My 11 yearold daughter is a good 400 runner, and was really motivated by the olympics. As a 9 yearold she ran a 75 second 400 and finished first in her league track meet (9 schools) by 3 seconds. As a 10 yearold (5th grade) she ran a 66.5 and finished first in her league track meet. 2nd place was 9 seconds behind her. She did this with limited training, although she also had played basketball and soccer which kept her in decent shape. After watching the women’s olympic 400, she turned to me and said, so I just need to make sure I improve by at least 2 seconds per year to make the team in 8 years. I don’t want to overset her expectations, but told her she was a great runner and it’s great to set goals like that. Only time will tell how competitive she’ll be when she’s older. I don’t have a good sense for what a 66 second time of a 10 yearold will eventually result in for a young adult who trains hard. Does anybody have any ideas on how to project this.
Thanks.
