Kirk Pfeffer (born July 30, 1956 in California) is a retired American long-distance runner, who competed in marathons. He won the Enschede Marathon in 1979 in 2:11:50 and America's Finest City Half Marathon in 1981 in 1:02:55...
Hi everyone, my name is Tim Synowiec and I am a high school runner sharing my journey and experiences. I upload training videos, running tips/advice, and motivation. This is a channel to unite a running community and share entertaining running/life videos. Subscribe for fun running content and more! Join the journey and Happy Running! :)
Probably not. Usually these young Marathon "stars" are burned out before it matters. I have seen a bunch of these "talents" come and go in my lifetime.
I don’t care who u are. Timmys act of running 120+ Mpw in high school on top of cross training will only hurt him and damage his long term progression
I talked to a source who said that mileage figure is no where close to true. More like 75 mpw. Can people please remember we are talking about a high school athlete?
not degrading his performance, it's a new record and objectively a very good time. what i'm saying is that he has no leg speed and is running very high mileage so i don't think he's going to be able to improve faster than around 2:15 when he's fully grown.
i've not raced him, but a couple of my friends from other schools have. he's an aerobic monster but I'd be surprised if he could run faster than a 61-62 400
Also, given that, doesn't it make sense for him to move up? Anyone with poor foot speed (if this is true) is not going to suddenly get good foot speed. Speed is largely genetic and can only be improved a modest amount.
If you're a gifted writer or artist, are you going to waste time doing math problems???
He’s going nowhere because he’s not fast and runs too much mileage for his age. He is not even going to podium on the track this year and gets no girls.
This reminds me of a post a month ago in which some kid (or more likely, former kid) wrote that, admittedly, XC runners are not cool, but HS marathoners are even less cool. I did not find that to be the case at all, and I was one. That poster wasn't and neither is this one I'm quoting. In fact, unless there were any at your school (hint: there weren't) you are only guessing that distance running makes you a social outcast. The long distance/road racing/marathoning crowd at my school was somewhat cool and we looked down on the track team! Ironically, those adamantly against teenage distance think mid-D is fine and makes you fit right in!
HS kids don’t train for long races. The longest they do is just 5000m. Nobody cares about 10k or longer because they don’t have official races in those distances and it makes sense young kids do not need to run very long super high mileage they do that once they’re more mature. I can guarantee you that if one very good HS every year would train for the marathon the record would be at least 2:15.
They're not doing it - putting up impressive times and breaking records at 10k and up - because they can't. This record was a big deal and so is Chapa's. In fact, the latter is a very big deal and Rupp himself tried to break it.
To all those that suggest HD distance records are soft and would come down by minutes if even Newbury Park's 7th man cared about them:
Let's see them break them. If simply timing your warmup on any given Tuesday would put you under the 10,000 record, do your shakeout run at Stanford and break it by 2 minutes. If going through the hassle of timing you Sunday long run would show you're 9 minutes faster than this guy, do you long run in an official rave and get the record. Fact is, Nico wouldn't have any US HS records if he had run all the way up to the 'thon. Doesn't have any as it is .....
By the way, 'official races' do indeed exist at distances beyond 5k. This kid just did one. So did I, in HS and since. What do you think Rupp runs? Meaningless unofficial fun runs?
It is almost impossible to run a cool-conditions marathon in HS without throwing away a season of competition.
That's like saying Kipchoge 'throws away' a track season every time he goes to London and a XC season every time he goes to Berlin. A better way to look at it is that school-sanctioned running ruins your marathon seasons. If you don't participate in your school teams and seasons and don't care about them in the least (I certainly didn't at his age), you have given up nothing.
Kingery's 2:23:47 was in the West Valley Marathon in San Mateo-Burlingame on a flat course but on a warm (low 60s) and extremely humid day. (I was 8th in 2:31:18 and noted the weather in my trsining diary since I was completely dehydrated afterwards.)
I appreciate your posting on this, but, come on, no February day (really any day but especially in February) in Burlingame has EVER been "extremely humid." Low 60s is warm-ish so not ideal, but let's not go wild with the exaggerated I-walked-barefoot-to-school-in-the-snow stuff.
Kingery's 2:23:47 was in the West Valley Marathon in San Mateo-Burlingame on a flat course but on a warm (low 60s) and extremely humid day. (I was 8th in 2:31:18 and noted the weather in my trsining diary since I was completely dehydrated afterwards.)
I appreciate your posting on this, but, come on, no February day (really any day but especially in February) in Burlingame has EVER been "extremely humid." Low 60s is warm-ish so not ideal, but let's not go wild with the exaggerated I-walked-barefoot-to-school-in-the-snow stuff.
I couldn't find a separate weather history for San Mateo, but the one they give for relatively nearby San Francisco airpot shows the humidity at 96% at 9:00A.M. and 90% at 11:00A.M. Winter is, after all, the rainy season (or was before climate change). So I don't understand your comment about "especially in Feb..." Just the opposite seems to be the case.
I had flown from Miami in search of good marathon weather (i.e. cool). It didn't occur to me that high humidity was a concern if it was genuinely cool. I am puzzled that the link shows almost ten degrees cooler at the airport than I wrote in my training diary. The airport may be cooler, directly on the bay, but I wouldn't think that much. But low fifties would have felt very chilly to me, coming from Miami, and I didn't feel chilly. After the race the medical people told me I was very dehydrated. I don't think I drank any water. Just a swallow or two of defizzed Coke - since that worked for Shorter in Munich a few months earlier, We were pretty ignorant about the need for fluids in those days. And very few aid stations.
And if I were, as you say, using the "barefoot-in-thhe-snow..." stuff I would not have pointed out that it was a flat course. And I would have emphasized the windiness, since the airport hourly data shows pretty windy conditions. But in,and, in San Mateo, I don't recall any wind problems at all.
It is almost impossible to run a cool-conditions marathon in HS without throwing away a season of competition.
I have seen several times under 2:20. What happened did they throw away the old records book? I have heard about Brad Hudson and a few others.
There is an old Letsrun run thread that says Brad Hudson ran 2:17 in 1985 after high school. I'm assuming it was the summer of his senior year. If true, that would be the real record for me since we count post season track meets for records in the summer for HS.
HS kids don’t train for long races. The longest they do is just 5000m. Nobody cares about 10k or longer because they don’t have official races in those distances and it makes sense young kids do not need to run very long super high mileage they do that once they’re more mature. I can guarantee you that if one very good HS every year would train for the marathon the record would be at least 2:15.
They're not doing it - putting up impressive times and breaking records at 10k and up - because they can't. This record was a big deal and so is Chapa's. In fact, the latter is a very big deal and Rupp himself tried to break it.
To all those that suggest HD distance records are soft and would come down by minutes if even Newbury Park's 7th man cared about them:
Let's see them break them. If simply timing your warmup on any given Tuesday would put you under the 10,000 record, do your shakeout run at Stanford and break it by 2 minutes. If going through the hassle of timing you Sunday long run would show you're 9 minutes faster than this guy, do you long run in an official rave and get the record. Fact is, Nico wouldn't have any US HS records if he had run all the way up to the 'thon. Doesn't have any as it is .....
By the way, 'official races' do indeed exist at distances beyond 5k. This kid just did one. So did I, in HS and since. What do you think Rupp runs? Meaningless unofficial fun runs?
There is a huge gap between running a 28 min 10k and a 2:22 marathon. One is right in line with other records. The other is close to 10mins to slow...
not degrading his performance, it's a new record and objectively a very good time. what i'm saying is that he has no leg speed and is running very high mileage so i don't think he's going to be able to improve faster than around 2:15 when he's fully grown.
i've not raced him, but a couple of my friends from other schools have. he's an aerobic monster but I'd be surprised if he could run faster than a 61-62 400
Aerobic monsters in high school can still teach themselves to build leg speed. Don't write him off yet
It's cool to see someone older here than I am and even cooler that you were in Kingery's race. He had 12 marathons and a 50 mile under his belt when he set that record. Now I'm trying to think who had the record before Kingery and am thinking Chuck Smead. Do you know?
I appreciate your posting on this, but, come on, no February day (really any day but especially in February) in Burlingame has EVER been "extremely humid." Low 60s is warm-ish so not ideal, but let's not go wild with the exaggerated I-walked-barefoot-to-school-in-the-snow stuff.
I couldn't find a separate weather history for San Mateo, but the one they give for relatively nearby San Francisco airpot shows the humidity at 96% at 9:00A.M. and 90% at 11:00A.M. Winter is, after all, the rainy season (or was before climate change). So I don't understand your comment about "especially in Feb..." Just the opposite seems to be the case.
I had flown from Miami in search of good marathon weather (i.e. cool). It didn't occur to me that high humidity was a concern if it was genuinely cool. I am puzzled that the link shows almost ten degrees cooler at the airport than I wrote in my training diary. The airport may be cooler, directly on the bay, but I wouldn't think that much. But low fifties would have felt very chilly to me, coming from Miami, and I didn't feel chilly. After the race the medical people told me I was very dehydrated. I don't think I drank any water. Just a swallow or two of defizzed Coke - since that worked for Shorter in Munich a few months earlier, We were pretty ignorant about the need for fluids in those days. And very few aid stations.
And if I were, as you say, using the "barefoot-in-thhe-snow..." stuff I would not have pointed out that it was a flat course. And I would have emphasized the windiness, since the airport hourly data shows pretty windy conditions. But in,and, in San Mateo, I don't recall any wind problems at all.
That kind of temp disparity is the norm on the coast. Dewpoint is far more informative than RH but likely not to be found easily from that long ago. I'm not particularly surprised or dubious that you could have encountered a moist day though. A lot depends on the wind direction there I suppose. Marine air is generally moisture leaden.
I couldn't find a separate weather history for San Mateo, but the one they give for relatively nearby San Francisco airpot shows the humidity at 96% at 9:00A.M. and 90% at 11:00A.M. Winter is, after all, the rainy season (or was before climate change). So I don't understand your comment about "especially in Feb..." Just the opposite seems to be the case.
I had flown from Miami in search of good marathon weather (i.e. cool). It didn't occur to me that high humidity was a concern if it was genuinely cool. I am puzzled that the link shows almost ten degrees cooler at the airport than I wrote in my training diary. The airport may be cooler, directly on the bay, but I wouldn't think that much. But low fifties would have felt very chilly to me, coming from Miami, and I didn't feel chilly. After the race the medical people told me I was very dehydrated. I don't think I drank any water. Just a swallow or two of defizzed Coke - since that worked for Shorter in Munich a few months earlier, We were pretty ignorant about the need for fluids in those days. And very few aid stations.
And if I were, as you say, using the "barefoot-in-thhe-snow..." stuff I would not have pointed out that it was a flat course. And I would have emphasized the windiness, since the airport hourly data shows pretty windy conditions. But in,and, in San Mateo, I don't recall any wind problems at all.
That kind of temp disparity is the norm on the coast. Dewpoint is far more informative than RH but likely not to be found easily from that long ago. I'm not particularly surprised or dubious that you could have encountered a moist day though. A lot depends on the wind direction there I suppose. Marine air is generally moisture leaden.
I don't mean to derail the discussion with a pedantic argument about the meaning "extremely humid," but this follow-up post about dew point is right. It boils down to relative versus absolute humidity. Most people don't seem to understand that warm air holds more moisture and relative humidity numbers tell us very little about whether the weather is comfortable/good for running. Sure, if it's 38 degrees and raining then it's "extremely humid" in relative % terms but not in the sense of swampy, miserable like in the South in the summer. My point was that Burlingame in February, or any time of year, would not have had "extremely humid" weather in the latter sense. Your weather data supports that.
