The Next Girls Phenom Has Arrived

Impressive, but stuff like this happens all the time with young girls. Sure, she could be an olympian, but I wouldn't be surprised if she runs 10 seconds slower senior year.

Lexy Halladay (will be a freshman next year at Mountain View, Idaho) is up there as well: she ran 4:26.90 to win the Portland Track Festival open race today. Fellow eighth grader Madison Elmore (Eugene, Oregon) also ran 4:31.

Add in athletes like Taylor Roe (4:47 for 1600m in 8th grade last year), the plethora of Montana girls the last couple years, Gracie Ping, Kelsey Chmiel, Morgan Foster, Claire Walters, etc. there are a LOT of great young girls out there right now.

There seem to always be a bunch of promising 7-10th grade female runners, but unfortunately puberty hits and they fail to improve. A recent exception is Hasay and maybe Ostrander (but time will tell yet with AllieO).

+ Mary Cain, maybe

Will Spaghetti wrote:

Impressive, but stuff like this happens all the time with young girls. Sure, she could be an olympian, but I wouldn't be surprised if she runs 10 seconds slower senior year.

"This" does not happen all the time with young girls. It is uncommon and thus phenomenal for what it is - an extremely fast time for a young girl.

OlddPolarBear wrote:

Eighth Grader, Katelyn Touhy, North Rockland, NY, NYS State Championship, 4:24.36. Eighth Grade National Record, for 2nd place at NYS Championships.

http://www.milesplit.com/articles/184408/watch-ny-state-1500m-sammy-watson-vs-katelyn-tuohy-national-record

Fantastic for Katelyn. What a talent.

However, I will not expect her to be the next star. Pre-pubescent girls are infamous for putting up insane times and then failing to improve. Young boys can expect to receive massive improvement due to testosterone and growth spurts. A girl in high school probably won't grow much more, and will almost certainly gain 15-30 pounds.

Will Spaghetti wrote:

Impressive, but stuff like this happens all the time with young girls. Sure, she could be an olympian, but I wouldn't be surprised if she runs 10 seconds slower senior year.

Remember how we though Hasay was so special as an 8th grader? There were dozens of posts about her at the time. Well Hasay only ran 4:28 in 8th grade.

Not sure about "all the time"

No, it certainly doesn't mean that, like Hasay, this girl will one day become an NCAA champion or a US team member (or even simply a FL champion). Yes, for every Hasay, there are dozens of .

Is Ostrander injured?

xfithonorarycaptain wrote:

+ Mary Cain, maybe

Do you think puberty hits at 18 yo?

What is this girls age? Anyway many girls who run fast at a young age get even better, Tirunesh Dibaba and Meseret Defar ran about 8:40 for 3k at 15 or 16, Defar ran 15:08 for 5000 at the Preclassic at age 16, heck Tirunesh won the World championship at age 17 and ran 14:30 before her 18th birthday, they are like 30 and 32 or 33 respectively and both will likely medal in the Olympics.

Same thing with men when Eliud Kipchoge was 18 he won the worlds over K. Bekele and El G he also ran 12:52 at age 18 (everyone said he was lying about his age) now he is 31 or 32 The Olympic Marathon Favorite who has run 7 Marathons the slowest 2:05.30

People who run fast young can run fast at older ages, I think it was Jenny Spangler who once held the American Junior (19 and under) record, over 20 years later she broke the American masters record (over age 40) in the marathon, and for a while had the American Junior AND the American masters record SIMULTANEOUSLY.

I hope this 4:24 for 1500 8th grader becomes the next Meseret Defar.

That's young but even at 15 and 16 most girls have been through puberty. These middle school phenoms probably have not.

I saw the race . She is one tough runner. That said, she is a little little kid, who looks like she is in 5th grade. It will be interesting to see how she does as a junior and senior. Any idea how big her parents are?

Yeah...

I don't care what grade they are in.

How old are they?

Having kids older than the average in a particular grade because of sports has become quite commonplace.

I am a middle school coach in a different state, and this bugs the f###ing hell out of me!

We have grown men (I assume) talking an 8th grader's weight, body, and future performance. This is a child! This is not a college student and a legal adult! Middle schoolers should be competing on a lower stage than this. They should have short seasons, clown around with their friends, and get to heavy training, year-round specialization, and high-stakes racing later on.

Emotionally, 13-14 year olds are still children, and are extremely impressionable to negative experiences or feedback. Imagine this girl googling her name and finding this thread.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

Let a kid be a f###ing kid. Sometimes I think we should just go back to sandlot games of baseball, softball, and basketball, and schoolyard races in PE. Let the stakes be higher in HS when there is actually something to play for.

Let's see what she's running a decade from now.

The US has a high percentage of female teen phenoms burn out/stop progressing by the time they're over 20 years old.

Sure you can smack the fellas on this post about going overboard about a Jr High student. Give some smack to any overbearing parents and coaches as well. They should back off on pushing young runners too hard............but much bad behavior has its root cause..........$$$$$ or the dream of it

jjjjjjjjjj wrote:

There seem to always be a bunch of promising 7-10th grade female runners, but unfortunately puberty hits and they fail to improve. A recent exception is Hasay and maybe Ostrander (but time will tell yet with AllieO).

Def agree. Every year this happens. Somebody comes on here and says their local freshman ran 10:30 for 3200 at districts. And a couple of years later she is super good looking and laughs every time someone asks her if she is still running.

Easy, Tiger. I guess she should be singing Frozen songs and having pillow fights with her other goofy friends of the same age. As Aaron Rogers once said, "R-E-L-A-X. Relax." Some kids grow up quicker. Heck, in some countries they're on baby #2 by now.

What do you say about Tyrese Cooper, who at age 15 missed an Olympic Standard time in the 200 (20.46) only because the wind was +2.2?

Kids are doing amazing things at younger ages than ever. Of course, that's not limited to athletic performance