MileSplit GA

Check this out! These are the 1600 boys rankings by year from 2007 through 2012 (with still another month+ of racing to go). Does Georgia still have room for improvement? Absolutely. But these stats suggest things are definitely headed in the right direction...

2007 - 5 under 4:20 and 10th place is 4:23.52 (Hubers/Heller/Mecheso/Svoboda/Griffin under 4:20)

2008 - 2 under 4:20 and 10th place is 4:26.18 (Svoboda/Lord)

2009 - 3 under 4:20 and 10th place is 4:24.50 (Erassa/Voyles/Detweiler)

2010 - 7 under 4:20 and 10th place is 4:21.72 (Erassa/Anyan/Voyles/Hewitt/Sparks/McCormack/Spevacek)

2011 - 13 under 4:20 and 10th place is 4:18.91 (J Dwyer/Barger/Wearn/Sims/Brennan/Malanoski/Voyles/Ulich/Demeunyck/Thornton/Roth/Brickell/H Dwyer)

2012 (with 2+ weeks to go) - 10 under 4:20 and 10th place is 4:19.85 (Jones/Brickell/Coburn/Thornton/Yoonis/Dwyer/Burnett/Sullivan/Epps/Tirrell)

A shout-out to fellow Coach Hill for pointing out this trend yesterday.

Nice. I'd attribute it to the fact that more coaches are buying into the high mileage philosophy.

XC @ state
2007 - 5 under 16 and 66 under 17, 10th place 16:16
2008 - 5 under 16 and 76 under 17, 10th place 16:18
2009 - 13 under 16 and 95 under 17, 10th place 15:53
2010 - 5 under 16 and 85 under 17, 10th place 16:08
2011 - 4 under 16 and 84 under 17, 10th place 16:11

Same with XC, given that 2009 was a insane year with that whole group. That was a fun state race to watch! We have not ran much faster we just have more runners running under 17.

I don't see much of a progression in either the 1600 or the CC stats.

1600 is definitely there, 5 more under 4:20 and 4 seconds faster for the number 10. XC is tougher to see but its mainly that about 20 more runners are under 17.

Matthews

I don't see much of a progression in either the 1600 or the CC stats.

@Matthews


Are you blind?

@Pre1962
Very interesting. Does anyone have any similar stats on the 800 and 3200? I know that more and more guys have been going under 2 in the 800 each year. It seems as if the mid distance events (800 and 1600) are getting deeper, but the 3200 and XC 5k have leveled off a bit.

@gtfan1391 Yes, I have started but not finished, but I'll give you the summary. 2005 31 under 2 in the 800 and this year there are 62. 2005 there were 6 under 940 this year there were 21. So, much deeper in the events!

I think part of the explanation is due to the efforts of the Bruce Taylor (the webmaster) to get results of more meets uploaded onto this site, and in a format that allows the results to get entered into the database. Particularly when comparing recent years with 2007 and 2008.

The XC at State results are probably a more reliable indicator, since it's one meet, and has all the top athletes, and the state meet results are from all years.

So would be interesting to see what the marks are for just the state meets over the last 5 years.

@Divalent You make a good point about the integrity and volume of the results. That's why I didn't go back any further than 2007, as the older the year gets, the scarcer the results get. But inasmuch as just about all of the really fast 1,600 times always come from the larger meets (with better competition), I feel pretty confident that the Top 10 list from 2007 represents the actual Top 10, as virtually all the results from larger meets were being captured back then. The Webmaster might have some thoughts on this as well.

I was going to bring up the same point, that the 1600 times are from various meets throughout the year this year, and the XC times are just from one meet. Also, 2009 seems to be an anomaly. Not taking anything away from the runners, but the weather was perfect, and times were faster across the board. The next year some of the same runners placed much higher but ran slower.

But the bottom line is that we are getting stronger and deeper!

The trouble with looking at 3200 times would be that not every distance runner in GA focuses on the 3200 - some great ones (eg, Coburn, Thornton) do not run it often, if ever, because they run the 8/16, and they can only run 2 individual events at state. Other states allow individuals to run 3 events.

DDHScoach

MatthewsI don't see much of a progression in either the 1600 or the CC stats.


@Matthews


Are you blind?

@DDHScoach
Sorry, I didn't mean this year isn't better than the previous years. But I don't see a pattern in those years which were presented. I don't see a "progression".

@Matthews
Maybe if you plot a graph of the number of runners under 4:20, the time of the 10th place runner (1600), or the number of runners under 17, then you might see it, but first you have to be open-minded enough to see it (respectfully speaking). You must also keep in mind that November has much more variable weather conditions than early May. Often times, conditions play into the times at state (although 2009 was just plain fast).

I think the middle school times are reflecting improvement that will show up in the high school ranks in the near future as well. Thanks in great part to the efforts of the webmaster, the smart meet people and Parkview the emphasis on MS track has taken off. Following the theme of this thread here are the improvements from the MS state meet in the past three years: boys 1600: 2010- 2 under 5:00, 2011- 2 under 5:00 2012- 8 under 5:00 3200: 2010- 2 under 11:00 nobody under 10:30 2011- 5 under 11:00 nobody under 10:30 2012- 9 under 11:00 3 under 10:30 800- 2010- nobody under 2:20 2011- 5 under 2:20 2 under 2:15 nobody under 2:10 2012- 20 under 2:20 6 under 2:15 1 under 2:10. I also think that Coach Cranford and the peolple at Bleckley County have helped tremendously in promoting distance running in Ga. middle schools!

@bhs11 I was just about to post the same response when I saw yours...look at some of the times posted in the middle school championships. Especially in the 3200 and 1600. We have a large group of middle schoolers that could be top 3 on High School XC teams and compete in some region high school track meets.

I know of a few 6th and 7th graders that would be number 2 runner on their feeder high school teams. There is a renewed interest at the middle school level.