ThatAverageRunner wrote:
It's impossible to say based soley off of this. I don't know their past training, their over / under distance PRs, etc. Knowing theyr 400m PRs would help a lot. If I had to pick a kid who was more reliable for a relay in the next week or two, I would pick the kid who ran more even splits. But I do still hold true that the kid who went out too fast likely has more upside than the even split kid.
These guys might be around 2:00-2:01 right now? Maybe a touch slower. They may be able to run sub 2 this year or they may break 1:55. We have no way of knowing with the [lack of] past information given.
Here are some details to help:
Runner #1- Sophomore, 400/800 kid. PRs are 400-54 and 800-2:13 from freshman year but he's worked his ass off this off-season and will be one of the most improved runners in the state without a doubt. He played football this past fall, and has never ran XC before. He has also been doing workouts with the sprint team/MD coach 5 days a week since November.
Runner #2- Senior, 800/1600 runner. PRs are 400-51 (sophomore year), 800-2:00 (sophomore year), and he's never ran the 1600 before. He ran XC for the first time junior year and was top 20 in the state. Unfortunate things happened junior track season (injuries) and he missed the entire season until the last week, and ran a 2:01 with no training basically for 6 straight months and a lot of injuries (time sophomore year when he trained everyday for months was only a second faster than his time junior year when he was a mess health-wise, so we think he will have a great season since he is healthy and has the XC base underneath him). Since he wasn't healthy we didn't run him in the 1600 last year, but this year we are going to. He ran a 51 split sophomore year, so he has good foot-speed for a distance runner. PRed this past season in XC but it was only by about 10 seconds, nothing too crazy. Since XC ended, he did 3 workouts a week with the distance team and coach for 3 months, and for the past couple weeks (since season officially started) he has been doing 5 days a week.
I hope this helped.