Is 13.61 a good track time for a 13 year old who has never been trained?

Question

I would REALLY like to go to olymics for the 100m dash. I have never been trained but i am going to get on a track and field team next year. I am practacing every night and most of the time i loose about a sec. per night. (5 nights ago i was at 22.67) I would at least like to make Varsity

Answer 1

For someone who appears to have no experience, it's not bad, actually. At thirteen, you're a freshman girl? If you've improved that much, you must has some basic athletic ability.

To be truly competitive, you'd need to get into the low "12.something" range. And elite levels run between 11.9 and below.

BTW, the national high school girls records:

High School record 11.11 - Allyson Felix/Angela Williams

NCAA record - 10.78 Dawn Sowell, LSU

Last Olympics results - 10.93 Yulia Nesterenko, from Belarus

Oh, and don't be concerned over the negative comments of some of the responders. I believe your improvement 'cause 22.67 is slooooow and with just a little work you could knock that time down.

Hey, and DavidB...I'm 44. I graduated HS some 27 years ago and I can still run pretty well although I don't have the speed of my youth...or any knee operatations. If you're in that bad of shape at 28, I'd hate to see you when you reach my age!

Answer 2

If 13.61 is your real time, then it is an alright time. What I want to talk about is this claim of yours that you gain a second a night in speed. If you were running a 22.67 100 yd dash just 5 days agao, it is physically impossible to be running 13.61 now (not to mention if it's a second a day then your time should be 17.67 after 5 days). The amazing this about the human body is that unlike muscles, speed can not increase all that much. People have fast genes or slow genes. There are exercises you can do to increase your speed slightly, but nothing greatly. However, you can greatly lose speed as you age and if you don't exercise much. In high school I ran a 4.6 40 for the football team, 10 years later, I'm 28 and ran a 40 the other day and my time is now 6.3. I have had 2 knee surgeries in recent years and I've aged 10 years since high school. I guess what I'm basically trying to say is that I do not believe you because even if you used steroids, you would not see that vast of a change as you mentioned and especially not in less than a week.

Answer 3

13.61...I doubt that. 13 year old girl, untrained, running that fast? Its not super fast, but it is fast enough to be questioned. How were you timed? Realize half a second error in timing makes the difference between School champion and JV. And what is this thing about the 22.67 seconds...thats like walking. Somethin funky goin on, are you trying to show some sort of trumped up incredible improvement ability? Like someone else said, speed is different from other things. You can build your endurance in a few weeks. You can train for a month at speed and be happy to shave off 1/10 of a second. Check all your stuff again, and if its all good to go, email me and I'll give you a program to follow, I'm on our high school's Varsity Track and Cross Country teams.

Answer 4

Have to doubt your one second of improvement per night claim too, unless you were deliberately holding back at the beginning. There is unfortunately no way the gains in your times correlate with your actual running improvement - I'm not calling you a liar or anything of the sort, but something else has to be going on. The human body doesn't improve its sprint times that fast.

13.61 is a swell time for the 100m for a 13 year old female, though I suspect you'll still have to improve quite a bit and be consistent in your training to make a varsity HS team. Good luck!

Answer 5

Im on Varsity track and run a 13.06 in the 100, we went to regionals this year and further, so that is a very decent time. Im not so sure about losing a second a night thing. But keep it up.

Answer 6

That is an amazing time, high school senior males run it in the 10s, and the females in the 11s and 12s, keep it up and don't hurt yourself, go win some races

Answer 7

A 13.61 is terrible you should at least get into the 12's to have a chance to go anywhere.

Answer 8

thats a pretty good time but it has to be alot better i run it in 12.5 in junior high and was way off makin it two the state meet dont just focus on100 though relays 200 and 400 are good races

Answer 9

YES THAT IS A GOOD TIME ESPECIALLY FOR A 13 YEAR OLD. DON'T BE IN TOO BIG A HURRY AND KEEP PRACTICING AND WORKING HARD LIKE YOU ALREADY ARE AND YOUR TIME SHOULD KEEP IMPROVING. I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU IN THE OLYMPICS. YOU SOUND LIKE A NATURAL RUNNER AND A GOOD TRACK COACH COULD HELP A LOT.

Answer 10

Keep working- The time is good. And some of these answers are stupid so don't listen to'em. Just train harder than everybody else and you'll be faster than everybody else.