Is it possible to grab a 4:20 mile by the end of Senior year?

This is why coach Brosnan is the best. He wasn’t afraid to hurt some kids feeling or parents feelings. 4:20 is not a fast time. You will be lucky for a DII team to give a sh!t about you running 4:20. Man up and coach your kids to be men not snowflakes

4:20 isn't fast for a young or a sahlman. it's very fast for a freshman 5:30 miler.

first, no one does their PR out to 3 decimal places.

second, if there is any reality to this, goals should be about 5-10 second chunks. work on the elements of your game, endurance, speed, racecraft, etc., tick off chunks. drop the goal again. again. again. you get the reward of making the goal. 4:20 is a dumb carrot to chase because that may never happen and at minimum won't happen this next year. unattainable goals only create frustration.

to underline why i think this is a silly conversation, is if you worked your tail off and got to 4:50 that would be a 40 second drop and worthy of a back pat but if your goal is 4:20 you will be one of the crybabies on here pouting you haven't reached your big goal as opposed to proud what this season got you. reward yourself.

I'm part of the North Coast, in california

Perfect words for a terrible coach to say

I agree. These self proclaimed “good coaches” are give everyone a trophy kind of coaches. Sorry coaches but Brosnan is correct. “4:20’s not fast for a High School Mile”

OP - this is a reasonable assessment imho. Spot on.

With that in mind, assuming you *are not* built like a fullback, someone can potentially start where you are, and run 4:20 or faster in 12th grade. This will involve improving both speed and aerobic fitness over the next 3 years, and in my opinion there are no better 3 years to make the biggest jumps that the 3 years you have upcoming :)

You will need a plan to develop speed. And you will need a plan to develop aerobic fitness. This is a long term thing, that will take time and dedication - if you want it, the journey is yours.

Aerobic fitness in the off season can be developed in 2 basic ways: easy runs and tempo/threshold running. For a developing young athlete, I'd suggest something like:

Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri easy runs both AM and PM. Start with just 20 min (or whatever makes sense) each and build up to as much as 45 minutes, but keep it easy and doable. More isn't better unless your body is ready for it to be EASY.

Wed: Alternate 20 min tempo run one week, with 6 x 800m another week. Jog 400m between the 800m repeats. Look up your proper threshold repeat pace on an online calculator, based on your 5:20 PR. And next summer, replace this with 5 x 1000m with 200m jog. The following summer, replace this with 8 x 1000m with 200m jog.

This leaves Sat/Sun. For now, I'd suggest speed development on Saturday and RECOVERY on Sunday. Remember, recovery is part of training, especially for speed.

Sat summer speed session - I'd suggest 5 x 80m hill accelerations, 5 min full rest. Do a full gentle warmup to prepare. Accelerate smooth and the last 40m should be FAST. After rest, do 3 sets of bodyweight squat-jumps. Start with maybe 5 and increase up to 20. Then, 3 sets of lunges (forward, side, diagonal), start with 5 ea and build up to 50. Then, 3 sets of heel drop/ calf raise single-leg bodyweight, start with 5 and build up to 20.

Also - a set of drills and strides after the Wed session is a good idea.

Just an example, hope this helps :)

It's absolutely possible. Train hard AND smart, listen to your body (take ample recovery in between hard sessions, even with a young body), get lots of sleep (aim for at LEAST 8 hours a night if possible), and eat a healthy diet. These all sound obvious, but it's good to get this kind of thinking ingrained into your mind, to hear them over and over from other people.

As far as workouts, I would drop the mileage a little bit. The mile is still a pretty quick race all things considered, so track intervals will be your best friend. Stuff like: 400m repeats with 2min rest, 1k repeats, 10x200 at race pace with 90sec rest. Get used to hurting on the track. I'd shoot for 2 really grueling workouts a week, maybe 3 if your body responds well, then the other days easy/moderate runs.

Like someone else on here said, aim for breaking 5 first. Try to run a 4:40 next year and 4:20 will feel like it's right around the corner. Good luck!

Does it matter whether or not it’s possible? Just take your training seriously and see where you end up.

Continuing my above thoughts -

Currently, OP you are at 60, 2:19, and let's say 5:20. That's about a 10-sec pace differential from 400 to 800 and from 800 to mile.

The idea is to both *improve speed* AND *reduce the pace differential*

So, setting some example goals:

Fr 60 +10/400 (approx) = 70/lap = 2:19 +10/400 (approx) = 80/lap = 5:20

So 56 +8 (64) 2:08 (72) 4:48

Jr 54 +7 (61) 2:02 (68) 4:32

Sr 52.5 +6 (58.5) 1:57 (64.5) 4:18

Is this kind of progression realistic? Is it possible? Maybe, maybe not, or maybe it follows a different path to a similar result ... only one way to find out.

Btw for reference my personal HS progression was Fr 62 (out of shape in mid March, estimate I would have gotten down to around to 59, So 56, Jr 53, Sr 50 and that was with zero summer running, no XC until Senior year, and less-than-ideal training on mostly 15 mi/week so my aerobic development was poor, ending up at 2:03 Sr year off the 50.x speed and no mile time at all.

So - yes, 400m times *can possibly* drop a lot in 3 years from Fr-Sr, just add aerobic development and there you go. It is possible :)

It won't be easy but it is absolutely possible. May your dreams become reality!

this one kid from my league in high school was like a ~5 flat and ~210 guy in the mile and 800 as a sophomore (not sure what he ran as a freshman) and then ran 1:56 as a junior and 1:51 as a senior (third at CA state meet). he worked like an absolute dawg for four years. probably had some puberty / growth that helped him with the speed as well. basically what i mean is you should control what you can control - be consistent, work hard, don't get injured, do weights and PT and all the little things beyond just running - but also run year round, obviously - and don't worry about "talent", "puberty / growing", and sh!t that you can't control. good luck!