H.S. distance running depth now vs. the '80s

Yes, but only the people in the area and at the meet saw that and were aware of that time, until 2011 when it was uploaded.

Someone outside of Edmonton could think they were the best running a 8:40 3000m.

Our team thought our $#it didn't stink because we had 5 guys under 17. Now you could go online and realize that you are good locally, but not nationally.

Way way deeper now for the boys.

I dont see the same on the girls side....more of a participation sport...not very competitive.

15:17 average with five runners under 15:35 for 3 miles couldn't qualify for state in my state

I have been trying to figure out how to say what I'm thinking more clearly and hopefully I've got it now ...

I agree that distance running is a lot deeper than it was in the 80s. Let's say it is 3x - 6x deeper. If there was one or two very good programs in a state, now there are 5-10 excellent programs in a state.

My disappointment is that it's only 5 or 10 excellent programs per state and not 50 or 100. After the 5 or 10 excellent programs, the programs are no better than the eighties, and in fact, I think the average programs might be worse than the average progrAms in the eighties; despite the internet availability of info, because of lack of access to the better athletes due to year round training and soccer's popularity.

When you compare that to Ither mainstream sports such as hockey, soccer, and baseball, there are 10x to 20x as many well run programs with high community and parent support.

Soccer in particular has come out of nowhere in the 80s and now enjoys tremendous participation and support and good solid training; although results at the highest levels are perhaps similarly disappointing.

Consider this... wrote:

I graduated H.S. in '84 in N.J., and back then it was a rare sight to see a sub 9:00 3200. Now you've got like 18 guys breaking 9:00 at a single regional event. And the x.c. records from my year at Holmdel (NJ H.S. championships) have been absolutely torched in recent years.

Holmdel is not the same course that we ran. I still consider DiJosephs to be the best time ever run on that course

That 2000 year was the year it all started. You had Ritz, Webb, Hall, Tegenkamp, Rohatinsky, etc. They are the catalyst's of the running renaissance.

I graduated HS in 2001. We won our league and our top runner was a 16-minute 5k guy. Our 7th runner was about a 17:30 guy.

My HS team just lost in their league meet last week. Their top runner ran 15 flat for the 5k, their 7th runner ran 16:10.

The open/JV guys all were under 17:30.

And this isn't one of their better years.

Maybe our team was 'bad', but it just seems like these kids nowadays are so much faster than we were 15 years ago. Same coaches, I'm assuming different training methods + more miles?

me thinks wrote:

Better track times for many reasons:

Better track surfaces. We didnt have mondo back then. Less than half our races on a all weather surface

Few if any twilight meets. Most track races run during hot and windy part of the day.

There are more good coaches now who have a passion and interest in the sport. Its not the baseball coach who has xc in the fall.

Bigger schools are stronger these days but smaller schools struggle.

More runners participating in the sport which allows for more runners to excel.

I think more year round runners - specialization. In the past kids played multiple sports like basketball or hockey or soccer or baseball.

I think top guys from 80's still would stand up to current group if the environment in the sport was what it is today.

A lot of interesting theories - thanks for putting them out. No doubt, the recent success is multi-factorial, although, there are probably just a couple of things that account for the bulk of the change. I think that one of them that you probably nailed on the head is the increase in the number of good coaches. Coaching generally sucked in the '80s for most schools. The internet theory is very interesting - I can definitely see that.

Class of 86 wrote:

Consider this... wrote:

I graduated H.S. in '84 in N.J., and back then it was a rare sight to see a sub 9:00 3200. Now you've got like 18 guys breaking 9:00 at a single regional event. And the x.c. records from my year at Holmdel (NJ H.S. championships) have been absolutely torched in recent years.

Holmdel is not the same course that we ran. I still consider DiJosephs to be the best time ever run on that course

You can consider it all you want - and its certainly true that Holmdel is a little faster now then when we were running (as is VC in NYC) but Ches and the Rosa's were better the JDJ in every other comparable regional and track event - so no reason to believe they would not have been faster there as well.

On topic - its never just one thing that drives better performance but, as mentioned, demographics is always the best place to start. It drove the first big boom in the 70's/early 80's as well as the sag in the 90's before the latest increase again is pushing things up. HS participation numbers in T&F and XC are far larger now then in the 80's and even more so the 90's. Expect if overall numbers in the 14 - 19 age group ever go down, every one will be saying how come today's kids are awful.

Better focus on aerobic conditioning through mileage increases.

Focus on threshold and tempo running. I ran in a high mileage program and we NEVER did threshold or tempo running. It was hard intervals 4-5 days per week and LSD other days.

Participation increases.

Better access to training methods and theory.

Mi Man wrote:

Way way deeper now for the boys.

I dont see the same on the girls side....more of a participation sport...not very competitive.

Based on what? The numbers provided in this thread are about the same for the boys and the girls in 2000/2015.

Is it because you could beat almost all the girls on your HS team?

It's not like Track and Field News didn't exist. There were still national lists. You had to wait a bit to see them, but they were there.

Good point. The boost in high school xc caliber is kinda like the economic gains that the US has made in the same timeframe: highly concentrated among the top ~20% of programs. The bottom 80% are just as bad or worse: increasingly popular alternative sports (and very early specialization) in sports like soccer, hockey, lacrosse, and even ultimate frisbee in some areas. Not to mention rising childhood obesity = smaller pool of potential athletes.

Good XC programs usually draw on a large enough student population that losing kids to other sports is not a big deal. The district I work in surely has kids who have the genetics to run 16:00 doing soccer, football, hockey, or swimming, but despite that, I've got enough kids to put together a good program, since our senior high has 700 kids per class. It would be a very different story at a 200-per-class senior high. I'm not sure I'd even want to coach at a school like that. Once you've coached a lot of talented, motivated, and hard-working kids, it's really hard to go back.

Consider this... wrote:

It's amazing how many more guys are going sub 9:00 in the 3200 these days

3200 became sexy somehow. When I was in high school (late 80s), everyone with any type of speed avoided those 8 dreadful laps like the plague and ran the 1600/800 and 4 x 400. 3200 was the default event for slower guys and a few specialists who dominated. Arcadia typically had 1-3 guys go sub 9, now it's 20+ guys and just about all those guys could be great milers if they dropped down and focused on the 4-lapper. I would argue that the 3200 is more popular than any other mid D or distance event these days.

So the 2nd part of my question, and thought process, is well, this should translate into us putting out a lot more competitive distance athletes in the professional ranks in the coming 5-10 years if we cultivate it properly. How do our top H.S. guys compare in quality and depth now to those in Kenya and Ethiopia, for example? Probably lagging a bit in both, but still, I'd imaging we'll be seeing a lot more sub 13:10/27:20/2:10 guys out there in the coming years.

We are in the internet age. I ran competitively in the late 80s and early 90s in NY. My 4:30 mile was good enough for All- County then, but nowadays I wouldn't even qualify for our County meet. Back then, we knew nothing of what was happening outside of our section. Today we get angry if results from another meet don't appear on Milesplit that night. This drives kids to figure out ways to get better. Some kids are so competitive they will work their tails off to rise to the top.

Training information is all over the internet too, so coaches who may have little competitive experience can be successful if they put the time in and have a rapport with kids. This coupled with population growth has transformed our sport.

Ca$hclay wrote:

Consider this... wrote:

It's amazing how many more guys are going sub 9:00 in the 3200 these days

3200 became sexy somehow. When I was in high school (late 80s), everyone with any type of speed avoided those 8 dreadful laps like the plague and ran the 1600/800 and 4 x 400. 3200 was the default event for slower guys and a few specialists who dominated. Arcadia typically had 1-3 guys go sub 9, now it's 20+ guys and just about all those guys could be great milers if they dropped down and focused on the 4-lapper. I would argue that the 3200 is more popular than any other mid D or distance event these days.

I agree with this. I don't even remember my 3200m / 2 mile times from 78-82 except for one particularly humiliating meet. I was slow as in a 57 sec 400, but I remember times from 400, 800, 1600, mile, 3 mile, 5k and 10k but have virtually no recollection of 2 mile or 3200 times.

As a senior, I had my choice to select my event for sectionals and I chose 1600 despite the fact that I couldn't out kick A 15 year old Mary Cain. Man those 8 laps were frightening.

Consider this... wrote:

So the 2nd part of my question, and thought process, is well, this should translate into us putting out a lot more competitive distance athletes in the professional ranks in the coming 5-10 years if we cultivate it properly. How do our top H.S. guys compare in quality and depth now to those in Kenya and Ethiopia, for example? Probably lagging a bit in both, but still, I'd imaging we'll be seeing a lot more sub 13:10/27:20/2:10 guys out there in the coming years.

The reason we don't compete with Kenya/Ethiopia is because we lack enough of the professional training groups. And our training groups are too small.

Kenya has training camps of 50+ athletes. Give Salazar 100 guys that run sub 1440 in college and he can probably at least 5 of them sub 1330 guys in a few years if he devises a program and has each one do it instead of specializing. Some will get injured, but it will increase our overall ability as a country because those that don't get injured will become great.

Consider this... wrote:

It's amazing how many more guys are going sub 9:00 in the 3200 these days, as well as the times the top 9th and 10th graders are putting up now. What are they doing differently? More good coaches? Something in the water? Could this translate into giving the Kenyans and Ethiopians some better competition in the years to come?

The boys are definitely faster overall today. As a senior in the fall of 1984 I ran 15:48 for my HS PR, and that kind of time would have won a LOT of invitationals at that time (and I did win that one that day). Today, there are a lot of runners who will run under 16:00 in a Saturday meet, and as you mentioned, 9th and 10th grade BOYS are running some amazing times.

I think the main reason is that the training in the mid 80s was pretty bad...less is more was the mantra for most. Today we know better...that you need to have those long runs. Also, today with the internet, every runner knows what the other runners have run...easier to keep up with it all and plan to try to beat those times. Mostly though, it's the training.

Should be comparing now to the 70s

Times and depth were already going down by the 80s.