If a 4:20 mile isn't good for a high schooler, is 4:10 good for a D1 athlete?

sean brosnan says 6'0" is short for a 3rd grader.

does that mean 6'1" is short for a 4th grader?

sean brosnan thinks so.

4:10 is not good for a college runner. Good is 4:05, very good is 4:00, and great is sub 4.

Not David wrote:

4:10 is not good for a college runner. Good is 4:05, very good is 4:00, and great is sub 4.

Very good is 4:00 for a college runner???? No, I think that's better than very good.

all hail sean brosnan

The first problem is that you are taking that quote out of context.

His mentality is that if you make 4:20 the standard of fast, your team will have a couple 4:20 guys at the top. If 4:20 isn’t something to be proud of, your athletes will strive to do better than that.

If you go into college and train to run a sub 4:10 mile, you may run a sub 4:10 or come close, but you will not run 3:5x. If you go into college with the intent to run sub 4:00, you may do that or run close. (Dependent on talent of course).

I’m a big believer that a lot of potential sub 4:00 milers run 4:20-30 in high school because that was good enough to win meets and be the best on the team, and they are already doing more than the rest of the team despite only doing 30-40 mpw.

my two pennies wrote:

Thinking about Sean Brosnan's statement about how 4:20 isn't a good time for a high school boy. 4:10 in D1 is about as good as 4:20 is in high school, and I remember being pretty dang proud of my 3:49 1500 (4:08 mile conversion). Would Brosnan say 4:10 is bad for a college athlete? What would his standard be? Sub-4:00? Discus

4:20 was good for a high schooler when I graduated in 2007. Definitely mid-level D1 Caliber. But things have definitely picked up since then. I guess it all depends on your definition of good. You're a solid runner but not D1 material at that time.

4:10 was never good for a D1 collegiate miler. At least not in the past couple of decades. If you were a miler who couldn't break 3:50 around 4:08 you were weak at a D1 level. I think a good level for D1 would be 3:46 which is 4:03-04. You're not going to make NCAA's or win most conferences at that time but you're at least competitive.

4:10 is great for D1. Actually my alma mater indoor school record is 4:12. We haven’t had a 3:52-3:54 1500 guy in a decade. C-USA

4:10 is not good. If you run a 4:10 mile you are better off transferring to D2/D3

It wasn't taken out of context. He could have said what he "meant to say" a million ways, but he chose to alienate a huge amount of high school kids who simply don't have the ability to run faster. It was a d!ck thing to say that may have had good intentions.

I disagree with you and agree with Brosnan. This past outdoor season my team had 9 guys sub 3:47 and another just above 3:50 for the 1500m. On a different team the guy just above 3:50 is the top dog and probably rests on his laurels somewhat. Whereas on this team he’s like “damn there’s 9 guys better than me, I gotta get better” whilst simultaneously thinking “well if 9 of my teammates can do it why can’t I?”.

It’s all about thinking on a higher level and not limiting yourself consciously or subconsciously

4:20 is not fast is a mentality. As in, 4:20 is not fast, therefore you will crush your goal of going under 5:00 minutes and then you run 4:59 when you were stuck at 5:10 for so long.

If you are good in college you should be making the regional meet. Most years that takes around 3:45 for the 1500, so ~4:03 mile.

4:10 is ok. You are probably good enough to make the national meet in lower divisions. But at the DI level, a 4:10 is probably consistently traveling, but will never score any points at conferences.

with running you are either elite or not. so its hard to argue against what he is saying. however, I was a 4:20 miler in HS and won State with that. I was an All American in D1 for the 5k, and I ran about 3:48 1500. At the time I thought I was good in HS and in college. Looking back I see I was really a dime a dozen runner who was just to stubborn to give up while the other 420 milers moved on to other things leaving open the possibility for me to be successful even though I wasn't that good.

Except this is all wrong. No kid, even if he’s a school record holder, is going to be content getting 4-5 in meets consistently. He might not have the teammates there everyday, but he sure as hell has competition in races

I was a 4.20 miler in highschool and 4.08 miler in college. Neither are "elite" but a 4.20 miler has a lot of potential to run faster than I did.

Definitions of terms for college :

Good ( scoring in conference finals)

Elite ( top 3)

I feel like this would be a unit of measurement ( not exclusively) that should be used for scholarships for HS to college.

A good HS runner 1600m time should qualify to at least make a conference meet

CA CIF state meet 2019 10th 4:17.26

Tx state meet 2019 6th 4:19

PAC 12 finals 2019 8th 3:51 (scored 1 pt)

Big 12 final 2019 8th 3:56

4:20 was, is and always will be a "good" HS male 1600 time. 4:10 is a "good" college time. These are facts that really are not open to debate.

Here is my conference, pre-COVID, so 2019 Indoor Season

Conference USA, schools like Rice, UTEP, WKU, Southern Miss

4:10 would rank you 6th out of 600

https://www.tfrrs.org/lists/2829.html#event57