m, I get 4:43 for 1600m. The typical high schooler who runs 4:43 as a freshman will go on to run:

10th grade: 4:32

11th grade: 4:24

12th grade: 4:17

Again, get yourself a good coach, and you will very likely do better than the average trajectory of a high schooler. If you look at all of the seniors that end up running 4:10 or better (assuming these kids have good coaches), their typical improvement rate is 4.56% from 9th to 10th grade, 3.31% from 10th to 11th grade, and 2.19% from 11th to 12th grade. This is better than the typical HS miler that improves 3.95% from 9th to 10th grade, 2.74% from 10th to 11th grade, and 2.38% from 11th to 12th grade if they run around 4:40 as a freshman. Remember, these numbers get skewed a bit when you get closer to 4:00.

This is the nicest I've ever seen people on let's run. Kinda weird but I like it

Thanks guys!

It depends on how hard you work. You could stay how you are for the rest of your running career, or you could go sub 15 if you want it badly enough. everything is up to you.

That’s not true at all. He should put in the effort but there are no guarantees.

How many years have you been running? Do you have other interests? Do you run X country? Describe a typical week training? 40 mpw is a lot for a freshman. I’ve had runners really improve after their first couple of years.

When I was a little kid (8 or 9) my mom had me do a cross country camp that I would do every year for a few years, ever since then i've been running, not very consistently. during middle school, I started to run every day, and I really got into it and ran very consistently, until the beginning of my freshman year, I kindof stopped running altogether. I didn't run through the fall or winter, I focused more on weight training even though my friends tried to get me to do cross country. So I didn't really run this school year until track season when I decided to join and then took my training really seriously and improved by over a minute from pre-season to the end of the season.

Typical week of training in the season:

Sunday - 3 mile shakeout

Monday - Intervals (one workout we did was 8 x 400m (70s with 70 recovery) , 8 x 200m (32s with 40s recovery))

Tuesday - Regular run - 5-7 miles + circuits

Wednesday - Intervals or tempo

Thursday - Regular run 5-7 miles + circuits

Friday - pre-race shakeout - 4 miles

Saturday - race or long run (10 miles)

And now for summer I'm following summer of malmo, heard it's pretty good.

* improved by over a minute in the mile, pre season ran a 5:56 1600 at full effort.

I was 60/2:13 for 440/880 yards at your age.

4:16/9:10 mile/2 mile as a senior. Thousands of kids have done better. You can be one of those thousands.

My best advice to you is to not think about what times you want to run. Running is an athletic competition. Think about who you want to beat. After you accomplish that then beat the guys at thr the next level. Your times will take care of itself..

Dude, you have potential but quit saying "bad races" and "in XX:XX" shape. you ran what you ran. There are no asterisks.

Yeah, this is true. I always say that to people after I catch myself making excuses, because I get annoyed when other people make excuses about performing terribly. It usually goes along the lines of "Bro i totally messed up that race. I didn't drink enough and the pacing was terrible. They put me in a terrible start position and i've been feeling bad all day. I can't believe we went out in 66 what the heck. Well... I guess... I mean I can make excuses all day but at the end of the day I just didn't do well. Next time will be better!" haha so in other words yeah I agree with you and if I could take it back I would.

well said.

That's awesome and glad you see it.

Any way, given your 400 speed. I think you could be well under 2 in the 800m by your junior year and in the low 1:50s by senior.

I would interested to know if your school has a history of producing mid-distance guys or if your coach has ever done well with those athletes. That makes a huge difference. I would also look into club track

god that is a huge link but that is the list of my school's top tens. My coach likes to focus on the longer distances, but I feel confident that I could break the 800, 1500, and 3k school records, they're pretty soft. I'm not on there yet btw that's why my times aren't up on the freshman list.