Jerry and Stefanie: I don’t think you can look at an 18-yr-old’s 400 time and know what her potential is without knowing anything about her. For an athlete who trained hard and well in high school, I think an improvement of 4 seconds in college would represent great progress. If a girl went from 63 to 56 while partying all the time in college, I would say that she was either a very late developer or one who didn’t apply herself in high school. In my girl’s case (coaching her for 4 years) I would say that reaching 56 would be a great achievement and one that would well satisfy her. 55 would put her over the moon. But we can all agree that she isn’t going to get close to that if her coach just beats the hell out of her.
One thing is certain in all this: If the athlete is NOT capable of advancing beyond 56 sec, there is no way they are capable of handling 20x200m- let alone 30x 200