High School Mile: 1930's-1940's

best off the top of my head

http://www.thegreatdistancerunners.de/1Milealltime.html

Pondering wrote:

I recently dug up some old documents on a pair of relatives that ran in high school shortly before WWII. Both ran the mile sub 4:32. I am trying to put these times in context with the era. I know the times are not top of the line, but they dominated on the local level, so I am curious. I tried google, and had little success. Anyone have knowledge of the high school records or top times during the late 30's, early 40's in the mile?

Can't help directly--T&FN wasn't going yet, before the war--but one thing to keep in mind was that the mile was the longest HS track race in pretty much every State. If you were a "distance" runner, that's where they put you.

A low 4:30's miler was tough in this time period. It would depend on the state, and what class they might be in, but those times were near State Championship caliber for most areas throughout the late 30's and early 40's.

This article might help put your relatives time in some perspective:

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/display_article.php?id=17127

It seems to indicate someone was keeping lists back then; It might be interesting to see if your relatives were on one of these lists.

Some national mile record progressions...

http://runningentertainment.com/runningshots25.html

(Scroll Down, the mile is below the 2 mile info)

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~phoffman/nats/mileprog.htm

I found Mile record Ohio's progression online:

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~jsquire/hsodboysprog.htm#1600m

4:32 is pretty solid. Consider the following:

The old tracks were 440 yards, not 400 meters. So, that adds roughly two seconds to the total time right there.

Next, kids generally had a lot less available time for training at that point in history. Lots of chores had to be done. A few coaches were smart about distance, many others not so much so.

And then, there was no such thing as synthetic tracks. You ran on dirt or cinders. The inside lane of most old tracks tended to get very ground up and loose. That was true of both dirt and cinder tracks. It was almost always faster going on the lane line or out a little into lane two. If you're running in lane two, add another 1.5 seconds per lap. If you're running on the lane line, maybe another second per lap or so. Sometimes, though, the lane line was loose, too, and the extra material ground out of the middle of lane one tended to accumulate at either side of lane one.

For really big meets (like maybe a state meet) they'd wet down and roll the track. If that was done properly, you generally had a pretty good surface to run on unless it was late in the day. In that case, lane one was typically pretty well churned over again.

A little history for you.

I appreciate all the information. Helped a ton with understanding the era. Both of my relatives were brothers(not twins, about 3 years apart) and didn't start running until they were 17. One ran 4:28 and the other 4:31. Neither pursued running after HS. Unfortunately neither revealed much about their running careers before passing away.

Jack Lovelock from New Zealand was the shizzz. 3:4X in 1936 WR.

That should read 3:4X for the 1500m.

more to consider wrote:

4:32 is pretty solid. Consider the following:

The old tracks were 440 yards, not 400 meters. So, that adds roughly two seconds to the total time right there.

How does that make any sense? 440 yards is 1/4 of a mile. He's not talking about a 1600m.

Archimedes wrote:

more to consider wrote:

4:32 is pretty solid. Consider the following:

The old tracks were 440 yards, not 400 meters. So, that adds roughly two seconds to the total time right there.

How does that make any sense? 440 yards is 1/4 of a mile. He's not talking about a 1600m.

he means compared to todays HS guys, who run 16.

I just read where the actor Jason Robards ran a 4:18 mile as a junior in high school

I would put times 20 seconds slower back then. A 4:30 mile is like a 4:10 1600 today. Some of my relatives said that it was rare for guys to break 5 minutes in the mile.