In my high school league last year, there were 6 guys who all went under 5, and usually ran 4:40-4:50. Here's the top guy in my league,who graduated last year.
http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Athlete.aspx?AID=1588206
Why is it that once runners pass the 5 min mark they have such a hard time going to 4:30 and under?
This is a good question. This can't all be poor training. Is it more mental? Or non-specific training to take a runner under 4:40-4:30?
I'd say its near the bell curve of talented high schoolers running an average amount of miles.
ell I knew a guy who was a 56 second quarter guy and he ran 4:42 yet he did about 45 miles max and I knew a fast twitch dude who could go 23.5 and 51 and ran 4:32 off of probably 25 mpw. The first guy's profile fits a lot of runners. The second represents someone who ran for the school but wasnt fully committed yet always did the work we got, the problem was our school was very liw volume during the season and he didnt do a lot of endurance work in the winter because of basketball.
To answer its not likely you'll find a guy woth the right mindset, right speed, and right training program.
My first friend didnt have the raw speed and was a better 2 miler and xc guy. The second trained hard its just our school had a weaker program in distance and he wasnt as fully committed outside of the season.
I'd say its near the bell curve of talented high schoolers running an average amount of miles.
ell I knew a guy who was a 56 second quarter guy and he ran 4:42 yet he did about 45 miles max and I knew a fast twitch dude who could go 23.5 and 51 and ran 4:32 off of probably 25 mpw. The first guy's profile fits a lot of runners. The second represents someone who ran for the school but wasnt fully committed yet always did the work we got, the problem was our school was very liw volume during the season and he didnt do a lot of endurance work in the winter because of basketball.
To answer its not likely you'll find a guy woth the right mindset, right speed, and right training program.
My first friend didnt have the raw speed and was a better 2 miler and xc guy. The second trained hard its just our school had a weaker program in distance and he wasnt as fully committed outside of the season.
Adolescents are hindered by maturation. It is simple genetics and biology. Plus many late bloomers.
because overweight coaches & parents tell them that running more than 25mpw is bad for their knees, and that they should lift more weights & eat more protein cuz there already too skinny.
I think it is mostly talent.
I ran a 4:21 mile and 9:20 two mile as a ninth grader and I had no idea what I was doing. I did not really need to improve much to run under 4:10 (which I did) because as a ninth grader I was so weak and small all it took was some physical maturation. Thirty plus years on, the current coach at my high schools says he gets great kids, but mostly with little talent or speed. He is stuck mostly trying to improve their aerobic capacity.
I did run in a high school program which demanded 40-45 miles a week, and we had several other talented runners on the team (I went on to Div. 1 running on scholarship, as did 6 of my teammates). This was in the 70's, though.
I don't see this happening very often any longer. Soccer alone (my school did not have a soccer program then) takes a lot of talent away from the sport. Frankly, so does X-box and overly indulgent parents.
But in the end you have to have the wheels.
the only thing I would say wrote:
I think it is mostly talent.
You can talk all you want about training and miles but for these kids they just don't have the natural talent. You can train pretty much any mediocre high school school kid to run a 4:45. You train a kid with talent the same way and he runs 4:25.
the only thing I would say wrote:
But in the end you have to have the wheels.
Agree with this. To get to 4:10-4:20 range you need to be able to run under 54 and 2:00.
As a senior in HS I was about 52-53 (400), 1:56 (800) and 3:52 (1500). As a soph I was 55+ (400), 2:04 (800) and 4:11 (1500).
I don't think they stagnate as much as they reach a norm of performance. Simply put the max out ability. I think the bunching of performances around 4:40 to 5:00 is the product of being what a fit HSer with average/slightly above average running talent can do. Anything shorter than ~4:40 we must find HSers with above/way above average running talent.
I think most HS athletes that are good enough to play varsity sports can put together a 5:15ish mile with some running specific training but anything faster and we get into running specific talent instead of just general athleticism.
Because we live in the T&F world we tend to think of a six minute mile as slow but when we look at the general population a six minute mile is smokin' fast.
Few, if any, standardized fitness tests designed for young male adults require better than a six minute mile to get highest honors/scores.
A population of 100 dartboard game lovers can shoot on aggregate way above the number of shots inside the 7 ring that a randomly selected 100 off the streeters can. You don't get drawn to engaging in a sport or an activity unless you have some ability for it. Track team runners are on average way,way faster than the general HSer is.
leaguemeets wrote:
In my high school league last year, there were 6 guys who all went under 5, and usually ran 4:40-4:50. Here's the top guy in my league,who graduated last year.
http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Athlete.aspx?AID=1588206Why is it that once runners pass the 5 min mark they have such a hard time going to 4:30 and under?
This is the stats of one of the top XC and track dudes in my team:
XC-->
9th: 25:00 for 5k (serious)
10th: 19:59, improve to a 19:00/18:59
11th: starts at 18:30, ends with 17:50
12th: Starts with 17:09 - ends with 16:20
Track-- (this is all mile times)
9th: 6:30
10th: starts with 5:40 ends with 5:15
11th: Starts with 5:05, ends with 4:59
So IMO its just that the guys who cant go below 4:30 dont have the speed to do so.
ding ding ding wrote:
the only thing I would say wrote:I think it is mostly talent.
You can talk all you want about training and miles but for these kids they just don't have the natural talent. You can train pretty much any mediocre high school school kid to run a 4:45. You train a kid with talent the same way and he runs 4:25.
On the other side of the coin is the large number of kids who run Mid-D in track who don't really train effectively in-season and likely don't train at all off-season. I would think a lot of pretty talented runners fit this category either from lack of desire, involvement in other activities, or bad coaching. I was a pretty talented high school runner who basically never ran a step off-season and probably averaged 25mpw in-season with limited interval work due to lack of motivation/coaching knowledge. I ran 4:39 as a senior after doing a bit more training than I ever had (still like 30mpw for 4 weeks) and there were a number of kids on my team who ran in the 4:40's/4:50's with similar training/effort.
The next summer after high school I ran like 45mpw and did some "serious" XC training (50-60mpw) that fall and by November running 4:39 was a breeze even indoors. I'd chalk a fair amount up to physical maturation, but I really don't think that most kids who run 4:30-4:40 in high school are stagnating primarily due to lack of talent. It seems way more likely that most of them simply haven't done enough or the right kind of training. Obviously foot speed plays a part, but I think anyone who runs mid-D with sub-60s 400 speed can conceivably run sub 4:40 off of consistent and modest training coupled with a healthy lifestyle
It's the point where talent separates from just hard work. You can work yourself to 445ish, sub430 you got to have some wheels and to have picked your parents well.
Because 4:45 is a relatively average genetic ceiling for a runner. I'm not saying that's an absolute limit, but it's the point where the average runner will start to see rapidly diminishing returns from training and his performance will start to level off. 4:30 is a well above average level of performance.
This is the level of talent they have at that time. What could possibly make you think that these same folks somehow must be capable of 4:20?
You also see a lot of schools/coaches that never have a kid under 4:30 or high 4:20s. In that case it is the coaching. If you coach at a decent size school for 7 - 10 years and never have a stud that you can get below 4:30 then you are the issue.
webfoot wrote:
the only thing I would say wrote:But in the end you have to have the wheels.
Agree with this. To get to 4:10-4:20 range you need to be able to run under 54 and 2:00.
As a senior in HS I was about 52-53 (400), 1:56 (800) and 3:52 (1500). As a soph I was 55+ (400), 2:04 (800) and 4:11 (1500).
You just contradicted yourself.
All of the Above + Culture
The high 4 minute range is where talent, work ethic, and coaching all start to intersect.
A good coach can take a motivated kid of average talent into the 4:40s pretty easily.
A talented kid with poor work ethic can make it into the mid 4:40s pretty easily
A talented kid with a bad coach can make it into the 4:40's pretty easily.
To progress beyond the 4:40s, you need to have two of the three factors working for you. To be a really good high schooler, say sub 4:20, you need all 3 factors working for you.
Culture, which has only been briefly touched upon (soccer, xbox), is another factor. If the culture of your family, school, and town place value on running, you are going to have a greater chance of running fast. If the league which an athlete competes in is full of fast kids, the chances that your school will have fast kids goes up. Being surrounded by running success and being surrounded by people who work hard at running is a huge advantage when it comes to breaking past plateaus. I'll share a personal example from my coaching experience.
For many years, 5:00 was a heck of a benchmark for boys on my team. I would usually get 2-3 boys under 5, but not any more. This does not mean that I didn't have good runners, I had the #8 3200 girl in the U.S. in 2000 and have had plenty of boys place high in our section meet. Most of the rest of my team viewed those kids as outliers. The average joe on the team would say stuff like, "oh, yeah, Johnny. he is crazy". About 5 years ago, I set some performance bench marks for my track team. For the mile, the benchmark was 4:54 (which was based on the average final scorer at our league finals meet). Any kid who surpassed any benchmark would get a milkshake from the local diner and a t-shirt. Subsequent milkshakes and t-shirts could be earned by reaching higher and higher performance levels. It didn't take long for the kids who were hovering at the 5:05 level to realize that with a little more work, they could wear around one of the cool shirts, and get to have a milkshake while their teammates watched.
These days, we get about 5-6 kids under 5 per year (from a school of 750). Our fast kids haven't gotten much faster, but the # of kids willing to work hard has gone way up. What started as kids shooting for a goal so they could get a milkshake, has translated into a team wide culture of running on the weekends, running during the off season, and even running in the morning. So, we are getting more of the average to slightly above average kids to put in the work and we are seeing them end up in the high 4 minute range as a result.
Not that many high schoolers get to that even, most somewhat good varsity runners stay around 4:50s range
leaguemeets wrote:
In my high school league last year, there were 6 guys who all went under 5, and usually ran 4:40-4:50. Here's the top guy in my league,who graduated last year.
http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Athlete.aspx?AID=1588206Why is it that once runners pass the 5 min mark they have such a hard time going to 4:30 and under?
My initial response would be coaching, but then again I have seen some states with weak private school conferences where 4:40 makes you a champ. A lot of athletes and coaches will only train and compete to the level of the competition. When I coached a middle school, I would have at least one kid in that range every year. If someone establish a club or middle school feeder program, you will end up with a couple of sub-5 milers as 9th graders.
Btw, it takes hard work a little bit of talent to get under 4:40. You have to get some 'athletes' to come out for track.