8th grade boys sprint times

I coach at a decent sized school and 12.7 would probably be good enough to get on to a relay but not fast enough for an open event. I would say that he has plenty of room to improve, just continue to work on all around fitness until he is old enough to find where he fits in athletics and matures a bit.

Clueless dad wrote:

I perused a few sites and didn't get any good information other than what elite is, so I wanted to ask y'all. My son ran a 100m time trial to start track season and did a 12.7 hand timed. Not having run track as a youngster I have no idea if this is competitive enough to earn him spots in meets. For some reason not everybody gets to compete in meets...I didn't expect that in 8th grade. My second question is regarding rate of improvement at this age. He has not hit puberty yet, is that when the big leap in speed comes? Thanks for any ideas.

Here's really all you need to know -- 8th grade boys are all over the map with physical maturity. Some have been shaving for a couple years. Some are 2 years yet away from shaving. Makes a HUGE difference. Also, some 8th graders are 13 all through the year while others are a year and even a little more than that older. Again, makes a difference.

Yes, big improvements come with puberty.

Saturday meets typically take only 1 or 2 athletes per event. If he's not in the top 2 on his team, then he's left out. Some very good runenrs get left out of meets if they are on a very good team while some very slow runners get to run in a Saturday meet if their team is bad. Usually there are dual meets during the week where everyone gets to run.

Ignore these above responses.

I would not expect that either in 8th grade.

Most youth meets are all-comers type affairs. No coach I know is going to tell a paying parent his/her kid cannot run. Why would anyone join a team if they could not run?

Other meets (usatf/aau) will require him to place in the top 5, 10, whatever it might be, to advance to the next level.

12.7 off te couch indicates some potential but by itself it is not particularly notable. Low 12's I'd guess is considered "pretty fast". Sub 12 is fast at least on a local level at that age. I'm not a real authority on sprint times.

Is he interested in longer races? An 800 runner with 12.7 speed would be good.

Straight answers. wrote:

Ignore these above responses.

I would not expect that either in 8th grade.

Most youth meets are all-comers type affairs. No coach I know is going to tell a paying parent his/her kid cannot run. Why would anyone join a team if they could not run?

Other meets (usatf/aau) will require him to place in the top 5, 10, whatever it might be, to advance to the next level.

12.7 off te couch indicates some potential but by itself it is not particularly notable. Low 12's I'd guess is considered "pretty fast". Sub 12 is fast at least on a local level at that age. I'm not a real authority on sprint times.

Is he interested in longer races? An 800 runner with 12.7 speed would be good.

No, DO NOT ignore the stuff I wrote, because it is spot on accurate. Where did the OP say these were all-comers meets? I assumed middle school track (which I believe the OP will confirm), and there, even if it's pay-to-play, kids are not guaranteed to run in invitationals. They aren't guaranteed that in high school either. Have to be top 1 or 2 depending on the meet in an event or top 4 if on a relay. The dual meets is where the slower ones get their chances.

There are SOME meets that will take top 3, and then of course there are other meets that are "invite only". You have to submit a time and then they accept you or not.

Yes, this is junior high track. He also timed a mile, ran 7:10 and didn't enjoy it:) probably wont want to run 800+. He asked me what events would make him better for football and I said sprints. Thinking about it now, jumps and throws might also be good explosive training for football. I love track and field, so was excited he wanted to join, then I find out it's only to get better at football. Hoping he lears to love it as its own sport.

Clueless dad wrote:

Yes, this is junior high track. He also timed a mile, ran 7:10 and didn't enjoy it:) probably wont want to run 800+. He asked me what events would make him better for football and I said sprints. Thinking about it now, jumps and throws might also be good explosive training for football. I love track and field, so was excited he wanted to join, then I find out it's only to get better at football. Hoping he lears to love it as its own sport.

The best sprinters on my son's HS team joined track to "get better at football", and half of them don't play football anymore. Also, the best distance runner (one of the best in Ohio) started running cross country as a freshman to stay in shape for baseball. He stopped playing baseball.

Finally, a 7:10 mile for a completely untrained 8th grader isn't horrible. I get that he didn't like it, but he could be trained to be MUCH faster.

Again, DO trust what I said...if he's top 1 or 2 he will get to run an individual event in a Saturday meet. If he's top 4, he will get to run on a relay. Other than that, he SHOULD get to run in the weekday dual meets. Good luck to him.

So 2 or 3 8th graders from an entire MS get to run the 100? First of all by us public middle schools don't even have sports, second even in our populated area, there aren't that many middle schools.

So these meets you speak of have 1or 2 heats of 100m? Doesn't make any sense.

Solution to this problem is to quit and join a club team that will actually have coaches that know what they are doing and take kids to meets to actually run races.

Here is a link to some results in a Southern California Youth track conference to get an idea of what kids are running. Athletic.net has tons of results from around the country. Check your local area.

http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Division/Top.aspx?List=5884&SchoolID=62295

Well the MS system isn't perfect but the youth system isn't always better.

In our area, the best youth kids have been running 3, 4 or even 5 years by the 8th grade. The kids who don't finish in the top 2 or 3 either try other events or quit. If he tried the youth team with a 12.7 100, he would be running with the 6th graders.

Most likely all of this will change next fall when he goes out for HS football. If he still hasn't hit puberty, he will most likely be cut and the longer distances may not look so bad.

Straight answers. wrote:

So 2 or 3 8th graders from an entire MS get to run the 100? First of all by us public middle schools don't even have sports, second even in our populated area, there aren't that many middle schools.

So these meets you speak of have 1or 2 heats of 100m? Doesn't make any sense.

Solution to this problem is to quit and join a club team that will actually have coaches that know what they are doing and take kids to meets to actually run races.

Yes. In Saturday Invitationals it is common to allow just 1 or 2 and very rarely sometimes 3 kids from each school to run in an event.

Here's an example of a middle school (or junior high) meet held in Ohio in 2013 - I just picked the first one I found. Notice that no more than 2 athletes from each school are in each event. 11 teams. -

How is this a surprise for anyone here? The same is true in MOST high school meets -- at least here in Ohio. Maybe if you live in a very sparsely populated state they need to have more kids from each school compete in each event, but not here in Ohio. If you aren't top 2 usually and sometime just the top 1 or sometimes top 3, then you don't compete on that day.

The exception is indoor meets. For some reason, some of the events allow multiple entrants per event.

And again, these are just the Saturday invitationals...those are the meets for the best athletes. The slower ones get to run at the weekday dual meets.

Clueless dad wrote:

Yes, this is junior high track. He also timed a mile, ran 7:10 and didn't enjoy it:) probably wont want to run 800+. He asked me what events would make him better for football and I said sprints. Thinking about it now, jumps and throws might also be good explosive training for football. I love track and field, so was excited he wanted to join, then I find out it's only to get better at football. Hoping he lears to love it as its own sport.

In 8th grade I ran a mile in 8:30 and hated it for being so long. I could, however, run 12.5 for a 100m and considered myself a sprinter.

2 years later I ran 16:30 for a 5k and 1:17 for a 1/2thon. Have him train all around fitness. After puberty and training he may develop talent and a liking for distance. A 12.7 100m indicates some natural speed but probably not enough to be successful as a sprinter.

See if you can at least get him in a 400m this year

I coached MS boys and then moved to coaching HS girls. What I noticed was this....

MS Boys' performances are equivalent to a HS girls' performance. So a mark that is considered "good" for HS girl is "good" for 8th grade boy.

It lines up pretty well.

Boys that break 5:00 in 8th grade are the best. Same thing with varsity girls. Low 5:00 is still considered good.

Good MS boy hurdler is sub-15. Same with varsity girls.

LJ - 17+

I could go on and on. The events line up very well. Even vault assuming training already includes decent technical knowledge.

Clueless dad wrote:

I perused a few sites and didn't get any good information other than what elite is, so I wanted to ask y'all. My son ran a 100m time trial to start track season and did a 12.7 hand timed. Not having run track as a youngster I have no idea if this is competitive enough to earn him spots in meets. For some reason not everybody gets to compete in meets...I didn't expect that in 8th grade. My second question is regarding rate of improvement at this age. He has not hit puberty yet, is that when the big leap in speed comes? Thanks for any ideas.

Around here, a 12.7 would probably put him around #3 on most teams.

Whether that is good enough to get to race the open 100m in meets is really dependent upon what kind of meets your school attends - there are 0 invitationals around here, so with only duals or double duals he would be able to compete as he would be "varsity"... but like Flagpole was saying, IF your MS attends invitationals they will probably only be taking 1-2 or maybe 3 at most per event. What that means is that he'd certainly be a part of the relays, but might not be able to run the open 100m every meet.

There will be a big leap when he hits puberty.

Regarding other potential events to try in order to get better for football... it really depends on what position he intends to play, and what his strengths are. Sprints and hurdles are great for positions heavily dependent on speed (re: any non-linemen), jumps are great for positions heavily dependent on explosiveness (re: non-linemen, in particular DB/WR), throws are great for positions heavily dependent on strength+agility (linemen, LB, RB). With a 12.7 for 100m, he can probably find some niche to fit into, but can't really say what is his best option until he has tried a wider variety of events or tests and without knowing what position he best fits for football and what his strengths/weaknesses are.

Thanks all for the replies. He's a WR in football and we're in a pass happy state so it's a great position even in 8th grade. He's going to try a little of everything and see where he lands. Until puberty you never know what shape they'll take, I just look forward to watching whatever it is he ends up doing.