I ran 5:13 in 8th grade but only 5:02 as a freshman. Why?

You could drop to 4:30 next year if you haven’t grown yet.

Former MS county stud wrote:

I started running in 8th grade xc, was doing 15-20mpw all year. I dropped my mile from probably 6:30 to 5:13 from fall to spring, and I took 2nd at our county championships. Why, then, when I bumped up to 30mpw throughout freshman year did I barely improve? I've read so many stories of people running like 5:20 on here in middle school with similar training running 4:40s as freshmen. I just haven't been able to figure it out.

Caveat: I didn't really mature much. But still. It was my second year running, I feel I should have had a larger drop.

This would be a great question to ask your coaches. They will know your training and your results a lot better than we will. If you want to give more details on your training/racing, we'll see what we can spot.

Maybe you'll grow next year and your time will drop out of the sky. But I should say that (perhaps unfortunately) 11 seconds is a decent drop to make, and you might not have done anything wrong at all.

Think long term. There are kids who actually get worse from one year to the next and then bust out their junior and senior year.

If you enjoy running, keep doing it. It's too soon to get that wrapped up in results.

Mileage doesn't solve everything. If it did, the Olympics would be decided by training logbooks. At your age, a smart 20 can easily be better than a not so smart 30.

My guess too is you haven't had your major growth spurt yet and the training you've been given in HS has shifted to more jogging, without any real improvements in 400 capability.

As a Sophmore that has had similar problems its more about quality over quantity. I was running 40 mile weeks as a freshman in highschool and it didn't get me anywhere. So this year I've really started to focus on recovery and quality of my 20-25mpw average. Has helped a lot.

What are your primary workouts for the mile?

You sound similar to me. I ran 5:14 in 8th grade, and only 5:03 as a freshman when my training more than doubled. I also hadn't hit my growth spurt. I remember being frustrated too. Stay patient, keep slowing increasing the volume/intensity. I ran 4:42, 4:29, then 4:19 the following years.

more mialage and thats not a unexpected margin. YOu shouldnt expect to bust out a 4:50 on 30 a week after only one year of growing youl get there

30mpw doing what? Is it quality mileage/training? I suspect it is not if you didn't break 5:00. You need to re-examine your training program in full and gradually increase the mileage each year. If you can be at a quality 60-70mpw your senior year, you should be running some fast times.

Is your track season over already? If not, be patient.

Former MS county stud wrote:

I started running in 8th grade xc, was doing 15-20mpw all year. I dropped my mile from probably 6:30 to 5:13 from fall to spring, and I took 2nd at our county championships. Why, then, when I bumped up to 30mpw throughout freshman year did I barely improve? I've read so many stories of people running like 5:20 on here in middle school with similar training running 4:40s as freshmen. I just haven't been able to figure it out.

Caveat: I didn't really mature much. But still. It was my second year running, I feel I should have had a larger drop.

Don’t you have a month left in track? Stay patient Daniel, son. You have years ahead of you. Plus, you could easily go 4:52 this year.

Some people respond oddly to training and have weird plateaus in their ability. I'm a good example of this:

I ran 2:07/4:54 in middle school off of running 3 days a week and didn't pr in the mile again until junior year of high school when I backed off from doing 40+ miles a week to just 30. I dropped my mile pr from that 4:54 to 4:31 in a single race and then pr'd in the 800m with a 1:58 three days later. I never ran as fast in either distance again, although I did run 2:30 in the 1000m during track preseason my freshmen year of college off of 50 miles a week training. I got a femoral stress fracture a couple weeks later and quite running competitively.