A couple of years ago, my teenage son decided to spend the long New York winter running indoor track. An accomplished soccer player, he joined with a modest goal of staying fit during his main sport’s offseason, but before long his competitive streak kicked in.

He trained like a demon for two months straight and achieved a personal best that earned him a spot in our sectional championship, competing against runners from three nearby counties. Despite shaving several seconds off his time, he still got smoked – the top three boys finished well under 4:30 minutes, with my son finishing second-to-last.

My curiosity piqued, I looked up past results and realized that teenage runners had never been this fast. A 12th-grade girl from Ohio ran an indoor 2-miler in 9:37.15, breaking a national high school record since 2013, while a 10th-grade boy from Texas ran the 100 meters in just 9.92 seconds.

The phenomenon of kids getting ultra-fast has been coined as 'trackflation.' In June 2025 at the New Balance Nationals, over 100 kids broke previous meet records, with more than a hundred running under 4:10 for the full mile. Will Rodgers, co-owner of RunningLane, noted that in his time, there might have been only 20 kids capable of such times.

In Baltimore, I attended an East Coast International Showcase featuring Henry Bartle and Gunner Hammett, two fixtures of the elite youth circuit. At just 13 years old, Hammett coasted to a 1:57.75 in the 800-meter race, putting him on par with his home state’s fastest high school runners.