State HS Mile Records

I'm surprised that Colorado is so far down the list.

The only chance that high altitude Colorado has to run fast in a distance race is at big post season meets at sea level. They are also isolated and expensive to travel from so 4:10-12 Colorado kids probably didn't get invited to meets like Golden West or IPI in the old days and didn't have the shot to run fast.

break it up wrote:

The only chance that high altitude Colorado has to run fast in a distance race is at big post season meets at sea level. They are also isolated and expensive to travel from so 4:10-12 Colorado kids probably didn't get invited to meets like Golden West or IPI in the old days and didn't have the shot to run fast.

Plenty of Colorado kids travel to Arcadia every year.

There is some room for debate on the Alabama mile record. Steve Bolt also ran 4:07 in 1973. He was T&F news high school athlete of the year his senior year with the fastest mile in the country. I've never been able to find an exact time down to the decimal place for Bolt though so no way to say for sure that McGregor's time is faster.

MobileRunner wrote:

There is some room for debate on the Alabama mile record. Steve Bolt also ran 4:07 in 1973. He was T&F news high school athlete of the year his senior year with the fastest mile in the country. I've never been able to find an exact time down to the decimal place for Bolt though so no way to say for sure that McGregor's time is faster.

http://www.wikirun.com/Steve_Bolt

Room for debate? Bolt ran 4:07.4 in 1973. 4:07.07 is faster than 4:07.4.

mcgato wrote:

VA: 3:53.43 Alan Webb 2001

How can Virginia claim a record that happened in a professional race in another state?

Ugh...the majority of these state records were probably run in a different state.

Just to clarify... these are the fastest times run by a high school athlete from that state, but they could have been run anywhere in the country so long as the athlete was still in a high school competition. Correct?

Not if Webb's 3:53 counts. That was a professional race.

malmo wrote:

MobileRunner wrote:

There is some room for debate on the Alabama mile record. Steve Bolt also ran 4:07 in 1973. He was T&F news high school athlete of the year his senior year with the fastest mile in the country. I've never been able to find an exact time down to the decimal place for Bolt though so no way to say for sure that McGregor's time is faster.

http://www.wikirun.com/Steve_Bolt

Room for debate? Bolt ran 4:07.4 in 1973. 4:07.07 is faster than 4:07.4.

I didn't see where Bolt's time was 4:07.4. Every place I've seen it listed just has it was 4:07. Where'd you see the exact time?

Bad Wigins wrote:

Not if Webb's 3:53 counts. That was a professional race.

So were Jim Ryun's, Tim Danielson's, Marti Liquori's and Gerry Lindgren's, just off the top of my head.

Doesnt change the fact that they were still high school athletes, so who cares? The national championship and dream mile races often offer better competition these days than some of those pro meets did in the 60s

MobileRunner wrote:

I didn't see where Bolt's time was 4:07.4. Every place I've seen it listed just has it was 4:07. Where'd you see the exact time?

Dyestat has links to the end of year Track and Field News HS lists on their Cal HS state meet history. Here is the link for 1973:

I did double check the times before about 1988 through that site. It does get difficult though, as some of the top times for a state don't make the national list. I don't have any of Jack Shepard's HS annuals to double check against.

MobileRunner wrote:

I didn't see where Bolt's time was 4:07.4. Every place I've seen it listed just has it was 4:07. Where'd you see the exact time?

Logical fallacy via solipsistic analysis.

Bolt's second best time in 1973 was 4:08.1.

Bad Wigins wrote:

mcgato wrote:

VA: 3:53.43 Alan Webb 2001

How can Virginia claim a record that happened in a professional race in another state?

For that matter how can Kansas, California or New Jersey?

I'm from OK and this has the state record as Chance Rush at 4:13.89 but as I am currently typing this I realized you asked for a mile and Chance ran a 1600m. Facepalm.

malmo wrote:

MobileRunner wrote:

I didn't see where Bolt's time was 4:07.4. Every place I've seen it listed just has it was 4:07. Where'd you see the exact time?

Logical fallacy via solipsistic analysis.

Bolt's second best time in 1973 was 4:08.1.

Florida Relays record has the "boys 1600m" record as 4:05.04, by Steve Bolt. Since we're converting 1600 times, that should be the record.

If that's a converted time from a full mile (didn't even know they ran the 1600 back then), it must have been faster than 4:07.4...

crazy raisin wrote:

If that's a converted time from a full mile (didn't even know they ran the 1600 back then), it must have been faster than 4:07.4...

Or, every converted time is converted differently. Without knowing the original time, there is no way of knowing what a converted time (or height or distance) really was. The source that I linked above shows that Bolt's time was 4:07.4 for a mile.

crazy raisin wrote:

Florida Relays record has the "boys 1600m" record as 4:05.04, by Steve Bolt. Since we're converting 1600 times, that should be the record.

If that's a converted time from a full mile (didn't even know they ran the 1600 back then), it must have been faster than 4:07.4...

What do you mean by 'if thats a converted time'? In 1974 no one ran 1600 meters - in fact no one ever imagined that one day high schools would 'go metric' by running illogical 1600/3200 distances.

dadalyfe wrote:

break it up wrote:

The only chance that high altitude Colorado has to run fast in a distance race is at big post season meets at sea level. They are also isolated and expensive to travel from so 4:10-12 Colorado kids probably didn't get invited to meets like Golden West or IPI in the old days and didn't have the shot to run fast.

Plenty of Colorado kids travel to Arcadia every year.

Yes, but I don't think they can "spin their wheels," so to speak, in training at altitude like they would be able to at sea level, so, to the extent that's true, they would be at a disadvantage. The state record in CO is a hair under 4:11 I believe, which would convert to about a 4:04-high to a 4:05 roughly.