PIGS FLEW: 4:47 high school miler makes D1 nationals

WTF what? Good job to the kid. You must know him in order to post all of this so why the WTF?

probably because OP got bumped out of nat'ls by this kid

sorry, I mean WTF in the best possible way, I'm just shocked. congratulations to matthew elliot! and, no, i don't know him at all, just happened to read he went to Presbyterian College and wondered how he ran there. Impressive improvement!

and also it is surprising. i've been brainwashed by letsrun to believe people shouldn't run in college unless they ran 4:09.8 miles at NON in high school, especially D1. awesome.

Unusual.....but not impossible.

Marcus O'Sullivan ran 4:08? when he finished school in Ireland. Spent a year as a sail maker - doing shots before work etc. Then he found out if he ran 3:47 he could get a ride to a US university. So 9 months later....thats what he ran.

Wheating has made even greater progress in this same time period.

he never gave up wrote:

2003, senior year of high school: Matthew Elliot WINS the 1A state title in the 1600 meters with a 4:48.98, and finishes third in 800 with a 2:09.64.

Am I reading this right? The guy won the mile and placed third in the 800 with a 4:49 and 2:10 at states? I don't think I believe that.

Small school division

well im hopeful that shit guys when they're young can continue to improve like this. good on ya man. inspirational. 27;04 is not thaaaaaaat bad a time anyway for 8 k cross

14&23 wrote:

Small school division

Still, those times are really weak. Like i would think a good chunk of soccer players could run 2:07's off of soccer training. 2:09 is brutal for a win, which i suppose makes this all more impressive.

so 2:09 800 in high school to 3:48 (2:03ish splits) - impressive!

that's awesome. congrats to that kid, hopefully he can keep surprising people at nationals

eeeeeessh wrote:

Still, those times are really weak. Like i would think a good chunk of soccer players could run 2:07's off of soccer training. 2:09 is brutal for a win, which i suppose makes this all more impressive.

I'm not ragging on this guy or anything--I was only a little faster in high school--but, yeah, I am amazed that these times would win any division in any state. 2:09 would have been the 9th or 10th fastest time on my high school team.

Anyway, that's not the point of the thread. It's always impressive to see a guy improve like that. It's nice to see a guy improve like that. Guys like this guy and pros like Brian Sell give hope to those of us who weren't sub 9 minute guys in high school.

People always forget how piss-poor most high school coaching is.

I hear you. Shouldn't have speculated. Thanks for the info. He either found some untapped talent or worked his ass off. Probably both.

These marks are very mediocre for state champs, even for a small-school division. However, distance races, especially for those doubling (which it looks like a number did), might have resulted in slow, tactical races in the summer heat/humidity. What were the HS PRs; they might be in the 4:30/9:55 range.

the kid might be on drugs....i mean he just came out of nowhere

it seems obvious to me the kid did not train much in high school. Why is it so shocking to see him improve with some conditioning and a good coach?

I think a lot of soccer players might think that - but they probably couldnt.

A few summers ago me and my team-mates would be finishing our runs as the soccer team was holding their captains practice.

We always got talking and some of us ended up joining in their games - and then some of them said they'd come running with us.

First few mins they were fine and were even talking away. By the time we reached the half mile they were f****d. Some of them kept on and probably ended up doing 4 miles in just over 30 mins.

Long story short dont think many soccer players could jump onto a track and run 2.07's.

I don't think this has been mentioned, but just as noteworthy as Elliot's high school times is the fact that he got into the Regional meet based on the auto-qualifier from winning his conference, ran a personal best in prelims, and made nationals without ever hitting even the Regional Qualifying time mark.

Maybe this has happened in one of the previous Regional meets, but it's the first I've heard of it -- it's just the type of "perform on the day"/March Madness type of thing that the Regionals were designed to encourage. Good for Elliot. Great story.