Which of the following is the single best predictor of collegiate distance success from a HS runner?

The answer is 1, but since most high school runners don't participate in national XC meets the real answer is:

A "top" finish at a state XC meet, and a 4:30/10 track season. You can work with that.

#1 would be my guess. But all of them are far from certain. I think if you had the winner of the national XC meet from every year you'd be better off than if you had the 2nd place finisher (or any other place).

We can probably just figure this out. I don't care enough to do it, but someone could easily just take the last 15 years or so and compare performance at HS XC meets and track times and compare them to NCAA XC success and track times to see which one is the most predictive.

How would criteria would you use to measure "collegiate distance success"? Or failure for that matter?

Maybe success is running in the top 5 for at least 2 years? Maybe success is all American in an event?

#4

You need to develop leg speed when you're young. When did we get the idea that high schoolers need to train like middle-aged hobbyjoggers, running mileage that is too high, at a pace that is too slow?

Judging potential for success isn't just about performances; to all this I would add "Does the runner in question have a history of illness or injury?" If you see an HS star, regardless of how fast they are, in general if they can't stay healthy with a High School workload they probably aren't going to do better on a college workload. Robust physiology counts for a lot; the success Parker Valby has had with cross-training is more the result of her being an amazing genetic outlier than what would be par for the course for most kids. Just my .02 of course.

There are plenty of examples of guys in high school that had great performances on the national level, fast mile times, and fast 2 mile times, yet they never lived up to expectations on the collegiate level. Conversely there are those that were a step behind those guys on the national level while in high school, had decent but not outstanding times in the mile & 2 mile, yet ended up far superior to the guys that were better than them in high school. What accounts for that? Superior coaching in college, later maturity, or something else?

I think natural speed is an underrated factor as well. I had 3 decent runners that I coached awhile back that all ran in college. One was the fastest miler on the team, the other was the fastest 2 miler, and the 3rd was 2nd best in each event. The 3rd runner was also good enough to be on our 4 by 4 team. Out of the three he had the best career, and ran significantly faster across the board then the other 2 runners that were better then him in high school.

The answer is- you can't predict. I know someone, personally, who's high school coach basically lacked any knowledge about how to train distance runners, but he was a great guy who everyone loved.

She was good but not exceptionally great n high school. Went D3 and ran fine, improved a lot, ended up getting into a club after school near NYC and had a great coach for the first time ever and ended up signing a contract and had a decent pro career.

My point is- if her high school coach was able to develop her talent more, a college may have made an offer and she MAY have been a great college runner.

Instead she was under coached until she was in the post collegiate world.

How many great runners have that high school school teacher that was asked to please coach cross-country and track (how hard can it be?) have never developed the talent to be great?

So much depends on coaching at the college level, too. I had one former runner who went major D1 and was a pro 800 runner (mostly pacing) who said that the best coach he had was me because I individualized the training and the college and pro coaches just worked them to death and the strongest survived.

Well, you can though, but it certainly is a dicey proposition.

I think that there are some challenges in building a regression model. We could likely have best 1600 time, 3200 time, but then it gets tougher.

I want a variable for "highest state meet finish" but I already know that 10th in California is better than 1st in Idaho. And what about the division within a State? How does the model handle winning Class C and 8th in Class A in the same State?

I want a variable for place at NXN or Champs, but not every runner participates in those races.

I want a variable for best 5k cross country time, but we know that not all courses are accurately measured.

Then I want to know what dependent variable you are considering for collegiate success? Place in the NCAA Championships?

The most accurate model would predict track times using prior track times, but even then it is not going to be terrifically accurate.

Don't you all think these are much more important?

Desire to compete in NCAA.

Ability to attend an NCAA-member college.

Getting grades that allow admission into any relevant school.

Specializing in some event the NCAA sponsors competition in ( ie, not longer than 10k).

If you're operating under the assumption that all teenage runners:

Run for their school's teams,

Are not willing to contest any event longer than 5k,

Are actively trying to make into the NCAA,

Then maybe the choices given by the OP are relevant. And to be honest, if you're strictly referring to US-born-and-raises kids, you'd be close to accurate. There are, however, thousands of Kenyans who don't have a PR at/have never contested/are not aware that anyone contests/have never heard of a 1600m or 3200m. Many of them would be beyond King Chez dominant (but will never be involved in collegiate running) without meeting any criterion the posters are discussing.

Any of the above, combined with running lower mileage in high school (higher upside in college).

Along with the metrics you listed, I’m more interested in knowing their current mileage and how long they’ve been running. When predicting future success, I’d choose the kid who has run 4:10 on 30 miles a week and just started running in high school over someone who started running in 6th grade and has run 4:05 on 50 miles a week.

Mindset is the most important thing. Many great HS talent cannot handle the pressures of being a collegiate student-athlete. Many cannot cope with the necessary self-discipline and time management skills required. A great many couldn't handle their first real injury or setback. Others get lost to parties, alcohol, and regular sex.

The successful athlete is one that can avoid distractions, loves training as much as they love competing, and can stay focused on process of long-term development. Impatience and fixation on quick results/accolades ruins many "can't miss" kids once they leave home and their small local ponds.

Everyone is trying to explain away or give long answers (all of which make great points) but the question is to pick the ONE predictor from the given list.

From the list presented I would use 1500/1600 PRs as the best predictor.

Not everyone is able to compete in the big national meets, and I'll take a someone with a speedy 1600 over a 3200 time. If you have speed you have it, everything else is about how much work you can and want to do.

I think that progression (duh) and places at big meets would be the best predictors. If you run fine in front but don’t do well in a pack or with people ahead of you, you likely will not do well in college.

Mileage and training quality would be important as well, but you won’t be able to find that. Newbury Park’s a great team, but I think someone (if he exists) who runs 8:45 on subpar training (let’s say 50-60 mpw without much structure) would have a higher ceiling than 8:40 on pro-style training.

Yeah. The question was to pick 1 of the 4 options. Of course you could probably do better by including more variables.

And of course it's going to be highly uncertain. There will always be performances that break the trend. And if you're talking about 1 person (the winner of the national XC meet) versus the field (everyone else) it's far more likely that someone out of the hundreds of others will rise up and overtake the past champion. But if you're just talking about overall correlation with future success I expect that the higher up you are in any of those categories the better you're likely to be in the long run.

I’d argue that it’s a good improvement curve more than anything.

A guy who goes 4:45-4:35-4:30-4:25 is likely to be less successful at the collegiate level than a guy that goes 5:45-5:00-4:40-4:25