Interesting California Freshman High School Runner

I'm wondering how many miles per week he's been up to, and how that might affect his long term development.

Fiona O'Keeffe

Diribe Abdo in 2011

Sarah Baxter and Clare Carroll went 1st 2nd, both freshman in 2010.

is anyone else suspicious of how a really, really fast junior runner just happens to then go to the best distance running school in Southern California? The odds of that are one in several thousand.

Does Arcadia recruit with false addresses, like Hawthorne HS used to in the 80s?

Registered name wrote:

Fiona O'Keeffe

Hi Registered name,

I guess I should correct myself.There have been many girls. I meant guys only.

Big talent. There was another CA kid who seemed nearly as good. I'll have to look it up but they were close in time and way ahead of anyone else. Wonder how he did.

Think only one of them ran at the JO final iirc.

Ogden. Won the JO 3k national final. Lost to Rocha by 1 sec or so in the SoCal assn meet. Both were within 1 sec of the JO age group national record...904.

He should be pretty darn good too I would think.

Blair Hurlock was super good as youth and is still getting better

Jake Ogden, who ran 9:00 in that race, runs for Dana Hills now.

At the D1 State Meet,

Rocha from Arcadia ran 15:27. Ogden from Dana Hills ran 15:38.

Hes been running 60+ since he was 12. Maybe he will get a little faster or maybe he will fizzle out. He also looks very mature for a freshmen.

Schools like Dana and Arcadia have a reputation that draws in youth runners. Families move or runners live with teammates in order to have them run there. It also helps that youth track coaches are connected to high school teams. For example Ogden's coach for his track club (South OC Wildcats) is also a track coach at Dana.

These two freshmen are good, but you're forgetting the best one. Austin Tamagno ran 15:34 in the D3 race later in the day when temperatures were mid 70s as opposed to the D1 race which was around 50 degrees. If he ran in the D1 race, Rocha would not have been the fastest of the day. He also comes from a smaller program that probably doesn't go through the high mileage that Arcadia and Dana Hills go through.

Is he older? Sure he is a freshman? He was running intermediate (15-16) while the other 2 were running youth (13-14) according to the 2012 USATF results.

This kid won't amount to jack squat.

Watch the video linked above. He's already mature/muscular, not a developing bean-pole. He has unimpressive biomechanics. He has apparently been doing organized training for quite some time [according to you folks] and is now at a top HS program.

I've been around the California track scene for 35 years. I knows how to pick 'em. This kid ain't no Ryan Hall or German Fernandez.

There's actually another Freshman who ran 15:34 at State in D3. Seems like some hot new talents are popping up

The Inside Scoop wrote:

Schools like Dana and Arcadia have a reputation that draws in youth runners. Families move or runners live with teammates in order to have them run there. It also helps that youth track coaches are connected to high school teams. For example Ogden's coach for his track club (South OC Wildcats) is also a track coach at Dana.

Sorry, but I think Arcadia may have only had 2 kids that I can remember(going back ~12 years) that had run age group track. Didn't even know until summer was pretty much over that Rocha was attending school there

CA runner wrote:

There's actually another Freshman who ran 15:34 at State in D3. Seems like some hot new talents are popping up

Sorry didn't see the earlier post on Tamagno, He in fact has excellent bio mechanics and is definitely not overtraining.