Which is better for a middle school kid with not much training, a 69 second 400 or a 6:07 mile?

My daughter ran 65 and 6:15 so I would say his mile is better.

3 miles is not a long run, its barely a warm up. Get some cojones

Idsay the 400 is not bad actually

His 800m will probably be around 2:40, getting that into the 2:20 range will be very beneficial because building speed at this age will set him up for higher potential at middle and long distances if he decides to peruse that in the future. Train him like an 800m runner for a while, gaining speed at this age is vital. Do you have a 100m time for this kid? What about a 5k time too?

Kill all birds with one stone with 800m training wrote:

Do you have a 100m time for this kid? What about a 5k time too?

He ran a low 14, but this may be highly misleading. Instead of reacting to a starting gun, the timer reacted to him, as the timer started his stopwatch at the kid's first movement. He didn't wear spikes or use blocks.

I don't have a 5K time for him.

Not familiar with youth performances wrote:

Kill all birds with one stone with 800m training wrote:

Do you have a 100m time for this kid? What about a 5k time too?

He ran a low 14, but this may be highly misleading. Instead of reacting to a starting gun, the timer reacted to him, as the timer started his stopwatch at the kid's first movement. He didn't wear spikes or use blocks.

I don't have a 5K time for him.

He is fast for his age, he definitely has sub 60 400m potential in high school which usually means sub 2 800m potential by college if he has the right mindset and dedication to running and a coach who knows what they are doing.

Try and get his 800m time down from 2:40 to 2:20. This will mean adding a few more miles without neglecting pure speed. If he plays soccer this shouldn’t be problem.

Neither one

He's way better at the mile. If he wants to be good at something in middle school then run distance and dominate before other kids start training seriously.

neither is right. The mile is respectable. 69 is not.

You need close to 60 to be good if you did sprint training at that age. (middle school means 6-8th?).

He should focus on speed training (800m) if he wants to develop well. Aerobic base will come any time. The speed is something you need for your ceiling.

scratch that. close to 60 for 6th. 8th grade much faster.

In U.S., everyone races sub-62.5 400m in middle school. In U.S., a 6:07 one mile in middle school is better.

In Ethiopia, everyone races sub-5:15 mile in middle school. In Ethiopia, a 69 400m in middle school is better.

Middle school times are a total crapshoot. I've seen 5:20 8th graders fail to break 5 before HS graduation, and I've seen 7:00 8th graders turn into 4:40 milers by college.

What about 400m? I know guys who went from 56.xx to 47.xx and 54.xx to 46.xx, 400m from middle school to college. I know of one mile or near equivalent distance improvements similar and greater than your 7 to 4:40. Scott Christensen, Stillwater, MN has been quoted that all his guys who ended up with sub-4 one mile were over 60 seconds, 400m in 9th grade. This is where Christensen possibly played with words. Christensen stated all his guys who ended up sub-4 in college were sub-50 400m by graduation. He must mean college graduation. None of Christensen's sub-4 guys were sub-1:50 800m athletes in high school. I assume Christensen means sub-50 400m while they were in college.

neither wrote:

neither is right. The mile is respectable. 69 is not.

You need close to 60 to be good if you did sprint training at that age. (middle school means 6-8th?).

He should focus on speed training (800m) if he wants to develop well. Aerobic base will come any time. The speed is something you need for your ceiling.

For a middle schooler the 800 is basically a distance event

in U.S. or Ethiopia? wrote:

What about 400m? I know guys who went from 56.xx to 47.xx and 54.xx to 46.xx, 400m from middle school to college.

Least improvement: 61 in middle school, 57 by HS graduation

Most improvement: 65 in middle school, 52 in college

Am I the only one who thinks a sub 70 400m is absolutely rapid for an 11 year old? ? Talking about sub 62 and 5:15s, y’all are surrounded by freaks.

He should train for the mile. Those times may be approximately equal, but he is going to have more potential with that speed to improve significantly in the mile fairly quickly.

Those two times mi d of seem on par. Middle school kids should just do track for fun any way.

He should try lots of different events and see where he feels most comfortable and play multiple sports that he enjoys. There is no need to specialize in middle school. If he is consistently getting toasted in the sprints, he should probably move up. A lot can change between middle school and high school, so give him time and let him discover what he wants / enjoys. I didn't start running until high school and I didn't start running middle distance until junior year of high school. I made it to state in the 200, 400, 800 and 1600, won state medals at 400, 800 and 1600 and won state in the 800 and then ran 4 years at the Division 1 level. My kids ran some JO meets this past summer and it shocked me how hard some of these 10 year old kids were training. Many of them had been running cross country, indoor and outdoor track for three years or more training upwards of 30 miles per week and my kids were still able to run with and beat a number of them in their first season of outdoor track off of 10 miles per week (my kids also play soccer, swim, mountain bike, hike and paddle). If you are doing one specific sport too often at a young age it increases your likelihood of overuse injuries and burnout.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3658407/

Not familiar with youth performances wrote:

One of my friend's middle school kids is interested in track and wants to know whether he's a better sprinter or distance runner. Two months of sprint-oriented training got him to a 69 second 400, while three months of casual distance training (longest run was 3 miles) got him to a 6:07 mile.

Any advice? He doesn't have a clear preference for either the sprints or the distances; he just wants to train for the events he's best at.

When you say casual distance training, does this mean he was doing at least 2-3 runs a week? I ask because the longest being 3 mile seems a bit low. That being said, I would say if he is in 8th grade, he should go for sprints. If he's 6/7th, go for distance.