FYI...may not be many posts, there was a thread on the boy the other day...turned into a "pushy parents" debate (thread tiltle something like "Did he jump or was he pushed"). A thread on the dog awhile back.

BFD. There are thousands, probably tens of thousands, of young swimmers who could handle this swim and do it much faster than this kid. Kudos for him for raising $$ for Katrina, though.

I ran a 3:40 marathon at age 9. 36 minute 10K at age 11. Pre-pubescent children actually have large, fully developed hearts compared to the size of the rest of their body, and so can perform very well at endurance events that do not require extensive muscle or power output. Pre-pubescent girls do not have the breasts and hips and increased body fat that are a hindrance to elite runners. I don't know what the current age group record is for 11 year olds, but back in '82 I had the records for 5 mile (28:30s) and 10K 36:09. I used to get a newsletter every few month from ?? (USATF ?) that had a hand-written number on the envelope for how many records you owned. It was 2 for awhile, then went to 1, then I stopped receiving the newsletters altogether. I never did find out who beat my times and by how much. No internet back then. I'd be curious to know what the current records are, my bet is low 33s, maybe even lower. Back in that summer of '82 I ran multiple races in the 36s and my PR was on a track, so my time of 36:09 was legit.

Other impressive feats of endurance by young athletes that I have personally involvement with:

• My brother at age 13 ran 10K in under 33.
• Female classmate in 8th grade (age 12/13) ran a 2:09 800m and 4:54 1600. She remained fast through high school and got a full ride to a Big 10 school, but I don't think she ever beat her 8th grade PRs after her body started developing.

Marathon at 9, that's disturbing and the speed is even more so since it indicates the large amount of training you did (although I'm sure you'll come back and post how little miles you put on your developing little 8 and 9 year old body).

About "Pre-pubescent children actually have large, fully developed hearts compared to the size of the rest of their body, and so can perform very well at endurance events that do not require extensive muscle or power output. Pre-pubescent girls do not have the breasts and hips and increased body fat that are a hindrance to elite runners." Wow, you're mislead.

Why is it disturbing? Is it somehow more disturbing than the thousands of even younger kids who are training very seriously at swimming or tennis or gymnastics? Would I have been better off to spend my time playing Atari or Colecovision? If your answer is because of the damage done to my developing body, I can only answer with the empirical evidence of my injury history. I am 34, approaching 30 years as a runner. I'm 6'3" and 200 lbs, not exactly a runner's build, and still reasonably fast so I wouldn't just call myself a recreational runner. I have never had a running injury, with the exception of some shin splints during my intense running years in college, and a bout of ITB syndrome 2 summers ago. I may just be lucky, but it's hard to claim running as a child damaged my body. I don't know how many miles I've logged in my life, maybe 40,000?

Regarding mileage at that age, I don't really recall. I was 9. It was 1980 and the start of the running boom. I just ran with my dad. We'd been doing local weekend 5Ks and 10Ks for a few years. I'm pretty certain we never went more than 16 miles before the marathon, but I could be wrong. Certainly I didn't do the kind of mileage I would do now if I were training for a 2:50ish marathon. I do know that my 3:40 time put me almost exactly as the midpoint finisher in the race. That time in a major race nowadays would probably be in the top 10%.

Regarding me being misled. Could be, I'm not a physician. I'm certainly not misled that pre-pubescent girls do not have the breasts and hips and increased body fat percentages of developed women, and that these characteristics of the female form are a detriment to elite runners (take a look at Paula Radcliffe and Catherine Ndereba). This does not mean that I believe pre-pubescent girls are better suited to be elite runners than full-grown women, as they are in the sport of gymnastics. Regarding my claim that children have proportionally larger hearts to the rest of their body, I could very well be misinformed here as I was just passing along 2ndhand information. A quick google search gives no indication this is accurate, and the lack of information probably is an indicator it is inaccurate. It does appear, however, that numerous studies have been done on young athletes and that their aerobic systems respond to endurance training very similarly to adults. http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/coachsci/csa/vol96/table.htm