Who was the first high school girl in Virginia to run a sub 5 minute mile?
The answer to the Fun Trivia question,
"Who was the first high school girl in the state of Virginia to
run a sub-5-minute mile?" is Sarah Bowman. By all accounts, Ms.
Bowman is an exceptional athlete and, according to
http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=4573, she did run a
sub-5-minute outdoor mile (4:57.05) as a senior in high school.
Also, according to her University of Tennessee track and field
biography,
http://www.utladyvols.com/sports/w-track/mtt/bowman_sarah00.html,
she ran a 4:36.95 outdoor mile in 2005. That site also cites the
2005 4:36.95 outdoor mile as "the fastest ever run by a female at a
high school-only competition". The University of Tennessee track
and field biography for Ms. Bowman goes on to state that she also
ran a sub-5-minute indoor mile (4:46.79) while in high school.
However, since the question reads, "Who was the first high
school girl in the state of Virginia to run a sub-5-minute mile?",
one can interpret the question to mean "Who was the first high
school girl to run a sub-5-minute mile in Virginia?" or "Who was
the first girl from a Virginia high school to run a sub-5-minute
mile?"
According to Sports Illustrated,
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1085941/index.htm,
16-year-old Debbie Heald of La Mirada, Calif., set a world in an
indoor-world-record of 4:38.5 in Richmond, Virginia on March 17,
1972. As such, Sarah Bowman may have been the first girl from a
Virginia high school to run a sub-5-minute mile but she wasn't the
first high school girl to run a sub-five-minute mile in
Virginia.