Is this guy a sprinter or mid-distance runner?

not a head coach wrote:

A 13 year old kid I know ran a 13.2 100m (hand timed, no blocks or spikes) and a 7:06 mile (solo time trial, no spikes) last month. He's been training for about a year and a half. It's pretty light and consists of two speed days (3x100 or similar workout one day, 2x400 or similar workout another day) and one mid-distance day (2 mile run or 1 mile time trial).

He likes sprinting a bit more than distance running, but he wants to do the event that he'll be better at. Would this be the 100/200/400 or the 800/1600? His sprint times seem better, but his training so far has been more sprint-oriented, and he has the body of a distance runner.

Too early to tell.

Let him do real sports for a while and then throw him in cross country when it's available. If he does not excel at xc compare to other sports he's either mentally weak, or physically not suited. Both ways point towards mid-distance.

Once he's in mid-D, see if he does better at the shorter ones and you have your answer. 13.2 is way better than 7:06 though.

heyo wrote:

Let him do real sports for a while and then throw him in cross country when it's available. If he does not excel at xc compare to other sports he's either mentally weak, or physically not suited. Both ways point towards mid-distance.

Once he's in mid-D, see if he does better at the shorter ones and you have your answer. 13.2 is way better than 7:06 though.

Cross country is a fall sport, so that won't work unless you want him to try XC in his sophomore year (he'll be starting high school this August). Anyway, he has played Little League in the past. He did OK, but he thinks he's better at track than at baseball.

The 7:06 is absolutely pathetic unless he has spent his entire childhood sitting on his ass playing video games. Any distance runner with a shred of talent is already running a 6:00 mile in the middle school gym test. A 13.2 100m (assuming FAT) is actually getting somewhere, so you should probably get him to experiment more with distances from 100m - 800m.

Try swimming? wrote:

A 13.2 100m (assuming FAT)

not a head coach wrote:

A 13 year old kid I know ran a 13.2 100m (hand timed, no blocks or spikes)

It's hand timed, not FAT. I know that reading comprehension isn't one of letsrun's strong points, but come on....

By the way, a 7:06 mile would put you close to the top 15% of 13 year olds:

It might even be top 10% now when you consider how out of shape an average kid is today.

not a head coach wrote:

He likes sprinting a bit more than distance running

Then he's a sprinter. No way you can really tell what his potential is at every specialization at this point.

He is young, let him try a variety of events.

Be careful about having him push out of the blocks and run distance in the same meet. That is a good way to get hurt.

You have to get some kind of base on the kid before you really know what he can do. It does seem like he is not a 100 meter dash kid. But what if he grows and is able to put on muscle?

Perhaps have him run the 200 w/o blocks in one meet AFTER doing a couple weeks of distance, and one speed development day per week (10 X 80 @ 85%).

The next week try him out in a 800 meter race.

Then compare the two races and adjust his distance accordingly.

The UK's online ranking system only goes down to 5:25 for Under 13 (i.e. 12 and younger) for 1500m. 7:06 is actually poor.

Whereas 13.2 is OK.

So he's a sprinter based on natural ability. Could be anything though in the future.

larkimm wrote:

http://powerof10.info/rankings/rankinglist.aspx?event=1500&agegroup=U13&sex=M&year=2016

The UK's online ranking system only goes down to 5:25 for Under 13 (i.e. 12 and younger) for 1500m. 7:06 is actually poor.

Whereas 13.2 is OK.

http://powerof10.info/rankings/rankinglist.aspx?event=100&agegroup=U13&sex=M&year=2016

So he's a sprinter based on natural ability. Could be anything though in the future.

If it's so poor then where are all you're UK middle distance runners ?

It's a mile too ; not 1500 .

I guess after all your hundreds of thousands run under 5:25 for 1500m they take up smoking fags and quit ,eh?

Eff off troll and Queen's douche .

Kid has potential .

But ,cant put heart and pain threshold into him .

Good luck to him !

At MD, the kid has no early potential. Sorry.

And as you rightly point out, the 1500m times I'm showing from the UK are from a nation that produces fairly mediocre MD runners at the moment, so put a 7:06 mile into even better context.

All I was suggesting was that 7:06 is a dire time for a 13 year old (bear in mind the times I quoted above are for 11 and 12 year olds (i.e. Under 13).

But 13.2 for a 100m is decent, and may indicate some natural ability.

Good luck to any young runner, I'm a strong advocate of that. No matter what their ability or current times. But surely anyone knows that 7:06 for a track mile for a youngster isn't a decent time by any stretch of the imagination, so responding to this thread from the perspective of "Is he a MD or sprinter" my best evidential answer would be (based on UK performances) that he's more likely to be a sprinter.

larkimm wrote:

At MD, the kid has no early potential. Sorry.

Correct. Especially since he has been training somewhat for a year and a half. My son is 13 and is running the 1600 this spring in MS track. Never ran before this spring. His PR came last week at 6:39. He has been last in every single race this year. The top boys in the area are running close to 5:00.

larkimm wrote:

And as you rightly point out, the 1500m times I'm showing from the UK are from a nation that produces fairly mediocre MD runners at the moment, so put a 7:06 mile into even better context.

These times you link to are also for boys who are racing track. The "top 15% on the presidential fitness test" number that was given earlier are for ALL boys running the mile in gym class. BIG difference.

7:00 min 1600 is terrible for MD racers. However, it's in the top 15% of the total population. Context is important.

larkimm wrote:

At MD, the kid has no early potential. Sorry.

And as you rightly point out, the 1500m times I'm showing from the UK are from a nation that produces fairly mediocre MD runners at the moment, so put a 7:06 mile into even better context.

All I was suggesting was that 7:06 is a dire time for a 13 year old (bear in mind the times I quoted above are for 11 and 12 year olds (i.e. Under 13).

That's for guys who train for it. This kid is doing something like 3 MPW.

It's a lot harder to run good mile times with minimal training than it is to run a good 100 off of minimal training.

not a head coach wrote:

A 13 year old kid I know ran a 13.2 100m (hand timed, no blocks or spikes) and a 7:06 mile (solo time trial, no spikes) last month. He's been training for about a year and a half. It's pretty light and consists of two speed days (3x100 or similar workout one day, 2x400 or similar workout another day) and one mid-distance day (2 mile run or 1 mile time trial).

He likes sprinting a bit more than distance running, but he wants to do the event that he'll be better at. Would this be the 100/200/400 or the 800/1600? His sprint times seem better, but his training so far has been more sprint-oriented, and he has the body of a distance runner.

7:06 is not suggesting he could be very good at XC. For comparison ran a 6:12 off no training when i was 11, and was above 18 minutes until my junior year. He's a sprinter for sure.

The Big Bad Leroy wrote:

He is young, let him try a variety of events.

Be careful about having him push out of the blocks and run distance in the same meet. That is a good way to get hurt.

You have to get some kind of base on the kid before you really know what he can do. It does seem like he is not a 100 meter dash kid. But what if he grows and is able to put on muscle?

Perhaps have him run the 200 w/o blocks in one meet AFTER doing a couple weeks of distance, and one speed development day per week (10 X 80 @ 85%).

The next week try him out in a 800 meter race.

Then compare the two races and adjust his distance accordingly.

These are his times for other events:

200: 27.1

400: 63

800: 2:55 (only ran twice)

All times were hand timed with no spikes.

A 7:06 mile is not impressive for someone who had been training for a year and a half nor is it impressive for a middle school kid who's active and in shape. I think the 100 time is better as he doesn't appear to have trained for a short sprint. But it is too early to see where he'll end up.

Carp wrote:

larkimm wrote:

At MD, the kid has no early potential. Sorry.

And as you rightly point out, the 1500m times I'm showing from the UK are from a nation that produces fairly mediocre MD runners at the moment, so put a 7:06 mile into even better context.

All I was suggesting was that 7:06 is a dire time for a 13 year old (bear in mind the times I quoted above are for 11 and 12 year olds (i.e. Under 13).

That's for guys who train for it. This kid is doing something like 3 MPW.

It's a lot harder to run good mile times with minimal training than it is to run a good 100 off of minimal training.

It's a lot easier to jog then it is to sprint

not a head coach wrote:

he has the body of a distance runner.

I'm not sure what that refers to, but I think it's safe to say that the kid is not overweight. If that's the case, 1 mile run per week for a year and a half would still be plenty to have a growing boy with a majority slow-twitch fibers or intermediate fast-twitch fibers running under 7. But he didn't.

There is a massive slowdown from his 400 time to his 800 and mile times as well.

There is actually even a slowdown from 100 to 200 and from 200 to 400 in his times. The old rule of thumb is that your 200 should be double your 100, and your 400 should be double your 200 + 10% of that doubled # (so 2 x 27.1 = 54.2, and 54.2 + 5.4 = 59.6). However, those slowdowns could just be in-optimal training. Either way, his best event lies at or under 400, and the 100 might be it.

Try swimming? wrote:

The 7:06 is absolutely pathetic unless he has spent his entire childhood sitting on his ass playing video games. Any distance runner with a shred of talent is already running a 6:00 mile in the middle school gym test. A 13.2 100m (assuming FAT) is actually getting somewhere, so you should probably get him to experiment more with distances from 100m - 800m.

I have to agree. When I was a 12 yr old 7th grader I had never run a mile until we were lined up in PE to run a mile time trial. I ran 6:08, hardly earth shaking, but I had never run anywhere near that far in my life. And my time in the 100y dash a couple of days later was 11.6 (yeah, hand timing). Again, not earth shaking but better than the kid in the OP. And I was 5ft tall, 80 lbs. The kid is not much of a runner. At least so far. A bunch of black kids in the jr high were sailing along running in the 10's for the 100, and they were 7th and 8th graders who didn't train.