Happy birthday, Jared Ward!
The American marathoner turns 28 today. The Utah native owns personal bests of 13:34.74 in the 5K, 28:36.15 in the 10K, 1:01:42 in the half marathon, and just last month set his new PB in the marathon at 2:11:30 as he placed sixth at the Rio Olympic Games.
In 2015, Ward won the USA 25K Championships and placed second in the US Half Marathon Championship. In 2016, he took third at the US Olympic Marathon Trails and sixth at the Rio Olympic Games.
Ward has obviously had loads of success recently, which got us wondering how many people ran faster than him in high school. As a senior at Davis High School, Ward ran PBs of 9:29.81 for 3200m, 9:15.21 for the two-mile, 14:39.10 for the 5K, 15:54.90 for the XC three-mile and 16:02.00 in the XC 5K.
Jared Ward ran his high school XC 5K PB at Foot Locker Nationals in 2006. A deep dive into the all-time Foot Locker Nationals list reveals that Ward was clearly a late bloomer.
