Leah Stephens runs a 9:58.79 3200m at the Dogwood Track Classic

Florida State commit.

incredible that we live in times where a solo 9:58, by all standards an incredible performance gets little to no attention. not unexpected when 9 girls go under 10 at arcadia but still pretty crazy this is seen more casually now.

This is a fine performance, made even better by getting out in 68 in a race where she averaged a shade under 75. Get out in 74-75 and you might see a 9:50.

It’s a slightly fast opening 400 but c’mon man you can’t just slash 8 seconds off like that. Plus going out in 74/75 is too slow

Who?

Leah was 34th her junior year at the Eastbay Northeast Regional and her 3200 PR was 10:25.39.

She made a big jump this year to finish 7th at Champs/Footlocker and 4th (10:09.09) in the 2-mile at NBNI.

It's nice to see someone progress from 11:16.50 as a freshman to breaking 10:00.

Leah Stephens is the best High School female runner to ever come out of Md. She recently placed 7th at the Champs XC Nationals in San Diego which gave her an All American Award and she is one of the top 2 mile,(10:09 Indoor) 3200m, (9:58.7) 3000m (9:26.2 Indoor) high school girls in the country .. she also ran an Indoor Mile with a time of 4:47.. Leah has become one of the top high school distance girls in the US and she routinely places in the top 4or 5 in most of the national level meets she has run in over the past year. Leah will be continuing her distance career with Florida State University as one of their top recruits. Her performance this past Saturday at the Dogwood Classic is especially notable because she ran her 9:58 virtually alone since she took the lead at the start and gapped the field significantly by the half mile mark and finished about 300m ahead of the 2nd place girl.

Does not appear to be running in her conference championship this weekend.

Is she hurt?

Shes on the list for Trials of Miles tonight in the Girl's Mile race.

Oof, that's lame abandoning her team? This was asked before but is she coached by the school coach?

It's very possibly she could solo 9:50 or faster with better pacing. 68 is 9:04 pace. She should go out "easy" in 73 flat and just lock it in. I swear almost every year at our state meet I see the girls run the first lap of the 3200 faster than the boys. Often times they are running the first 400 around their 800 PR pace. Do you see pro's running the first 400 of a 3000 in 53-55?

A lot of folks here call for fast first laps, I never get it. You just red line early, which ruins your close. For 9:50 I try to get them to run 5:00/4:50 with strong close, or of course even splits always work. I often think of the. John Lester 61 61 61 56= 3:59 mile.

4:48 mile Tonite in nyc

Was it a real mile?

Was it a real mile?

What were her splits? Based on what I saw for 800 & 1600 PRs on milesplit tells me even more that she should back way off at the start. She's clearly very talented, but going out 5-7 seconds too fast in the first 400 (probably most od that in the first 200) is costing her at least that much off her finishing time.

No, I do know what I'm talking about, even to the point of using apostrophes. If 74-75 is too slow for her, then why did she average high 74s in that pr? If she had gone out in 74 or 75, she might actually have been able to gradually bring down the pace and run 9:50, and that's 40 years of distance running talking here.

Oh how quickly we forget the great Juliette Whittaker. I mean she only just graduated last year! I Love Stephens and anticipate great things ahead for her but Whittaker definitely holds this title. Maybe you could say shes the best 2 miler? Shes certainly nothing like weve ever seen in Montgomery County before (not counting sprinters).