What caused my teammate to get so fast?

Yep, he got an IV at the infusion clinic.

Banana Bread wrote:

He is doped to the MF gills

Thanks for giving me a laugh.

*see Rookie of the Year

He probably became a fan of Edgar Alan Poe.

Pizeidi wrote:

One of my teammates, who was an avarege runner broke his lower leg being an idiot. After missing the whole indoor season, he ran the fastest 3200m time on the team after 2 or 3 weeks, when literally months ago he wasn’t even one of the top 3 underclassmen..The momentum carried into xc, where after a summer of doing almost nothing, had run a three minute pr, and is currently 2 minutes faster than our 2nd best guy. Can anyone explain what happened? I know that after breaking a bone, your body rebuilds it stronger, could that have something to do with his growth?

Based on the fraction of info we have here, I've been around athletics long enough to say, "ya know, the kid just has it."

If you're HS age, literally in a span of 6 months, you could be talking about a different person all together. There is so much growth happening between 15-18, it's hard to understand until you're older and look back on that time period. Even after a bone break, with the proper rehab and mental reset, it very well could've been the turning point for that young man's career. Just don't fall into the cop out response of, "he must be doping," as that's apparently everybody's response in sport when somebody gets beat in 2018.

Pizeidi wrote:

One of my teammates, who was an avarege runner broke his lower leg being an idiot. After missing the whole indoor season, he ran the fastest 3200m time on the team after 2 or 3 weeks, when literally months ago he wasn’t even one of the top 3 underclassmen..The momentum carried into xc, where after a summer of doing almost nothing, had run a three minute pr, and is currently 2 minutes faster than our 2nd best guy. Can anyone explain what happened? I know that after breaking a bone, your body rebuilds it stronger, could that have something to do with his growth?

I ran a 2:02 800m in the AAU j.o. meet as a 14 y.o and ran between around 2 flat about a dozen times my freshman and sophomore year in high school. I ran 1:57 the second meet of my junior year and 1:54 that season without any major changes in my training. I was basically running (racing) the 800 like a mile, running in the crowd, pacing myself and kicking at the end. I probably hold the record for the number of 2 flat and 2:01 800s. My coach told me that if keep running the 800 the same way, I will get the same results. I was told to forget about the other runners in the race, run the 600 as hard as I possibly can and put the last 200m in God's hands. That's the race I ran 1:57 and never ran above 2 again. For some kids, it takes a while for things to klick, and when they figure it out, they suddenly get much better. Sometimes it is as simple as not understanding the effort required to run fast. Combine that with growth and the confidence that comes with running fast and wanting to run faster.

As a high school coach, I learned to never discount any athlete because kids develop at different rates; slow kids become fast kids don't always improve much.