Teen runners aren't just getting faster—they're resetting what "fast" means, and doing it at an astonishing pace. In Wired, Brendan I. Koerner dives into "trackflation," the sport's term for the surge in eye-popping times among middle- and high-school athletes, where marks that once won national titles now barely place. Data from big meets show top and even average times have plunged since the late 2010s, with eighth-graders running miles once reserved for college standouts and 100-meter times brushing elite NCAA territory. Koerner traces what's driving the shift, part of something akin to an arms race in youth sports.
"As millions of exhausted parents can attest, sports such as soccer and baseball have become dauntingly competitive over the past generation," he writes. "Even for third and fourth graders, there's a constant scramble for spots on prestigious travel teams, followed by nerve-racking fights for playing time." Several years ago, families began gravitating to track, and now the same dynamic is unfolding. Think high-tech shoes, private coaches, sophisticated training plans, and, of course, social media that turns teen runners into mini-influencers while ratcheting up expectations. The gains are real—but so are worries about burnout, overtraining, delayed puberty in girls, and whispers of performance-enhancing drugs in an almost untested landscape. Read the full story.
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