New to HS Winter Track

[Anonymous]

Newbie parent for HS winter track and my child doesn't seem to have much information.

The team is huge so all these kids can't possibly compete- what is a normal roster amount for a meet? Is there JV and Varsity meets? Is it like swim- they can only do so many events?

Do HSs publish meet results? Just trying to figure out how all this works.

[Anonymous]

I have a Junior on a track team that has 100-120 kids. Here has been our experience.

Weekday local meets….most everybody gets to go and runs 1-2 events; meets take FOREVER

Weekend invitationals…often require travel and some an overnight; these typically are for the true Varsity athletes (although not always); how many kids travel depends on distance, qualifying standards, cost to team

Districts…Coach can put 3 kids in each event …typically too kids are doing 2-5 events…especially if they do field events and run

Regionals…have to hit a qualifying time or be a top finisher at Districts

[Anonymous]

That is a large team. It will be difficult to get a lot of reps unless you are a star. Especially with the PG Track closed for at least 1/2 of the season. More meets may be travel which usually only some kids go. Meets often have entry limits per school per event.

If you are a 1600/3200m runner (and have a little skill) your reps will increase as fewer kids do these events.

Some private school leagues do more to try to ensure kids have chances so it depends on what school, league, and state even. VA has TJ for meets but that is a marginal facility though it beats the Baltimore Armory.

A lot of the value in indoor track is getting ready for outdoor track. If you are again, a distance runner, you really need to be training over the winter by either running indoor (which of course practices outdoor mostly) or running diligently on your own.

[Anonymous]

Meet results are on athletic.net (I think).

The challenge with indoor track is limited venues. In MCPS the venues were the PG sportsplex and Georgetown Prep. The Baltimore armory was as used for regionals sometimes but doesn’t even have an indoor track so no spikes. DCs school did a couple of travel meets to the NY Armory and Virginia Tech but that was only for a few kids. DC did those meets and it was worth the trip.

[Anonymous]

It's best to think of Winter Track as part of the training for Spring Track.

[Anonymous]

for the kids that are good at track- did they start before HS or is it just the talent is there? I have been amazed at some of the times at our HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:for the kids that are good at track- did they start before HS or is it just the talent is there? I have been amazed at some of the times at our HS.

I think it is a mix of both. You are either fast or you are not but clearly early training will result in max potential being reached sooner

[Anonymous]

My limited knowledge based on one high school- the kids who have never run competively that do really well seem to be soccer players.

[Anonymous]

Parent of a strong runner here in FCPS who will probably run in college.

In VA, a lot of information can be found on: https://va.milesplit.com/, including meet calendars, results and heat timing and order of events.

We have 130 athletes on the team, but only about 25 have times that are good enough for invitationals and out of state meets.

My kid did middle school track (a rec program in our area) and just always loved running, more than any other sport. Kid's just fast, and I'm not, it's more genetic but not from me! Kid also works very very hard to train.

If you google any persons name and "milestat" you can see their official times and PRs.

We are region 6 in our school in Fairfax county so be sure to look up the regional and state automatic qualifying times for your area. (Or have kid ask the coach.) 2023-2024 VA indoor track state auto qualifying times/standards are here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qwUb0xg5SuuR_ldHB_v13BEHs6-Lgf57/view

You can also qualify at the end of season district meet, making it to regionals, and then to states, based on performance (Top 3, etc.)

[Anonymous]

For Maryland, the milesplit site is:

https://md.milesplit.com/

Each state has one.

[Anonymous]

Where are you based OP? (What county?) Public or private school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:for the kids that are good at track- did they start before HS or is it just the talent is there? I have been amazed at some of the times at our HS.

While its helpful to have experience, running talent is mostly something you are born with. Especially sprinting.

Some kids really do improve as distance runners and you need some preparation to run a 800/1600 and especially 3200 but you don't need a lifetime of youth experience. By the end of one season you'll have a rough idea of your talent level and potential and be in decent shape. Kids that came in with experience don't have any advantage over a novice that is more talented than they are.

[Anonymous]

MD track meets and meet organizers use both milesplit and athletic.net. Tilting toward the latter in recent years it seems to me.

VA is more milespilt dominated for whatever reason.

And meet results can also be found at times on whatever timing company is actually timing the meet. If they have a website they will often post to their site and to milesplit or athletic, whichever site hosted the entries.

The worst is when a school or county pretends they are a timing co, MC :-/ meets at times for example. Then, find your patience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:for the kids that are good at track- did they start before HS or is it just the talent is there? I have been amazed at some of the times at our HS.

A lot of these exceptionally good times are due to Covid. If you recall, outdoor cross country was the first thing to open up to these kids. They'd been stuck at home for then a year. They hadn't seen most of their friends in ages. School remained closed, but suddenly they could run outdoors on a team.

All of a sudden there were a gazillion kids running cross country. My DS was one of them. And he really took to it. By senior year he was running in the state finals and today he runs varsity track at a D1 school. Middle distance runner. And he's not alone. This is a very competitive generation of young runners.

The Covid generation are ridiculously strong runners. Every vaguely athletic kid became a runner during that time. And it brought in a lot of talent that may not have taken up running if it wasn't for Covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My limited knowledge based on one high school- the kids who have never run competively that do really well seem to be soccer players.

Agree. My DC was a soccer player and started track in HS and was a top 3 runner in the state championships in his event. Other soccer players were also fast. The downside was that the soccer players didn’t do XC so didn’t usually do longer distances.

Football players used to be the sprint and field stars but at our HS they had to do spring training so didn’t do track. A waste really because the football team was quite weak.