We got a 9th grade girl on our XC team this year, and she's phenomenal... she got 2nd place in the entire league and her primary sport is basketball (she doesn't run outside of the practices).
Her PR this year is a 20:30 - 20:40 for the 5k, soemwhere in this range.
Is this a fantastic time for a freshman girl? I remember on this thread, some people said that a 19:00 5k for girls was supposed to get you to states.
** She ran a 19:45 for the 3 mile **
It's OK.
First of all, tell me, how many "states" participate in your state meet?
And now the 20:30, that is about average/good, certainly not excellent. Just a solid junior varsity level time. An excellent time for a freshman girl would be 18:30. Jordan Hasay was running 17:30 as a 7th grader.
It depends on her prior running experience. I coach at a high school with absolutely no feeder program. When they start, most of the kids have never run more than 1 mile at a time. If I had a freshman girl fitting into this category run 20:30, I'd be thrilled and I would call it 'pretty darn good'.
That being said, there were several freshman girls in my state this XC season running 2-3 minutes faster than that.
Five 9th graders broke 19:00 at this years Central Coast Section meet in Cal. So 20:30 is a good time, but not an excellent time. I think there are ten sections in Cal.
Graduationmania wrote:
We got a 9th grade girl on our XC team this year, and she's phenomenal... she got 2nd place in the entire league and her primary sport is basketball (she doesn't run outside of the practices).
Her PR this year is a 20:30 - 20:40 for the 5k, soemwhere in this range.
Is this a fantastic time for a freshman girl? I remember on this thread, some people said that a 19:00 5k for girls was supposed to get you to states.
20:30 is a good time for a freshman girl. Not excellent, but certainly not a bad place to start. And the bigger question is whether or not she can improve - there are plenty of younger girls who run 20:00 or so for 5k, but then never get faster - their bodies are completely different by the time they finish high school. Guys may have minor challenges when they go through growth spurts, but nothing like girls developing.
That being said, there are plenty of girls who start out at around 20 minutes for a 5k who can just keep on improving - all depends on where they are at body-wise (and similarly, how motivated they are to keep working harder each year, even if it seems like they may not be getting short term results).
My daughters team had 3 freshman go under 19:00 (2 did it several times) and another who probably would have if not for injury.
These were soccer girls with no XC experience.
That said 20:30 is real good if they stick with it. As others have pointed out the improvement of girls at this age is a roller coaster ride and many girls can get fustrated and drop out when they stop improving for a while or even start regressing despite working harder than they have ever had to.
As others have said its good, not excellent by any means. i do some private coaching for a girl who happens to be in 9th grade this year and she ran 19:20 and didn't make it to state (we're in texas) as a reference.
i'm gonna say it fits in to the 'very promising' category. a lot depends on what happens (training) between now and next yr
i'm gonna say it fits in to the 'very promising' category. a lot depends on what happens (training) between now and next yr
My state had maybe 8 girls run sub 20:30 at the state meet as 9th graders this year. It is a tough course though. I'd say it's very good. Does it indicate a future elite? No, probably not.
And to the 19:20 girls coach, I can't see based on the state meet results how a19:20 would not be good enough to qualify. Not that many ran it at the state meet.
Also why do 1a-4a only run 2(?) miles?
It's good for a freshman hs girl. Shows potential for the future given that she develops well and stay away from things like EDs and stress fractures (girls are proven to be more prone to fractures than boys)... Girls are so much more complicated with development than boys... Anyone else agree?
runjunkie wrote:
Girls are so much more complicated with development than boys... Anyone else agree?
Yeah. Often times girls start off fast as freshmen and only get slower. Boys usually only get faster.
For 4 miles, yes.
puberty jones wrote:
runjunkie wrote:Girls are so much more complicated with development than boys... Anyone else agree?
Yeah. Often times girls start off fast as freshmen and only get slower. Boys usually only get faster.
Using a girl from the team I coached as an example (and I think representative of a lot of girls:
Freshman year: Started at 22:30 5k, down to 20:20 5k
Sophomore year: Started at 22:20 5k, down to 21:20 5k
Junior year: Started at 22:00 5k, down to 21:25 5k
Senior year: Started at 21:45 5k, down to 20:40 5k
Freshman year, she had run some over the summer, was still figuring out what she could do running wise, and just kept dropping time every meet. By the next season, she had put on 10-15 pounds (still slender, just not skinny - probably about ideal weight gain for her age) - and was slower with the same amount of work. Same story her junior season - she had probably stopped growing, but the same amount of training got her to the same time as the previous year. Before her senior season, she was a little more serious about running consistently, and ran pretty close to her freshman times - despite being about 15 pounds heavier at the same height. Not sure if she will run in college at a small school (or train recreationally on her own), but I imagine she could improve a lot now that she has reached maturity, and pretty much adapted to how her body is as an adult.
Every high school in America has had a 9th grader female that ran 20:30 and never got better.
A few have had 17:40 high school freshman years and never got better.
An undertrained high school freshman boy that ran 20:30 as a freshman I would expect if motivated would be a good bet to improve to a sub 17:00 runner as a senior.
Nothing great but its apples and oranges. Most girls that run fast at an early age never improve.
web idiot wrote:
My state had maybe 8 girls run sub 20:30 at the state meet as 9th graders this year. It is a tough course though. I'd say it's very good. Does it indicate a future elite? No, probably not.
And to the 19:20 girls coach, I can't see based on the state meet results how a19:20 would not be good enough to qualify. Not that many ran it at the state meet.
Also why do 1a-4a only run 2(?) miles?
The course at the state meet was much tougher than the courses we run on to qualify.
Don't you think since she kept the "same" training load from freshman year that she would not improve? And by senior year she had improved due to the training from her freshman-junior year and not necessarily from increased training load each year? Sure weight has some issue but if she trained a little more each year and summer don't you think her times might have come sooner?
I have a daughter (a freshman) who did 10-15 miles in the summer and 20-25 during XC season and dropped her times from 25-22 something. She weighed a little more prior to starting her season but dropped some weight due to more mileage. She definitely responded well to more training.
Just an observation wrote:
Don't you think since she kept the "same" training load from freshman year that she would not improve? And by senior year she had improved due to the training from her freshman-junior year and not necessarily from increased training load each year? Sure weight has some issue but if she trained a little more each year and summer don't you think her times might have come sooner?
I have a daughter (a freshman) who did 10-15 miles in the summer and 20-25 during XC season and dropped her times from 25-22 something. She weighed a little more prior to starting her season but dropped some weight due to more mileage. She definitely responded well to more training.
I am not speaking so much about weight loss in season - there is likely some weight lost during the season, but we didn't really keep track of it. The 15 pounds gained throughout the course of high school were just an estimate - sure, she may have lost 5 pounds over the course of the season, but my main point is about the cumulative effect of maturing for high school girls. They can train more/better, and not improve, despite being in good health. For an equally dedicated high school boy (starting out at the same level, and putting in the same training each year), I would expect the following progression:
Freshman: 20:30
Sophomore: 19:00
Junior: 18:20
Senior: 17:20
For guys, maturing physically usually means more a more consistent improvement. Put in the same work, and you will get better. Put in more work, and you will get a lot better.