The Huderle Paradox wrote:
Honestly, he could just as easily be Jonah Barry (Madison West being a pretty similar program to that of the 6aa schools) as he could be Paul Escher. Assuming massive upside and a breakthrough seems less likely than a more moderate improvement. Could just about every guy that has run at the U out of 6aa be evidence? Or even the Minnetonka kid from across town? Regardless it doesn't seem like a leap to say from an exercise science perspective to say that more highly trained athletes are less likely to show tremendous improvement than their lesser trained counterparts, though that doesn't hold true in all circumstances.
Jonah Barry's freshman year PR's were as follows:
4:05
8:53
15:23
27:01 (Griak, only Cross race of his freshman year)
The next year his PR's were:
2:32 (Top five time in the conference)
4:15 (3rd @ MIAC's behind Escher)
8:29 (2nd @ MIAC's behind Wintheiser)
14:50 (1st @ Mac beating Hornor & Meyer)
25:23 (7th @ MIAC's behind Campbell)
Those are pretty huge drops in time from freshman to sophomore year. I think it's safe to say his issues were with injuries/sickness and not that he plateau'd earlier than everyone else. Calvin Lehn's also an example of a kid with big upside who unfortunately spent most of his collegiate career injured.
I think Aldis Inde is another example of someone with injury problems, but who actually figured things out by his senior year.
Freshman year PR's were:
8:52
4:24
His senior year PR's were:
3:48
8:18
14:15
Wilkinson hasn't been injured, so I think that the plateau-ing argument is something that's dependent on a lot of totally random factors, most of which have the ability to affect 4:50 milers and 4:10 milers alike.