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Abstract:
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There is a folklore among track coaches, athletes, and aficionados, that female athletes tend to plateau (or even peak) in their running times sometime during the sophomore year of high school, or typically when they reach 15 years of age. In fact, there is some argument (all anecdotal to this point) that the peak for female distance runners may even be as early as 13 years of age. There is no such folklore for male athletes. Using the data harvested from several track and field databases, we will answer the following questions: 1. Is there evidence of a plateau or peak for both male and female cross country and track athletes? 2. Do the plateaus or peaks occur at different ages for males and females? 3. Is there a difference in the age of the peak or plateau for sprinters versus distance runners? Preliminary analyses have suggested that plateaus occur at different times for males and females, and that different events show different sizes of plateaus and ages at which they occur. However, the plateaus occur later than the folklore suggests, and there are some athletes for whom there is no plateau, showing that it is important to have good data to examine commonly held beliefs.
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