Future Star: 1600 in 4:05 at High School Dual Meet

dean moriarty wrote:

I used to pace teammates to District qualifying times all the time in high school. When I was a freshman, a senior did the same thing for me. If you like your teammates, you're happy to do it.

Man. Dean, I usually agree with you, but I just can't on this one. Fine to have a good time with teammates and have camaraderie in a relay or something, but open races should be sacred. Pacing a kid in high school just shouldn't be done. It falls under the category of "Assistance" and is usually not allowed on the high school level; for good reason too.

Neither of my kids will pace any other kid without their coaches getting a piece of my mind about it. I would NOT want any other kid pacing either of my kids to a fast time either. NO high school kid is that special that they should have a pacer in a race. Gives a bad message to both pacer and pacee.

chubb wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

1) Pay to play is relevant,

It's not "pay to play". It is "pay to participate." A pacer is participating as is someone sitting on the bench in team sports.

right, because teammates helping each other teaches the wrong lesson. I disagree, FP - this was a clear record breaking attempt - it did not affect the other team at all - a guy helped his teammate hit a standard. Nothing more than that - I think that is a fine lesson.

Flagpole wrote:

Neither of my kids will pace any other kid without their coaches getting a piece of my mind about it. I would NOT want any other kid pacing either of my kids to a fast time either. NO high school kid is that special that they should have a pacer in a race. Gives a bad message to both pacer and pacee.

chubb wrote:

It's not "pay to play". It is "pay to participate." A pacer is participating as is someone sitting on the bench in team sports.

Flagpole, duel meets are used for many different purposes. We usually have our top guys triple or quad for workouts, or do certain kinds of pacing, or practice gear changes, etc. In WA state, most leagues have weekly duels, so this is common across the board. It's not like other states where you maybe have 2 or 3 duels per season. We have 7 or 8. In our last meet, we had our top guy pace some of our borderline league qualifiers so that they could get the times they needed to extend their season. There's nothing wrong with that. It's called teamwork. Same as some other kid pacing Marcus to that 4:05. For the record, I was at the indoor meet where he ran 4:07, and the Shoreline invite where he ran 1:49. He was humble and gracious and very, very fast. I think he can definitely threaten 4:00 by the end of the season.

Flagpole wrote:

Neither of my kids will pace any other kid without their coaches getting a piece of my mind about it. I would NOT want any other kid pacing either of my kids to a fast time either. NO high school kid is that special that they should have a pacer in a race. Gives a bad message to both pacer and pacee.

Flagpole, you should pull yourself out of your butt on this. Dickson did a great job of stirring up interest in his small town, getting everyday non-track people out to the track for the promise of some running entertainment, and delivered. His teammates, including the pacer, willingly participated. A great time was had by all at the local celebrity's last high school track meet. Go be a stick-in-the-mud somewhere else.

Someone else asked about Dickson's character -- top-rate. He's a gentleman, a friendly guy. Says thanks and smiles when people who don't know him congratulate him. I'd be shocked if he was a drug user. He's a great talent with a bright future, having a little fun at his last home meet.

You're just not getting the context here, Flagpole. Kid is a four-year star at a tiny school who's broken out to top-flight national class this year. He won Brooks, he was 2nd to another great kid at Arcadia, he's run 1:50 and 1:49 for 800, etc., etc.

It was his last home meet, and remember, for most schools in the country, dual meets are something you're obligated to do between the invites that matter on the weekends. And this kid decided he wanted to put on a special show and try and run a school record.

(aside: how does a tiny school like Buckley have two kids who've run 4:06 and 4:05?)

I'll bet his teammates were fighting over the chance to pace him. The kid who paced him, I think, was another sub-4:20 kid for whom the dual meet (in the context of the season) was probably equally insignificant.

I'll bet there's not a single person in Buckley, on the team, the families of the team, etc., who doesn't think this was a very cool thing. Win-win.

http://espn.go.com/blog/high-school/track-and-xc/post/_/id/3313/first-stop-buckley-next-stop-new-york-city

Super lame.Do you people who still run track in high school and college not get excited the day of a meet? Can you not wait to see what you will run that day? So, you get to the meet and the coach says, "agip, I know you've trained all season and you're the fittest you've been all season and primed to run a PR, but Johnny McFast over here is very close to setting a school record, so what you're going to do is you're going to pace him through the 800 in 2:01 and then see what you have left. Make sure you step aside so Johnny McFast can zoom by you and everyone can clearly see how sucky you really are."No thanks.Anyone who wants to "help" others in an individual sporting event needs to go out for cheerleading. Are there no alpha males among you all at Letsrun? Do you have no self respect?!

agip wrote:

right, because teammates helping each other teaches the wrong lesson.

I disagree, FP - this was a clear record breaking attempt - it did not affect the other team at all - a guy helped his

teammate hit a standard. Nothing more than that - I think that is a fine lesson.

Flagpole wrote:

Neither of my kids will pace any other kid without their coaches getting a piece of my mind about it. I would NOT want any other kid pacing either of my kids to a fast time either. NO high school kid is that special that they should have a pacer in a race. Gives a bad message to both pacer and pacee.

I was the fastest kid on my team and I would pace all of my teammates to county and regional qualifying times. Sure, I could go out and run another 9:45 against nobody or I can run an even 10:10 to have 3-4 teammates with me at the starting line of the county and regional race. It's not about somebody being a patsy, it is about being a good teammate that would do anything to help a friend. I don't see anything wrong with this because I know if the only thing standing in my way was a half mile of pace work, then I know my teammates would not have hesitated to help out. In my case, they needed a pacer through 1 mile .

I suppose Flagpole doesn't know what its like to be on a good team that would do anything for each other.

Using a dual meet as a workout is fine when other more important races are down the line. I'm also OK with working on pacing, but pacing as it pertains to an individual's goals. Pacing another teammate is lame and technically against the rules in most states.Again, I'm not against this kid in any way. It's the coaches that allow this crap to go on that I have issues with.

I don't care about the context. He could be introducing running on Mars for all I care. Any high school kid who would slobber over the chance to pace a teammate needs to get their priorities in order. Fine to look up to him or to speak in glowing terms about him to others and be his friend, but to sacrifice your own race so that he can shine even more brightly than before? No freakin' way. Are you people here not competitors? If that kid were on my team when I was in high school, there's no way I would have come close to running 4:05, but damn I would NEVER give a race to him...never! That's the attitude runners should have.

[quote]Flagpole wrote:

Using a dual meet as a workout is fine when other more important races are down the line. I'm also OK with working on pacing, but pacing as it pertains to an individual's goals. Pacing another teammate is lame and technically against the rules in most states.

Again, I'm not against this kid in any way. It's the coaches that allow this crap to go on that I have issues with.

[quote]

Well then you have an issue with me. Number one, it's not illegal in any way, shape, or form in WA state. Two, as I stated, we have a HUGE number of duel meets here. Most coaches don't like it. Neither do I. That's why there's an unspoken agreement that many of these duel meets are used for purposes other than traditional duel meet racing. Thats what the weekend invites are for. That's what state is for. If I need to get a kid under 10:00 to qualify for leagues, I have no problem having one of my 9:20 guys pace him. Duel meets are utilitarian. Period. Marcus and his coach wanted him to go for a lofty school record on home turf? Awesome. I'll bet you anything that the kid who paced him was over the moon, as were all the parents involved, as were the fans, and nobody was more grateful than Marcus himself. That's how we roll in this state, and that's one of the reasons why we have such incredible distance running here, as compared to the rest of the nation. We work together.

A new Chris Solinsky.

No rail, would never have counted anyway.

School record wrote:

The school record is a studly 4:06. This was the last home meet of his career. It wasn't about national rankings, but about Buckley High School track. He generated excitement about track in Buckley. He broke a long time school record in front of the school community. No national record, just a school record. Love the excitement, love the effort. This is what high school and track should be about.

Nice running, especially all by himself. People seem to forget that's how Ryun got the only in state sub 4 and high school record for the mile.

A 4:05 1600 is not as fast as his 4:07 mile indoors though, so he can probably run somewhat faster at this point.

Seeing Flagpole at that dual meet would have been quite the funny scene. Everybody there having a great time, whooping it up for the star runner's last home meet. The pacer feeling honored to be such a close participant. Flagpole ranting and fuming on the side about "rules" and "doing your best at every meet" and "none of this tomfoolery." And the little girl asking, "Mommy, why is that man turning purple?"

FP and Ventolin need to have their own thread.

What's more, Washington also has a 4:09 SOPHOMORE(!), Joe Hardy from Seattle Prep. Isn't that close to what Alan Webb and Jim Ryun ran at that age?

http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Athlete.aspx?AID=2577908

It doesn't surprise me that Flagpole is the type of parent to raise his kid with the 'everything revolves around my kid' attitude. No wonder he would be upset if his kid were to pace another runner.

Dual meets are perfect for this kind of race. This guy is probably going to be doubling or maybe tripling for team points in the rest of his meets and wants to set a tough school record.

In my situation, I think the District qualifying time in MA was 4:48 or somewhere around that, but you could win dual meets in my league in well over five minutes. It's very hard to run a PR all alone, especially when you're a freshman, but getting to run at Districts was a big deal for us. During my time in high school, only two of us made it to States (as well as our 4x8 team), so Districts was the biggest possible meet for most.

So the runners with qualifying times would pace the younger guys - someone did it for me and then I did it for a teammate. It's a nice thing to do and feels good to help people PR. Plus, it's more fun to go to Districts with a bunch of teammates, it builds a work-together attitude on the team, and it also helps the cross country team in the fall when the youngsters are excited to race again.

We had user fees, too. But you pay to be part of a team, and part of being on a team is helping your teammates whenever you can.