I've been coaching a freshman girl who came out for track this spring with no running experience. She started with our long sprinter group in February and also began playing around with the hurdles.
In her first 800m race, she ran 2:34. The next week, in her first 300m hurdles race, she ran low 52ish.
Long story short, our league is fairly tough in the 800 this year, but fairly soft in the 300h, so she kind of gravitated toward that event. She brought her time down to 48.21 at our divisional final last night (despite nearly face planting on the 5th hurdle). She placed 4th in our divisional final and will move on to our sections "Masters Meet"
I believe that she has some very good distance running in her as well and perhaps ultimately a very good steeple. For instance, there is a running club at the junior high that runs a 2 mile once a week. I've measured the loop and it is a bit shy of 2 miles (1.93), but apparently she ran that loop in 13:30 last year with zero training.
Our league and state order of events do not allow for an 800/300h double, as the events are back to back, however, there is a pretty long break between the 1600 and 300h. Does anyone on here regularly have kids train for and race this double? I've had one girl do it, hitting PRs of 5:02 and 48.03 (not in the same meet). That girl will be running steeple at UNLV in the fall. I kind of looked at her as a unique case at the hs level, but now am thinking that kids with the skill sets that these two girls posses could be brought along to be studly steeplers with the right combination of training