I GPS'd the grass loop they run and wheeled it. Also another 20 between 6:00-6:20. I remember when I was in middle school, there were 3 kids who broke 6. Is this an absurd amount of kids? Let me know how many you had when you were in middle school or the most you have heard of.
Along with that, there are 17 girls under 7:00.
PEDs in the water supply. EPO injections also a possibility.
answer is 1. the course is short and or 2. they cut the course.
Is there anyone who COULDN'T break 6 minutes for the mile by the time they were 13?
hahaha so what everyone on this site broke -800000000 minutes for the 100000000000 mile uphill when they were a fetus
haha this is no joke guys. I substitute at the school and watched more of them break 6 today. It is not short. It might even be a few seconds long. I am a former 3:49 1500m guy so I do have some credibility! Seriously though, anyone heard of anything like this?
It is one giant grass loop and then a partial loop. I think they handle it better psychologically compared to doing 4 laps because they kind of mindlessly run instead of thinking of how many laps they have.
If that is true, it is pretty ridiculous. I guess you are the gym teacher and were timing it yourself?
We have seven boys who have broken 6:00 on my school's track team and that might be the most we've had since I've been teaching there.
I swear to god man. My jaw dropped when I saw all these kids. I have been subbing (all subjects) there for the past 4 years and unfortunately the talent feeds into very very poor programs. I coach at high school a couple cities over.
But if you are a high school coach, you know having just a few kids coming in who broke 6 in middle school along with a slew of 6-8m kids can create depth year after year.
Calicoach wrote:
haha this is no joke guys. I substitute at the school and watched more of them break 6 today. It is not short. It might even be a few seconds long. I am a former 3:49 1500m guy so I do have some credibility! Seriously though, anyone heard of anything like this?
It is one giant grass loop and then a partial loop. I think they handle it better psychologically compared to doing 4 laps because they kind of mindlessly run instead of thinking of how many laps they have.
How big is the school?
About 1/4 mile square.
I never really thought about it, but I can tell you this much. I have boys that have run for the Dana Hills program in high school. They are both sprinters. The older one is running 400 in college, and the younger one is doing multiple sprint/relay events in high school.
Both kids have played soccer at lunch and basic stuff like that, but neither has run one step of "distance training," and frankly, neither would be caught dead running XC or 1600/3200. The only distance running at all that either did was running a mile once every week or two in PE. I think the younger one might have run 1.5 miles in PE once.
Off that "training" my older son ran about 5:50 in PE and my younger one ran something like 6:05 or 6:10. We didn't write the times down as we didn't find them remarkable. Plenty of other kids in their PE classes ran times like that. I congratulated them, and that was about it.
BTW, at Dana Hills, the qualifying time for 9th grade girls to run distance on the track team is 7:00. It is 6:00 for 9th grade boys. You don't make it onto the track team if you're a distance runner and you can't run that. Also, there are cuts in cross country.
Again, we never considered any of this remarkable. Those are just times that kids around here (Orange County, CA) normally run.
How many in the middle school? We've got 151 and there are probably 15 kids who could do that. 5 on the xc and track team and the rest are basketball and soccer players. If your middle school has 370 students in it, I'd say that's above average but not astonishing. But if your school is bigger, then it's average at best.
There were 134 kids total in my graduating class. In 6th grade, we had five boys run the mile in under 5:10. Not one of us ran track in highschool and only 2 of us ever ran xc, me for one season, the other for 2. How many boys in the class?
650 students with slightly more girls than boys. So say 300 boys.
Inspired by Bring Back the Mile - no doubt; go Mile! Thanks for the report.
Bring Back the Mile wrote:
Inspired by Bring Back the Mile - no doubt; go Mile! Thanks for the report.
When I was in high school, we ran the 1600 and called it a mile. We started from the 100m start line (it was closest to the locker room).
I ran something like 537 and lapped all but 1 guy in my gym class.
really?????? wrote:
There were 134 kids total in my graduating class. In 6th grade, we had five boys run the mile in under 5:10. Not one of us ran track in highschool and only 2 of us ever ran xc, me for one season, the other for 2. How many boys in the class?
Five 6th grade boys under 5:10?? That's way more impressive and ridiculous than what I posted.
I teach in in Georgia. 247 6th grade boys. 2 broke 6 minutes. Apparently this is a slow state!
coach d wrote:
I never really thought about it, but I can tell you this much. I have boys that have run for the Dana Hills program in high school. They are both sprinters. The older one is running 400 in college, and the younger one is doing multiple sprint/relay events in high school.
Both kids have played soccer at lunch and basic stuff like that, but neither has run one step of "distance training," and frankly, neither would be caught dead running XC or 1600/3200. The only distance running at all that either did was running a mile once every week or two in PE. I think the younger one might have run 1.5 miles in PE once.
Off that "training" my older son ran about 5:50 in PE and my younger one ran something like 6:05 or 6:10. We didn't write the times down as we didn't find them remarkable. Plenty of other kids in their PE classes ran times like that. I congratulated them, and that was about it.
I have a few friends/former teammates who went through Dana and I always asked them what the deal was. Like you said, when you set a bar and are a true 'winner' like Butler, athletes just rise to it. Each one of them said that the time trial for Cross Country was a huge motivator for the depth.
If you give a kid a summer of training and then have them run a 3 mile time trial in 21m backed by all that encouragement, all the sudden it's not that hard.
You're right that kids run 6's and some run under 6:00. It was just from my experience at various middle schools, there was only a handful. Not 37 lol
BTW, at Dana Hills, the qualifying time for 9th grade girls to run distance on the track team is 7:00. It is 6:00 for 9th grade boys. You don't make it onto the track team if you're a distance runner and you can't run that. Also, there are cuts in cross country.
Again, we never considered any of this remarkable. Those are just times that kids around here (Orange County, CA) normally run.