Gabrielle Jennings D2 3200 (10 yr old!!) : Speakers & Interviews

Yes, Gabrielle will turn 11 on September 15, 2009. While this article does mention her as the youngest to win a medal at the State Indoor Meet, it fails to mention that this was her second LHSAA State Title, having won the State Cross Country Meet on November 17, 2008. At that time, she was 10 years 2 months and 2 days old, having been running for only 6 months. She then went on to capture two more State Championships in outdoor Track and Field, finishing her first year of Varsity running with 4 State Championships (Gold Medals) and a Class C State Record in the 3200 meter run.
I believe the gymnastics state meet was on May 1-2, which would make Chloe 10 years and 2 1/2 months, just a bit older than Gabrielle. In reality, grade-wise, Gabrielle should be in the same grade as your daughter. Due to a September 15 birthday, she will be 16 years old for a full month and a half of her senior year of high school...quite a disadvantage in athletics.
Best of luck to young Chloe in the future...will try to follow her accomplishments.

Hey , anyone know this girl's birthdate--I understand that she was in the fifth grade when she medaled at the track meet, right?--that means she turned or will turn 11 in 2009--I'm just asking because my daughter turned 10 on February 14, 2009 which quite possibly makes her younger than Ms. Gabrielle and my daughter was the runner-up, silver medalist in the 2009 state gymnastics meet on the balance beam---if I have my facts correct, then that makes my daughter the youngest to ever medal at a Louisiana high school state championship meet. I have made several inquiries with the LHSAA about this in an attempt to confirm these facts but have never received a reply--if anyone can shed any light on this, It will be greatly appreciated--by the way, my daughter's name is Chloe Colwart--she's now a fifth grader at Catholic high school in New iberia (she was in4th grade when she competed in the 2009 state gymnastics meet in division III) Chloe has moved up to level 5 in gymnastics and intends to again compete in the 2010 state meet in division II--also, Catholic High new Iberia will be fielding a full team at the 2010 meet with the full intention to be highly competitive for all around team honors--in 2009, Catholic High New Iberia was one athlete short of a full team and yet still finished fifth overall in the team standings--had they had that one additional team member they would have easily finished in second place

she's one of my best friends!
GO GABBYYYYY

golly, she is just so cute i could just spread her on a cracker and eat her up.

Because he follows running...with passion...Mary Decker Tab-Slaney (her Real Name) was the Bomb in the Last 70"s and Early 80's. This little one has the potential to do the same....and to point out what was said previously you can not make a child run they either want it or not...She wants to win and Good luck to her, I cant wait to see her in Cross Country this fall....Jammin Joe

her name sounds like gabe jennings

i know your secret from what you did with shana (abigail) last year at the begining of the school year. you locked the door so her mom wouldnt find out wha you 2 were doing. ihope you know im telling her what you did. your gonna be in alot of trouble. enjoy life in a cage. see ya

"Even most of the runners dont run..."

So you read this in a book...wow nice.... I lived there for 5 months with the runners. I saw the kids running and playing everywhere. They may not run to school exactly, but they are running and playing everywhere barefoot, and doing chores / herding cows/ carrying water / wood. Providing informal posture and form building so the "Running to school" may be an analogy in some cases. But the childhood is a huge contributor to their elite prowess.

Even most of the runners dont run... but yes they do a lot of walking which helps in the long run

man, i do recall back in 2007 or 2008 their was a girl about her age that ran the JFK 50 miler and got some grief, but mostly it was just cool to see someone that young do the race. ummm....this was only two miles and you guys are flipp'n out.

So Anon, You don't trust what a pediatrician's 13+ years of schooling/fellowship/internship opinion? I feel sorry for you, it seems you don't trust anyone. I think my pediatrician knows all about diaphyseal plates and what damage ( if any ) can be done through running. DO YOU? I mean, dissing parents, GET REAL. My child did age group cross country and I saw 3 year olds running 1.25 miles in 19 degree weather ( see flowtracks coverage of cross country youth national championships in Ohio ). No child would run in that kind of weather if they didn't want to. Coming down on parents just proves you have a coach's pre- conceived nation that this is all about us and it is not.

Actually its true all kenyans dont run just the ones that become runners...

Well if they dont run they walk barefoot at least and develop good running form from that.

thankyou "Stat's"

dude how do you know all this and why?

This is one helluva scoop. This story is everywhere ... how many days later? Nice work flotrack.

I don't have any faith in parents that push their kids to do things that the parents say the kids "love". And there are few GP Docs for adults that know anything about running much less pediatricians knowing if 2.5 miles might or might not hurt a runner who is 11 or less. As a coach for 30 years, I've seen too many "good" runners show up in high school (who are somewhat talented and whose parents have pushed them to run through middle school) and fade, get hurt or most importantly, LOSE interest! Please be careful with your young runner.

Okay Anon, I was using gymnastics as an example of a sport that starts kids out as young as 3 and they are done by adulthood. 2.5 miles is not that intense. Having someone judge your performance, run 25 yards full speed towards an inanimate object ( vault ) ,is intense , not to mention dangerous. Alas, we are talking about running. I don't think dad is being a stage parent. You folks must think we parents don't research before we get our kids into a sport. We do and we consult the pediatrician as well. That way when the fireballs start coming our way, we have some defense..

If I hear another "Kenyan's run to school" I will do this

"http://www.youtube.com/v/yOIUWdJWaec&hl=en&fs=1

How many times do I have to tell people... Most Kenyan kids do not run to school... maybe you guys should pick up a book once in a while...

You killjoys! Let her have her fun.

Remember this 12 year?....and wasn't her first year of runner...either!

I appreciate your views but I didn't read that Mike from Pa wrote anything negative about gymnastics. If you don't know what Briana's training regimen was, you don't know Briana's story. It has been at a very high level for a long time. And yes from a physical perspective running for 2 1/2 miles at a young age is worse than "playing" on the playground for an hour. Much worse. The key word is "playing". An 8, 10 or even a 12 year old running for 2 1/2 miles is NEVER going to be "playing". It is the intensity that hurts these young bodies and minds.

Adorable! Good luck this outdoor season and in future seasons.

A lot of the great African runners that dominate distance running at the Olympics run to school at this age. I don't see why people make such a big deal about her training. If she was hurting herself through overtraining, then she wouldn't have run sub 12 minutes. Overtraining comes out when you try to race and totally bonk.

It's really funny that this ten year old is really good in interviews.

A lot of high school and college runners struggle through interviews haha
the only struggle she has is knowing about the world of running outside of louisiana haha so awesome, hopefully she doesn't get worn down before she has the chance to run in high school an hopefully college!

Well said Tony..

"my dad was hoping I could run 11:50" pathic

My only thought here is that every person is different. As long as she has fun and gets some balance in life and sports - go for it.

As far as Brianna goes - she just finished 3rd in a loaded Women's 3200 at a truly great NJ indoor meet of champions - that's a true state meet with all the various school divisions combined in one meet. The result had roughly 5 under 10:50 and 10 under 11:00 - very high quality race! She will attend Harvard in the fall. That's not a bad start in life...By the way her overtrained buddy from Colt's Neck Ashley Higginson is now slumming it at Princeton.
The next NJ youth phenom also entered the stage at that meet with Neptune's Agee Wilson running 2:10 for the 800 to go with a sub 5 1600 earlier in the season - both freshman class records in NJ. She'll probably burn out too, and end up at Yale.

As a matter of fact Mike from PA, I do know Briana's story. Hers is like many who had so-so high school careers. Let us look at things logically, how is running for 20 minutes ( for 2.5 miles ) any worse than playing on a playground for an hour. Before I took up running, I was a gymnast. You want to talk about a short - career sport, the elite gymnasts are gone by 20 usually. I think this parent is being careful. I think he knows the statistics as well as me. I am sure Ms. Jennings will be fine..I do not know what Briana's workout regimens were, but I am guessing they were much more intense than Gabrielle's. Just a hunch

She's very cute and well spoken.

Awesome. I hope she keeps having fun and does some cross training so she doesn't get injured or burned out or -- god forbid -- anorexic. Hope her love of the sport and her talent continues to develop. Big congrats to her!

Burnout on 15 miles/week - come on! I tried 4 other sports before finding T&F;- at age 10. 26 years later it's one sport I'm truly passionate about. I think I reached whatever potential I had.

think about all those 10yr olds that run summer track and race at usatf and aau national meets during the summer. no ones saying there too young to run! just because she's beating high school kids doesn't mean she's doing too much, natural talent in my opinion. 2.5 miles a day is nothing.

for every person out there criticizing letting 10 year old kids run 20 mpw (come on, that's nothing!) there is someone lamenting US distance running and how we'll never catch the kenyans because they grow up running 10 miles to school every day. What kind of double standard is that? It's great for kenyan development and hurtful to our kids?

For every example there's a counterexample. Jordan Hasay ran 4:34.02 for 1500 and 9:48.77 for 3000 at age 12 in 2004. I hear she's turned out to be a pretty decent runner. Once again, you can't take one person's experience and expect every young runner is destined to follow that path.

This is a very tough question. While I appreciate young Gabrielle's talent and it is her and her family's right to have her compete, in my opinion it is not wise from a physical and emotional perspective to have her competing at this level at such a young age. If you have any questions of this please see young Briana Jackucewicz story (now a senior in high school). Briana has been competing..and very well from a very young age (8?) and even set a 5K track record as an 8th grader. She has spent high school with one injury after another and I dare say significantly underperformed from where everyone thought she might. I have to believe the toll of years of training a young body has taken a significant toll.

Wow,
I see a new female phenom in the years to come. I love the fact that she is so young that she doesn't recognize any of the names of the major women on the running scene right now.

Ok, bear with me...NEW concept for a game show...Are You Faster Than a 10-year old????
Hosted by Mark and Ryan
-move over Jeff Foxworthy.
ha ha

Gabe Jennings? Coincidence?.... I think not.

I am going to give a parent's perspective here. My 7 year old runs. She calls herself a runner and she hates taking time off ( I still make her take it though ). My husband told her soccer was out, he hates that sport. I told her I didn't think it was a good idea to start this early, but she insisted. I have taken more CRAP from other people than you will ever know. I had one person come up to me and threaten to call child protective services because I was somehow abusing my child. As a parent, I know the statistics don't lie, children that start early often quit because of burnout. This girl likes running and obviously is getting some attention ( which I am sure is fueling her desire to run ). For goodness sakes, let her and let the chips fall where they may. I do this with my child and if she wants to quit someday, oh well, glad you enjoyed it while you did.

Amazing and well spoken.

is she the daughter of gabe jennings?

Oh good heavens, she is the cutest little distance runner ever. And I thought Brasovan was a doll.

I totally agree. I have met parents that put on a show and fool everyone into making them think they are great parents. Its hard to so say whether she is acting like this because of her parents or because she really likes it. I hope that she does like running and will continue too. My parents had me do some 5ks as a kid and they sure sucked ass because I didnt train. Luckly I didnt have to do those often. Soon as I got to be a freshmen in high school my parents told me to do a sport... so i choose cross country and track. Now I love running. I think its ok to expose your kids to a sport as long as you don't have high expectations and force it upon them.

haha you gotta be kidding me... there are a lot of myths about Kenyans and that is one of them just read the book More Fire by Toby Tanser.

Haven't you heard of the stories where Kenyan children run like 20km round trip to go to school, starting at the age of 2?

this is nothing, and who knows, she might be the one american to compete at the international distance level one day lol

nevermind i just read more comments...

how is a 5th grader competing in high school meets? I have heard of middle schoolers, like 8th grade, but not 5th grade...

Congratulations, quite an accomplishment, at any age. Great interview. Some day people will be asked if they know of you.

It was incredible to watch her run!

Cute!

does it matter? hell no.. she's freakin 10yrs old!! when i was ten i didn't even know what track and field was let along pro runners. to be a good runner and have fun in the sport you don't have to know who the top runners in the country are, cuz it will be at least 8-10yrs before she is in a position to race runners of that caliber.

She doesnt know who Jordan Hasay is??

Rule #1 of distance running: Know who Jordan Hasay is
How does she know Rowbury so well though? Out of Goucher, Flanagan, Kastor, and Rowbury, Rowbury is the one that has been on the national scene for the shortest time...

haha she's a cute little girl. she seems really smart. I hope she keeps having fun with it because she is still very young. Do you think theres a little parental pressure there?

This is not necessarily a bad thing AS LONG AS Dad isn't like softball or soccer dads I have met and he becomes way overly involved and prescribes heavy training. She should probably just be doing the 2-2.5 miles MAX/day she is already doing, IF she WANTS to do it. There is nothing wrong with letting a kid train IF they WANT to. If she played soccer she'd probably run at least that far and then some in practice and during games. The reason our sport isn't popular in middle and high school ranks like soccer and other sports is due mainly because we don't have the youth leagues or developmental systems that those other sports have. The so-called "grass roots" effort isn't as developed, nation-wide, as soccer leagues, which in my opinion don't give the kids a break either. In GA, they have soccer leagues, literally year round. That would burn me out as a kid. Or how about baseball or softball or basketball youth teams that play in tournaments year round. She will be fine and if she sticks with it, great, if not, she'll move on to something else and be phenomenal at that due to her amazing work ethic and aerobic base from this. The best thing is...she will always remember being a 10 year old state champ. :)

Brooks, she did beat my indoor pr, which was 12:14.48. Outdoors I ran 11:52.18.

gabe jennings is back baby!

yea she goes to a k-12 school so thats why she can compete at the high school level. schools like this are small, so you'll never see a 10yr old competing in 4A or 5A or for indoor standards D1. her school is class C so unless she transfers to a bigger high school when she gets older, she most likely will never have any true competition. 11:58 is a good time for any girl in class C as u can see, but for a 10yr old thats just ridiculous! zach she almost has your pr beat right?

11:58.90

What was her time?

The school she goes to goes up through high school. I think the LHSAA rule is if there's one principal for the entire school then there's no limit on how young an athlete can compete.

oh good ol' innocence

ive never heard of a state meet with high school and 10yr olds

THIS MEET WAS AWESOME

darn Ryan, ease up on the questions, she is only 10 yrs old, do you really expect her know everything?

I hope she has fun and you guys leave her alone for a couple of years...that's what I think

Jesus people- running 2.5 a day isnt too bad- as long as she loves it- we're talking 20' of running on her distance days-

There's just one meet for all public and private schools. The divisions are broken up based on the schools' size. Classes C, B, A, 2A, and 3A are in D2 and 4A and 5A are in D1.

Question about the LA State Meet: Are d2 all the private/independent schools and d1 all the public schools? Or is there another (or no) independent school's meet?

In response to the post from the person who stated that they didn't even know what Track was at 10 years old. When I was 8-9, I loved to run and compete in track meets and for years I begged my parents to let me enter -I was faster than every kid at my school and I wanted to compete in larger meets (TAC). My parents held me back until 6th grade, but once I started I had them taking me every weekend to meets. I never burned out, and 20+ years later I am still competing in running and triathlon events.

I don't think there is anything wrong with her knowing the names of runners. My 7-year-old nephew knows more football players than most adults I know, and I think that's pretty harmless. It's fun for them.

Where I come from if you try andget kids to learn about the sport, they and their parents act like you are from the moon.....good job Kevin and when she learns and becomes inspired..look out!!!!

I think its just the opposite if the point is developing Olympians. The unique thing about track is that an 11:45 is the same everywhere - it's objective. We are certain how good someone is. As opposed to soccer where every parent talls their kid they played "a good game". Imagine if we had the numbers of eight to 14 year olds "playing track"!

If the point is to just have fun, then forget what I just said. (Although it is certain that this kid is having fun.) Maybe she'll be the next Mary Decker - but with out the injuries hopefully.

Great kid, definitely a lot of talent! I'm not "dissing" her in any way, but please let the kid play soccer or crosstrain until she is 14-16 years old. It's crazy to let a kid train like a distance runner before his or hers body develops, this sport is not like soccer, iceskating or ballet.

And there is no hurry, distance runners can improve until they are 40 years old. Just look at Haile, sets a world record for the marathon and finished 6th in Beijing (10k) at age 35 or 36, and Gharib Jaouad a silver medalist in the marathon in Beijing, runs 3k in 7:39, he did his first run at age 23! Please, if you have the talent to be an olympian you don't need to start training like a distance runner befor 15 years old, it's not even too late in your early 20.

She said she just got started, and I say that's great and you all need to stop dissing her for starting too early when I see ding dong parents putting their 4 and 5 year olds in 5k's and expecting them to become olympians. I will be interested in seeing how she does when puberty hits, but I think she will manage because she started post age group bantam period. It looks like her dad is keeping her under control so lighten up.

cute!

dude... please give it a rest. u can tell from the interview that she's doing it for the fun of it. besides she's too young to be thinking about trying to emulate pro runners, relax!

I'm glad she doesn't know the pros names b/c it shows something about her. Think about it, she really may be doing this for fun and not to be "like" anybody else. From the interview with her dad, it doesn't seem like she's overtraining. Hope we'll see her again one day on flotrack.

AT first i was thinkin' "are you kidding me!" but now that i've thought about other sports such as soccer a lot of pro's start really young and as long as she keeps having fun and keeps progressing like her dad said "the sky's the limit"

"dude" u sounded a lil fruity but i agree with your last sentence. why are u glad she doesn't know the "pros" names, does that matter? lol

You go girl.
Glad that you DON'T know the pros names. Keep running and have fun.

Hopefully she can stay healthy and keep up her success in the upcoming years. As long as she stays dedicated and smart towards her running, she can continue to have a great running career in the future.

I'm not sure what I think of this.

As a coach of a new program, I would be happy with some 11:45 two mile runners on my HS boys track team.

How are 5th graders allowed to participate in High School Sports? Is there any age/grade limit?

I think she was 14 or 15 when she ran 2:01.8 indoors for the hs record that still stands today.

We've seen prodigies work before. Wasn't Mary Decker breaking records at age 12?

Wow, Gabe Jennings has really changed his look. I like it.

yea he seems to be holding her back with training and thats good. also the fact that she doesn't know many famous runners is a good sign too, means her dad is not flooding her brain with track info and is just letting her have fun with running in general. hopefully we'll see some great things from her for the next 7yrs of high school athletics.

There is an interview with the dad here if have not looked already. He seems like hes trying to keep it easy and keep her in the right direction.

Taylor, just for your information, her dad's high school times were: 800-1:56 1500-3:54.6 2mile-9:24, college: 1:50, 3:50, 3k steeple-8:54, 5k-14:48

I always wonder if kids this age really want to run... or if their parents are just attention whores... I see parents that try to live through their kids all the time... after high school they are done

What if she wants to run?

are you kidding me. When I was 10 I didn't even know that track and field was, let alone running state championships against high schoolers, and running 20 miles a week (didn't even do that till sopre year of hs). I really hope she has continued success, but I will say the odds are against her. Let the girl play soccer, take some dance classes, join the girl scouts, etc.

burnout

I'm not flotrack, but I think I can answer your questions about the state meet if you give me specific questions.

average of 2.5 per week ... ohh man that was funny. good thing you asked her 3 times.

flotrack ... can you explain how their state meet works?