Tennessee 7-Year-Old Sets a Half-Marathon Age Record for the Second Straight Year

Tom Black, a 7-year-old from Brentwood, Tenn., ran the Nashville Half Marathon in 1:39:48 on Oct. 24, the fastest half-marathon on record for a runner his age. His father, Kyle, ran alongside him and finished one second behind.

Tom, who is in second grade, averaged 7:37 per mile over the hilly course, according to the official results, and finished ahead of more than 2,100 of the race’s 2,299 finishers. His father, who is 39, came in at 1:39:49. They had a rough night beforehand, too: Tom broke a finger in a fall at home and was treated in the emergency room, the family told WBIR.

On the same course a year earlier, aged 6, Tom ran 1:50:52, which took almost 16 minutes off the previous best for a 6-year-old, Charlie Westrip’s 2:06:51 from Huntsville, Ala., in 2016. This year he was another 11 minutes quicker, and more than 20 minutes ahead of the average men’s half-marathon finish of about 2:01 in Marathon Handbook’s own data. Organizer Run Nash marked the 2025 run on its website, and its owner, Malain McCormick, told WBIR that Nashville is no one’s idea of a fast course.

“It is a very difficult course. The elevation change, I think, is over 750 feet. It is hilly. The hills don’t stop,” McCormick said.

Where the Record Comes From

Both of Tom’s runs are measured against the world single-age list kept by the Association of Road Racing Statisticians, an independent nonprofit that compiles road running records and rankings. Its boys’ entry for age 7 is 1:43:36, run by Jaden Merrick in Waterloo, Iowa, in September 2015, which puts Tom 3:48 under it. He was faster than the girls’ age-7 mark as well, Makenzie Kolvoord’s 1:40:59 from Carderock, Md., in 2014.

The ARRS page was last updated on Nov. 20, 2017, and still lists Westrip at age 6, so neither of Tom’s times appears on it yet. Youth bests tend to be tracked this informally, surfacing through local news and race organizers’ posts instead of a federation’s books. When 11-year-old Ben Dick ran 1:20:14 in Indianapolis in May, his mark was reported as unofficial for the same reason.

The Comment Section

Lauren Black, Tom’s mother, has been sharing videos of his races online, and while most of the response has been encouraging, the family told WBIR that some commenters have questioned whether the running is good for his legs and accused his parents of pushing him too hard.

“His pediatrician signs off on everything,” Kyle Black said. “You go online, everyone’s like, ‘He’s going to disrupt his hormones or close his growth plates or, or that I’m pushing him like way too hard.’ Just things like that, but he voluntarily does it with me, and we go super slow, and everyone that we’ve talked to is very supportive.”

The Road Runners Club of America advises that races of 10K and longer wait until after puberty, and New York Road Runners sets a minimum age of 16 for its half-marathons, while recommending that young runners race with a family member and focus on finishing rather than on time. The Nashville Half Marathon has no age limit. Marathon Handbook has looked at how far children can safely run, and has covered the 10-year-old who ran a full marathon with his father in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and a 7-year-old who ran most of the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati without a bib. Age rules differ widely between races: the Zhengzhou Marathon in China, which requires half-marathon entrants to be 18, banned a runner last month after he ran its race with a 9-year-old boy tied to his waist.

The Blacks took up running as father-and-son time, starting with short runs around Crockett Park in Brentwood and adding distance once it was clear Tom could stay with his dad, usually with a Harry Potter audiobook playing. Kyle Black told WBIR the pair will rest before entering another big race, though Tom has already picked his next target.

“In next October, I can beat you,” he told his father. “Guaranteed.”