5:11 to 4:15 miler

Hard work tends to help "discover" talent.

The confounding variable that malmo pointed out is High school boys are in the enviable position of getting stronger year over year just by maturing... testosterone's a hell of a drug.

I started track as a sophomore (though I'd been running regularly for a couple years at that point). My first race was 5:25, and I came down to 4:58 at the end of that season. I ran 4:48 as a Junior, and 4:40 as a senior. (Later, in college, I ran 4:26.) I'd also say that I improved more than most or maybe any of my high school teammates.

Based on that, I think that 5:15 -> 4:15 is a huge improvement, much bigger than normal.

East Wichita HS wrote:

5:35 beginning of sophomore year.

4:07 end of sophomore year.

Way to go, Jimmy! If you keep this up, you might make something of yourself.

CoachB wrote:

East Wichita HS wrote:

5:35 beginning of sophomore year.

4:07 end of sophomore year.

Way to go, Jimmy! If you keep this up, you might make something of yourself.

Sounds like you should aim for sub 4 by your junior year, 3:55 by the end of HS. Mediocre though.

Expo21 wrote:

My freshman year I ran 5:11 and by my senior year I was a 4:15 miler.

I want to know how often you guys see runners improve this much over there highschool career.

Do you think it's a factor of discovering talent/potential or just hard work?

In order of importance:

1) Inherent talent.

2) Physical maturity during that time.

3) Hard work.

A quick look at seniors from last year who ran 4:15 for their PRs shows that most of them began at 4:45 or faster as freshmen, so to answer your first question, it would appear that most don't improve that much from freshman year to senior year.

That said, I have seen extremes which show that there really aren't any rules. I know a guy who ran 4:41 in 8th grade who only got down to 4:25 by his senior year in high school. I know a kid who ran 5:28 in 8th grade who ran 4:31 as a freshman. I know a guy who ran 4:53 in 8th grade and then only 5:15 as a freshman and didn't get below 4:53 again until he was a junior, ran 4:29 that year and then 4:11 as a senior.

So, you just can't predict the path that runners will take. Has to do with physical talent, interest, level of physical maturity, how much they ran in middle school vs. high school or even freshman year vs. senior year.

Scott Fry famously ran 10:45 for 3200 as a freshman, and then he got down to 8:48 as a senior and went on to set the Big Ten record for 5,000 meters. I was faster than he was as a freshman in HS, and I went on to not set the Big Ten record in the 5,000.

Training, training, training....

My very first week of official practice I ran 40 miles (had previously done a couple weeks of running a mile here two miles there, so maybe 5-10 miles total before then).

Freshman to Sophmore summer 70 miles a week. Each off season after that was 70-80 miles a week.

And we ran an insane number of weekly workouts. But it worked. At least for a time...

We forget sometimes that the ability to recover from and respond to training without the body breaking down is also a form of genetic talent.

Alan

Went from 5:08 to 4:14. I think it is a combination of talent and hard work. A lot of my improvement at first was talent. My junior and senior year, hard work had more of a factor in my improvement

went from a 6:11 my freshman year as my PR to 4:24 my senior year... got down to 4:18 in college, but most improvement was in hs..

Ran 4:26 mile as a freshman on 40 miles a week with lots of speed.

Ran 4:07 as a senior on 50 miles a week with lots of speed.

I was very much interested in being a student and always had trouble internally justifying spending time and resource on running (although I did attend university on an athletic scholarship).

I think I had some talent, and wished I had played other sports in high school and found running later.

Fast forward wrote:

I had an athlete who never ran over 400m as a freshman (56.4). As a sophomore, he ran 5:13 at the first meet and lowered to 5:05 by the end of the year. Then 4:46 (4:28 for 1500m) to 4:34 as a junior. Finally, 4:30 to 4:16 as a senior.

Combination of talent and hard work.

There are tons of kids running mediocre 400s that could excel at the distances. But they hate the training and the stigma associated with distance running and stay the hell away.

My HS sophomore I bombed out of the 300m hurdles at districts, decent run but still like 10 places away from qualifying for state. Reality set in that I would probably never qualify in that event, but I was sitting in the stands watching the 2 mile and I thought "hey I could do that with some work" (I also had ran a decent 800 that year for fun). The next year I qualified for state in the mile, 2 mile, and 4x4 (went from running 56s to 52s splits with my new endurance).

There is so much untapped talent in kids out there who are decent but not great long sprinters. But they'd rather do that + be third string wide out on the football team than excel at track distance events and xc.

HS

Freshman

XC- 18:17

Track - DNR

Sophomore

XC - 16:25

Track - 2:05, 4:52, 10:49

Junior

XC - 15:58

Track - 1:56, 4:16, 9:36

Senior

XC - 15:54

Track - 49, 1:56, 3:57 1500m, 4:15, 8:52 3k, 9:39

College

Freshman

XC - 26:26

Track - 4:00, 8:52 3k

Sophomore

XC - 25:34

Track - 49, 1:57, 3:55, 9:00 3k

Junior

XC - DNR

Track - 23.2, 49, 2:28 1k, 3:55

Senior

XC - 26:10

Track - 49, 1:53, 3:02 1200m

I went from 5:3x my freshman year of high school to 4:44 by the end of my senior year. In college I ran and trained mostly on my own (not on college team) and got down to 4:05 for the 1500 my senior year. I would've killed for your improvement.

malmo wrote:

Expo21 wrote:

My freshman year I ran 5:11 and by my senior year I was a 4:15 miler.

I want to know how often you guys see runners improve this much over there highschool career.

Do you think it's a factor of discovering talent/potential or just hard work?

The power of puberty. Most of your improvement in high school will be due to your physical growth level. Almost all age group champions started shaving by 14.

I would love to see the data on this.

Do what now? wrote:

malmo wrote:

The power of puberty. Most of your improvement in high school will be due to your physical growth level. Almost all age group champions started shaving by 14.

I would love to see the data on this.

Pretty sure there is no data on this, but the guys who are great as freshmen TYPICALLY are shaving by then if not earlier...not always, but typically. Malmo is definitely right about this. It's the dudes who look like fetuses with shoes and don't even break 18 minutes for 5k as freshmen who show the big improvement and get down to low 15s as a senior.

I was a football and lax player freshmen-sophomore year but did winter track. With basically 0 training I ran a 5:28 mile freshmen year. And a 2:10 800 sophomore year with 1 speed workout.

I havnt grown fresh-junior year, so this doesn't have much todo with maturity. Just hard work and some kinda descent talent appearntly.

Fast forward this year, I gave up both football and lacrosse to become the 800m runner I realized I wanted to be.

Realized I'm a 1600/3200 guy however.

With a great coach I ran 2:00 and 4:28 mile. I started training this December, got up to 40mpw a few weeks between winter and spring track, but was always around 25. This was off no summer training

This summer I'm running 60+ and am doing cross the first time as a senior. Definitely think I can run 4:20 and 9:30 next year.

Ignore the facts and just go for what you want todo, work hard.

Do what now? wrote:

malmo wrote:

The power of puberty. Most of your improvement in high school will be due to your physical growth level. Almost all age group champions started shaving by 14.

I would love to see the data on this.

I can think of only two high school superstars who weren't shaving by their Senior year -- Craig Virgin and Dathan Ritzenhein. Possibly Ryan Hall. Can you think of any more?

I ran a 5:4X at the start of freshman xc off of no training and finished track at 4:39 or so. I hadn\'t finished my growth or maturing by any means so my improvement was likely about how well I responded to training thanks to genetics (5\'6 and 125 or so). I think a key point about genetics is that it also involves a muscle\'s ability to grow and endure more strain rather than just lung/leg/body size genetic advantages.

First ever competitive mile was 4:52 as a HS freshman, ended that year at 4:46. Barely trained as a sophmore and junior as I had 2 coach changes so I never improved then. Senior year I turned things around after getting a solid coach, and I ran 4:27 at state to end the year. I was only running 20-25 mpw, but I had lifted a decent amount in the winter so that probably helped. I guess I was always somewhat talented, but I needed a coach to get some consistency in my training.

Do what now? wrote:

malmo wrote:

The power of puberty. Most of your improvement in high school will be due to your physical growth level. Almost all age group champions started shaving by 14.

I would love to see the data on this.

Look at your grade school XC state meet results top 50 times and then compare the results 4 years later at the HS level. Maybe 25 % of the same kids. I remember in the mid 80's there was a study showing that late bloomers had a greater chance of reaching elite athletic levels than early pubescent children.