don't give up on the speed thing. my 2023 was around 7.9 last year at this time. he was around 6/1"/170. he grew some, worked out a ton and incorporated stretching in his daily routine (focusing on hips, not just hams as a lot of people seem to do). now he's 6'2"/195 and ran a 7.1 last weekend at an event. has also run 6.9-7.0 hand timed (but with two clocks on him) in previous weeks. the big difference is his strength and flexibility. He also does very little direct sprint training but does run downhill and flat ground sprints a couple of times a week. we found a perfect slope at his high school. it's downhill enough to increase his stride length and frequency due to gravity but not sloped enough to throw him off balance when he's running. it's helped, i think, as his gait looks a lot better when he's running and he's chopped a tenth off of his 60 in the month or so that he's been doing it.