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RECORDS

Records are made to be broken. It may be the most commonly heard phrase about those incredible standards that athletes are always chasing. To get a record means to be the best. Whether it is a freshman, school, meet, state or national record it means that no one person within the same sphere has ever done better.

Why the fascination with records? It is because all things being equal, either your talent or training has allowed you to surpass the standard others were only able to chase. A record is concrete! It leaves no doubt.

I like track history. I like records. And chasing records can be a good thing! It cannot be all consuming and I’ll address it later. But first the good points.

A concrete goal is easy to strive for because it leaves no doubt. Human nature seems to dictate that competitive people have to try to be the best. Not the third best or tenth best even though those standards would in themselves be great. Ask Bill Gates if he’d like Microsoft to be the third best Computer Company. Is Avis really happy to be #2. Of course not!

So I keep detailed records so that if an athlete wants to be the best, at least they’ll know when they get there. So here are the girls’ spring track school records.

Freshman Records
School Records
School Relay Records
National Records

The boys’ records will be completed soon. There are only a few clarifications left.

Freshman Records

School Records

Relay Records

National Records

My only problem with records is the end result of not getting one. Because records are elusive. They are also the results of outside factors over which the athlete has no control. They are not merely representative of a person’s talent and training. They also represent myriad favorable conditions that all had to fall into place. I firmly believe you can not go into a single meet trying for a record. What you really have to do is put yourself into position so that if the conditions are right you can achieve the record.

Example:
You have spent a season preparing for the league meet. You’re the best two-miler in the league by far. On meet day it is windy and not one other runner is capable of staying with you past the 800M mark. How can you ever expect to break a record set by two great runners who jockeyed back and forth taking turns breaking the wind. See the point? Be as happy as you can with the performance but if the conditions were more favorable in other years it is tough to even compare performances.

Don’t take this as a cop out. Records are made to be broken but there have to be other more controllable goals as well. So don’t stop shooting for those records. But here’s a hint about what it means. Compare freshman records to varsity records and you will see virtually no comparison. Though I can’t provide all the details here when you compare varsity records to success in college you will find only slightly better correlation.