A seven-year-old from the Nashville area just turned in a half marathon time that would be respectable for plenty of adult recreational runners. Tom Black completed the Nashville Half Marathon in 1 hour and 39 minutes, a mark described as the fastest time ever recorded by a runner his age.
The performance was covered by WBIR, and puts Black well ahead of the previous benchmark for seven-year-olds. According to the Des Moines Register, Jaden Merrick had held that distinction since September 2015, when he ran 1:43:36 at the Park to Park race in Waterloo, Iowa. Runner's World also listed Merrick's run, noting he was seven years old when he raced in Waterloo on September 12, 2015.
Black is no stranger to the Nashville course. A year earlier, as a six-year-old, he finished the same half marathon in 1 hour, 50 minutes and 52 seconds. The race's own recap, published by Run Nash, called that run the fastest half marathon ever recorded for a six-year-old at the time.
A Record That Keeps Moving Younger
That six-year-old mark itself had replaced a time that stood for nearly a decade. WSMV reported that the previous record for a six-year-old was 2:06:51, set in 2016 — the same time, as it happens, that Runner's World attributed to six-year-old Charlie Westrip, who ran it at the Huntsville Half Marathon in Alabama on November 12, 2016.
Black's jump from six to seven years old brought roughly an 11-minute improvement in his half marathon time.
World Athletics and Young Runners
A Marathon Handbook report on a different young runner noted that World Athletics does not ratify times for runners his age.
Caleb Barnes's 1:34:44 was recognized as the age-group record, displacing Liam Ballard's earlier 1:34:59.
Black's 1:39 in Nashville builds on a result that was already turning heads in Music City a year ago.
