This seems reasonable to me... it seems very reasonable for a kid who runs 9:5x in high school to be able to improve to 25:xx for the 8k in XC which is more than adequate to be a solid contributor for most teams.

Yeah Cross Country and Track has changed like all other sports. Train all year round, go to camps, have personal trainers, etc... It was just getting that way when I was in High School. One of the guys I competed against (Well one race he lapped me in a 2 mile, He ran a 9:06, I ran a 10:25) was trying to break 4:00 the summer after his senior year. He got really close. http://www.runnerspace.com/video.php...ance-Gala-2007. I finally broke 4:30 and he strolled through in 4:10, getting ready for his 800, which he would run in 1:54. He was also 2 years younger than me.

Its crazy to watch a track meet on TV now and see people that I ran against in high school, training for the Olympics.

I had no desire to run anymore, was on the high school team from 7th grade. I went to college and was supposed to run, but i was burnt out from it and was ready to party. Now I'm thinking of getting back into it, starting to put on weight after being skinny the first 25 years of my life.

sounds like some great lhe games are RUNNING

Congrats JDalla, saw some pics on facebook, looked like a great time!

Yes, I remember Rob Finnerty! That kid was so sick in high school! I have read/trolled letsrun.com for over a decade, so I follow the top high school stars. That was right around the time when insane numbers of these kids started going under 9 in the 3200.

It's funny... I have been well aware of how much faster the top kids have gotten, but I did not realize there was so much depth to the point where 9:45 is just "whatever" nowadays.

Btw, 10:2x is still pretty awesome imo. I was that guy who was allowed to run on varsity my senior year just cuz I stuck around all 4 years and was a "good kid" (if only coach could see me now, lol!)

9:45 was "meh" 30 years ago as well, not just today. (I was 9:50/4:28 as a HS junior and got only mild interest from 1 D1 school and that was only because a 4:19/9:25/15:30XC kid from my HS was on scholarship there. And they were by no means a running powerhouse. And they only wanted me to walk-on. I had the potential to be much faster and they knew it, especially in cross country but they weren't going to pay for it. And I don't blame them. 4:25/9:35 guys are a dime a dozen.) Many D1 schools wouldn't even let a runner with my times on the team as a walk-on.

The top kids haven't necessarily gotten faster. It comes and it goes in cycles. (The 2 mile record was only broken recently. It had stood for like over 35 years.) The runners back in the 60s and 70s were stone cold bad asses who were not afraid to run themselves into the ground to win. And we have way more technology (shoes, proven training methods, etc.) than they ever did. They were just willing to work their asses off. Kids are different these days.


[In addition to Finnerty, Minnesota also currently has Eli Krahn. Last year he set the national record in the 1600m with a 4:09.xx, and this year we won both the 16 and 32 at state. (4:13/9:00). He is one to keep an eye on.)

lol, is there some random runner who doesn't post on 2p2 that showed up in this random thread just to talk about running?

Our "coach" was just the PE teacher and didn't know squat about coaching track. This kid was basically self-taught and had never run competitively until his sophomore year. The period I'm talking about was in our Junior year. I remember when the kid first moved to town and he was small, so he got picked on a lot, being new AND small. I was about his only friend his first year and I remember in class one day he asked me "What's cross-country?" because he was thinking about going out for it. He did well in State and may have actually won it before he graduated.

He did get a scholarship to Eastern Arizona College, but I don't know what happened from there.

LOL, we were in high school in the 70's. He had to buy his own shoes until his Senior year.

edit:WRT different eras, he won every regular season meet I went to. I was too slow to take to regionals or state, but every other one, he won.

He never really "trained" other than the 3.5 miles every distance runner on the team had to run every day. If this guy got decent coaching, good shoes, etc, and actually got pushed by good competition I would think he'd run somewhat faster.

Ya, this is getting kinda weird? It's an interesting post though, and he def makes a lot of good points. The 60s, 70s, and even 80s kids were def some badasses. They they would just run a zillion miles fast as hell in crappy shoes with no regard for injury because it seemed like the most obvious thing to do if they wanted to be the best.

Pig4bill, high school kids were really fast in the 70s... the 90s were just really terrible for US distance running in general. Like we wouldn't even be able to send anyone to the Olympics in some events because nobody could even hit the qualifying times and just dumb crap like that. Many believe it is because of the trend toward low mileage with more of a focus on weights, speed workouts, and such in the 90s. This type of training tends to yield solid results in the short-term, but in the long run, high mileage and long-term aerobic development seems to be crucial when it comes to reaching the highest levels. Many also speculate that Alan Webb destroying the high school mile record helped fuel another "running boom" and inspire the latest generation of badasses.

This simply isn't true. Some of the best runners in US history were from the 90s.

Bob Kennedy became the first non-African born runner to crack 13 minutes in the 5k in 1996, a time that has been bettered by only a handful of Americans since. (Bernard Lagat has done it, but he's an African who became a US citizen, just like the guy who held the 5K AR before Kennedy broke it; Sydney Maree.) Kennedy never medaled at an Olympics or World Championships, but he was very competitive and is arguably the best distance runner in US history. (There have been 54 medals award in the 5000m since 1992 in Olympic/Worlds competitions. 53 were won by African born runners. The only non-African was German Deiter Bauman, who won gold in 1992.)

Todd Williams also was very competitive at the world levels in the 90s, finishing in the top 10 3 times at a Worlds/Olympic 10K. He didn't medal, but just like in the 5k very few non Kenyan/Ethiopian runners did. (When you run 3 miles to school each day from the age of 6, you have a distinct advantage over fat slobs who take the bus and bitch if they have to walk a few blocks to the bus stop.) Both Williams and Kennedy also rubbed elbows with the Africans at the World Cross Country Championships. I don't recall the results off hand, but when they focused their efforts on CC for one year, they both did very well.

Dathan Ritzenhein was in high school in the late 90s, and he was nothing short of amazing as a HS runner (4:05.9/8:41.1/13:44.70). (And as a professional. He had the 5k AR for a short while. I believe he also held the 1/2 marathon AR as well. Incredible range.) Adam Goucher was around in the 90s as well, but unfortunately injuries never allowed him to max out his potential.

Mark Everett (91) and Rich Kenah (97) both won World bronzes in the 800m. Since then only 1 US runner has medaled in the 800m Nick Symmonds' silver in 2013, 16 years later.

The US has not been dominant in track distance running ever, but to say that the 90s was a disaster just isn't true.

This doesn't describe the kid I knew, at all. Like I said, he didn't really train. We had a route we were supposed to run every day for practice, but that was all he did. He just showed up at race time and ran. He wasn't "driven" to compete or any of that crap. The funny thing was he was about 5'2", just a freak of nature to be able to run like he did. He was built exactly opposite of the way a runner should. He wrestled too, so was fairly heavily muscled.

But my buddy the weightlifter is also. He's also short (5'4") but benches 400 and he's running marathons, pushing 50 years old. Go figure.

I remember Salazar saying how much the US had gone backwards in the 80s and 90s. Something like 250 runners ran under 2:20 marathons at the start of the 80s and only 25 in 2000.

If only Prefontaine hadn't died.

my goal this summer was to get up to 6 miles in 60 minutes. I think i've gone running like 6 times. still 2.5 miles max. pathetic.

Not pathetic at all! That is about all I can do after long layoffs. It really does get better... but it's brutal in the early going. My best advice for anyone getting started is to just do what is reasonably fun for awhile and not torture yourself. Early on, doing almost anything consistently results in massive improvements. GL!



Also, whoever recommended True Detective... just finished it and it was badass! Pretty sad that it is over... Woody Harrelson and Matthew Mconguiaeh43aphtgh4 were a badass duo

Not to be a negative nancy or nuthin but isn't 2.5 miles/60 mins slower than walking speed?

I think the implication was that he hasn't gotten up to hour long runs yet

right... im dumb

Yep, awesome show. I just finished watching the show Fargo, pretty sweet also, definitely should watch that.

Exactly.

I stopped doing any exercise for like 3 years and packed on ~25 lbs which was a lot for me having been pretty skinny / scrawny my whole life. Started going on regular walks with the kid / stroller after adopting two years ago. Started added 1 minute jog segments into the walks and slowly added 30s at a time.

Started taking running breaks at Canterbury every day. Got up to 30+ minuted continuous running and signed up for a 5k.

Started training for some speed. I remember my first attempt at a tempo run.... was supposed to be something like 15 minutes warmup -> 15 accelerating to 10k pace or something like that. After 5 minutes of accelerating I had to stop because I couldn't breathe. LOL. It really sucks starting over. Even if I take breaks from serious running in the future I plan to do at least 10-15 miles / week maintenance.

re: all this rec running talk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6SEXp3-lo8

What the hell kind of fun is that?

This is Kilian Jornet, the dude that is going around the world breaking records for going up and down mountains. This year he did Mt. McKinley (up and down) in 11h 48min, the old record was 16h 46. Next year is Everest.