Is 4:20 fast for a high school mile?

It’s just not fast.

Yes, a 4:20 mile is fast for high school. Probably not fast enough to win the state meet in most states but it is still fast.

Slow AF.

Like I said in my now deleted thread, 4:20 as of June 12, 2022 is officially a GIRLS time!

It's not a time that's competitive nationally. But another way to look at it is that most schools don't have anyone who can run that fast, or even close to it.

True, some people forget about how many schools have a barely functioning track team and of the ones that are functioning not that many have runners at 4:20 or better. But since there are thousands of high schools if even only 1-2% (or maybe even less) of them have a 4:20 miler that's still hundreds nationally. And since we're mainly interested in elite runners having hundreds of kids running 4:20 or better can seem commonplace. But if I had a kid who ran 4:20 I wouldn't feel embarrassed to tell a neighbor that my son is pretty good, with the caveat that he's not going to be a college standout.

When I graduated from an Illinois high school in the early 1990s, 4:20 was considered to be very fast. If I remember correctly, when I was a senior, there were only three kids in the big class (AA) boys division who ran under 4:20 in the state finals when there were good running conditions.

It is hard for me to believe that 4:20 is now a mediocre time for a high school runner.

I mean think of it like this: 4:20 is something you don’t see in at LEAST 60% of all High Schools schools. Most top students in the average school would get like 4:40-4:55 something in that range. To have even one person achieve this in any school would be impressive. My school has a 4:26 athlete and to the track folks there that’s insane. If I had a 4:20 mile I would be happy. The average joe walking in the streets won’t know how fast 4:20 pace is until they run a 65’s around a track. When I ran 65’s it felt pretty fast and I felt amazing. To do this for 4 laps is pretty good. Might even be enough to become state champion in some states.

I glanced through the results from the state meet in my state. There were about 10-12 guys under 4:20 counting all levels (A, AA, AAA) and there are hundreds of high schools in the state. Under 5% of schools here have a guy faster than that.

I think that Brosnan was inarticulate in trying to convey his thoughts. In working with kids who are serious about running he doesn't want them placing limits on themselves. So if a 4:30 miler tells him that he'd like to hit 4:20 he would respond by asking why stop at 4:20. Why not shoot for the teens or beyond?

But if we're looking at a 4:20 mile relative to all the kids who join track teams I think it's appropriate to say that it's a very good performance, just not in the top elite group.

I don’t think any girl has run that fast, so yeah it’s probably a really good time.

Despite what Brosnan says, the data still says that 4:20 is fast. In fact, if you compile the milesplit data, of the 86,000 HS boys who ran the 1600M this year, only 899 of them broke 4:20. And considering we would need to add about 2 seconds to those times to officially be a full mile, that number is much lower. But even if we use the 1600M times, that means only 1.1% of all HS runners break 4:20. I consider being in the top 1% of something to be pretty elite, but maybe others do not.

thank god I had to work my azz off to run that in hs back in 2007 brah

Thank God I had to work my azz off to run that in HS back in 1977 on a cinder 440yd track for a full mile.

Pretty darn good.

HS record is slower than that in the majority of High schools I would guess.

Of course it's fast. Here are the results for the WACC League in California, a league that has a dozen schools, including giant Berkeley High and Alameda High, where Cooper Teare ran. 38 kids were entered into the race, counting heats. The winner went 4:21, with second place at 4:26.

athletic.net

Track & Field, Cross Country Results, Statistics

Meet results and team scores.

Link:www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/44...

Tell those kids that a 4:20 mile isn't impressive. Or the kids in a thousand other high school leagues.

4:20 is fast, but not for elite National (or even some States' elite) level competition.

In Utah this year, 32 boys (out of 1537) from 19 schools (out of 153 total) broke 4:20 for 1600, which is 2.1%. If you include altitude adjustment, the numbers rise to 63/1537 from 29 schools for 4.1%.

At the State meet at BYU (4627 ft. alt.) there were 25 boys under 4:20 (49 with alt. adjustment).

Our school considers sub 4:20 at altitude as AEROBIC MONSTER status (as does sub 9:20 and sub 15:00 for 3 miles XC at altitude). It is fast!