Great Article on Mike Wegner - 15:17 5K at 14

I hate this person with a passion. It's just sick how talented some people are born, and I was born slow as crap.

35 miles per week? That's pathetic....

Hope he doesn't burn out. I checked out the rest of that running maryland site. They do a nice job for a state running site. Pretty good online registration system.

Looks like the child of Neil Patrick Harris and Kenny Cormier.

Wish the kid the best of luck at the HS level. Seems like a nice kid too. Talent out the wahzoo.

Kid's at least 30

He would have place 11th at New Balance? Scary...

I'd be more confident in his future if he was running more miles. Too much VO2 max work can be counterproductive in the long term.

That said, he is clearly an amazing talent. Hope he stays healthy and does well.

I wonder if his ballet teacher Dad has him doing a lot of strength / flexibility work? And, if so, I wonder how much that helps?

I'm not trying to be rude, but 15:17? That is definitely not the age 14 record in the US or anywhere else. I know of a few kids who have run in the mid-14s on the track and this was just in the 90s. I think they just did a really horrible job of keeping track of this record until recently.

15:17 is really just the equivalent of a freshman winning state in the 2 mile or something equally boring. I strongly suspect that whoever keeps creating these Mike Wegner threads is either Mike or friend/family. It's starting to get weird.

Stormcloud wants to talk like they know alot but really doesnt. Jack Sheppard, track & Field Efficianado at Track & Field News, has kept track of these records. If there are any discrepancies, the facts should be brought to his attention. Actual results as well as birth certificates need to be produced.

Monkey Magic wrote:

I'd be more confident in his future if he was running more miles. Too much VO2 max work can be counterproductive in the long term.

That said, he is clearly an amazing talent. Hope he stays healthy and does well.

I wonder if his ballet teacher Dad has him doing a lot of strength / flexibility work? And, if so, I wonder how much that helps?

Tell that to Haile Gebrsalassie and all the other young Kenyan and Ethopian kids that have made a career out of running by running to school(and don't say Wilson Kipketer or 2-3 of the other guys that didn't run to school as kids because all but 1-2 of those guys were 10k and below). The real problem is overtraining and burnout. The biggest problem of all of those is, you guessed it, burnout. Get a kid that can do 70-80 miles per week that knows when to go easy, when to go hard, when to take a break, etc. and doesn't burn out than you got yourself a world beater if he has shown at least SOME talent. Obviously, it's not me to judge what this kid does though that's up to him and his father but justing giving my personal opinion..

If he keeps at it, he can be great. But come on, When are we gonna get over this limiting mileage thing? If it's in the kids best interest, fine then but it doesn't seem that way.

If he looks like he's overtraining, either get him to take it easier on runs or cut down for a little while or take him back down to 35. If it looks like he's burning out, give him a break. Otherwise, the kids fine with high mileage. Probably much better off if he wants to be a world beater. That simple really....

Haile Gebrsalassie's attribute to success:

That dude isn't 14. No way.

He hit puberty early. Won't see the same gains later on as everybody else. He's just peaking early

poiu wrote:

He hit puberty early. Won't see the same gains later on as everybody else. He's just peaking early

He has been training fairly seriously for five years, does swimming on top of his running and seems to have a pretty structured training program for 14 years old. Very few middle school kids are running 35 miles a week on top of swimming and been at it for five years. The fact that he looks much older than middle school indicates he probably won't improve as much as most of the other young runners, although when you run 15:17 at that age, you don't need to improve as much to get to a high level.

The kid whose record he broke I have never heard of before, so he obviously didn't progress to a high level. It is just so hard to know what will happen with the successful middle schoolers, but rarely do they get to a really high level.

I am a little confused by your response to Monkey Magic. He indicated that he thought the kid should be doing more mileage, but you made it seem like he didn't think he should be doing more mileage and gave examples of why he should. Do you agree with Monkey Magic or not, that he should be doing more mileage?

He is definitely fast for his age, but his improvement curve will not be as steep as others who start training later. He may still become great, but many have walked this path before, and not become great.

storm cloud wrote:

I'm not trying to be rude, but 15:17? That is definitely not the age 14 record in the US or anywhere else. I know of a few kids who have run in the mid-14s on the track and this was just in the 90s.

You're right about it not being the previous record. But c'mon, you know a few kids who ran mid-14's? I call bullshit on that. Were they 14 or were they 16? Huge difference.

The Wegner article states the previous record was 15:46 held by Fred Carley from Florida since 1978. Not only was that not the previous record, it wasn't even the fastest 14-year old 5k from Florida. Back in 2002, Andy Biladeau ran a 15:35 at the Gasparilla 5k.

Here's an article (about 3/4 of the way down the page) from Biladeau's supposedly record breaking 5k, it doesn't even mention a Fred Carley.

You know, on second thought maybe Wegner broke the track record for 5000m, and there's a separate record for road 5ks?

The Wegner record is for the Track 5000 meters. Roads have too many variables as they can be downhill courses. There isnt any other proof of any 14 year olds running faster on the track.

I've seen this kid run before and seen him interact with others. He's not claiming to be the next big thing. Nor does the article suggest that. In fact, the article seems to focus far more on his training, racing, and high school coaches/teammates than it focuses on him being the second coming of Christ.

Seriously...half the people on these threads get up in arms every time a topic emerges about a young talent.

it's been five years since Wegner made headlines...is he still running? He might have stopped after some success last year.

early success...he will be but a fiddler...comes too easy.