How good is a 5:02 mile for a 14 year old girl?

Sveinnson, Hasay, etc. all ran sub 5:00 miles when they were freshman. 4:4x to be precise...

The girl is very good nonetheless, definetely a 5:02 for a 14 yr old is impressive, hope that she can keep improving however.

Yes, that's pretty good. I'd say Jordan Hassay good.

Its nice to hear about some more talent coming out of OFSAA... What what course was it? A 10:30 3k is good even on a flat course.

Bechtel park in Waterloo

Makes sense... that whole area produces some quality runners.

She is excellent for her age. Hopefully there will not be too many expectations put on her by others, because you can never can tell how young women are going to develop. Their bodies change a lot more than boys.

She's one of the best in the country with that.

I ran a 4:44 as a 14 y/o male a while back and, while I wasn't one of the best in the country, I was one of the 5-10 best freshmen in the state. And that was male rankings.

So with a 5:02 she's easily one of the best 14 y/o females in the country, if not THE best.

If she is 14 now (but about to turn 15 soon) then she could be a soph who is young for her grade.

However, based on what you have told us she was in 8th grade at the time. If you are 14 during summer (when she ran the race) then she is a freshman now.

A 5:02 is right up there with the best ever if it was done in 8th grade. The tough part is continuing to improve to 4:55, 4:50, 4:45 through until senior years.

If you look at the results of FootLocker over years, you will see that the girls race is won by 9th, 10th and 11th graders MUCH more often than the boys race. The boys winner is nearly ALWAYS a senior.

So, while a HS boy may run 5:00 in 9th and improve to 4:40, 4:30 and 4:20 by senior year, a HS girl is much more likely to stagnate or regress to being slower than that 5:02.

Also, I have never heard of a "North American Championship" for track or XC for 8th graders -- unless you mean the Hershey Track and ...

oh wait, I found it. It is called the "North American Finals" ... I didn't realize they included Canada. My teammate ran in those as an 8th-grader. He ran 4:24 in the 1500m for second.

Here is the result, it would not have taken too much to find this:

Event 5 Girls 13-14 1600 Meter Run

Record: 5:01.24 R 2007 Claudia Francis, Queens, NY

Name Age Team Finals

1 Phelan, Jaimie 14 Kitchener, ON 5:02.95

2 Forsey, Jillian 14 Kippens, NL 5:08.70

3 Kendall, Kali 14 Brooklyn, NY 5:09.84

4 Hawkins, Amber 14 Maudertown, VA 5:10.17

5 Brown, Maddie 14 Tulsa, OK 5:22.12

6 Zarate, Yajaira 13 Lynwood, CA 5:34.98

7 Brown, Cassidy 14 Auburn, WA 5:41.43

8 Burr, Jackie 13 Westerly, RI 5:42.27

9 Koshinsky, Beth 13 Jensen, SK 5:43.03

Not sure if Canadians have five years of "high school" or whether they start theirs at age 15, but either way this girl is WAY AHEAD of most everyone her age in the US or Canada.

It would have taken me A LOT of training to be that fast at age 14. I was faster by age 15 (I am male) but that is FAST for a 14 yo girl.

We have an optional 5th year, also known as a victory lap. Usually one enters grade 9/freshman year as a 13 year old and then graduate grade 12 17 or 18 years old (depending on how early their birthday was).

The hs I went too had a 5 minute miler (female) as a freshman. She didn't improve much in four years, maybe a few seconds is all. But she did make it too foot locker xc finals three times and recieved a full ride to college where she did improve. Oh, she also won something like 6 to 8 state wins in her four years as well. Very decorated runner and a free education.

5:02 is very good as long as she maintains or improves through hs she's got a full ride to college.

That's her. She is in grade nine with my daughter now so she would have been between grade 8 and 9. Apparently 2 weeks ago she skipped the high school race to compete in one of the Open University races and came 3rd female and beat the entire University of Waterloo varsity team.

Unfortunately the latter doesn't really say a lot - Waterloo women's team isn't exactly stellar.

The girl is running at about a 4.42 1500m level. Very good - but others have run faster at a similar age - Erin McClure (Waterloo) ran 4.26 in G9 (=4.40 1600m), but struggled throughout the rest of HS - she still competes at University (Toronto)at 27years old, but doesn't really run any better than she did in G9.

There are a number of young girls in Southern Ontario running well at that age - Natalie Hawthorn, Megan Rempel (G8), Courtney Falardeau, etc. Some will improve a great deal through HS and some will plateau, even if just for a few years. If this happens then the difficult task is to keep them in the sport and not get discouraged - they might improve again at the end of HS or even in College.

It was a couple of years ago, but I did happen to watch a girl by the name of Stephanie Smith run 4:24 for the 1500m in 9th grade. She ran in senior cross country just so the senior team could win... and she ended up smoking the field by a good 30-45 seconds.

Waterloo is known for their brains, not their athletic ability.

It's outstanding. Most state finals are won in a 5-5:10, depending on the state and division. But every year a few dozen high schooler girls run well under 5 minutes in the U.S.

The key is to to maintain or, better yet, improve. Many girls "peak" as freshman and sophomores. Many different reasons for this, but its just a fact.

It is an absolutely outstanding time. Runners like Jordan Hasay, Nicole Blood, etc. are extremely, extremely rare... to run this time as an 8th grader puts you as one of the best EVER (as 8th graders).

Maddie Meyers (WA) ran 4:55 for 1609m last summer after her 9th grade- not sure if she had turned 15 by then.

SlCl wrote:

That's very good, but the question to ask and to wait for is: can she improve?

I've coached two state champions in the mile, both ran 5:04 as 15 year olds. Neither of them broke 5 minutes. But, they didn't slow down either, luckily.

I'd say it's more normal for amazingly talented young girls to slow down, like Aurora Scott.

I'm sure it was all them and not a coach who didn't know how to get them to the next level. Sounds to me like you know how to coach someone to the 5:04 level and not faster.

Your last statement only points out the lack of good coaching for distance runners at the youth level.

5:02 is very good for age 14, national class level for that age.

Where she is able to go from here will largely depend on 2 factors.

1. How she got to her current fitness level

2. What physical changes occur during the next few years of puberty.

On # 1. Most child phenoms get very good very quickly because they have great physical traits for running and high natural VO2 Maxs. Then they begin training to improve that VO2 Max and soon maximuize most of it. Once that happens they tend to stagnate because they don't have the base of aerobic development to accompany the VO2 Max. I would say this happens in 90% + of these young phenoms. But if she has been doing significant aerobic development (slowly ramping up mileage, long runs, etc.) then her chances to continue to improve are greater.

On #2. Each child is different so she may see significant changes or practically none that effect her running. This is very difficult to predict.

fxc wrote:

It was a couple of years ago, but I did happen to watch a girl by the name of Stephanie Smith run 4:24 for the 1500m in 9th grade. She ran in senior cross country just so the senior team could win... and she ended up smoking the field by a good 30-45 seconds.

Waterloo is known for their brains, not their athletic ability.

I remember seeing Stephanie's name in the results for a road race a few years back. I think it was the Waterloo Octoberfest run and it stood out because she was first woman in 17 low and she was only like 13 or something crazy like that. I'd have to dig through the archives to try to find it.

girls do not improve much as boys from HS frosh to senior...