Will the Welsch sisters be all-time xc greats or burn out by high school?

yea they don't stand a chance, their parents are idiots

Why are you even posting about running on a day like today?

Seriously. Get a life. No one cares about running today.

My money is on burnout.

I will not stoop to your level and call you names. This is a running forum, not a political one. I am under 18, so I can't vote anyways. If you want to hear and talk about political views, go to a political form. It is called LetsRUN for a reason.

more than likely both of them will be sick of running (and their parents) by the time they are 16/18.

93 average? Im all for academic excellence but once these kids get to high school, having already run thousands of miles, such high expectations both academically and athletically will probably crush their desire.

Dont forget the fact that once these girls become teenagers, they are more than likely going to develop interests other than running (social life).

Im not trying to be Debbie-Downer, but I've seen it all too many times, and not just in running. Quite often I see (over)enthusiastic moms and dads just dead set on the "fact" that their child is an upcoming star in their sport. They often push for overachievement in everything, school as well as their sport. They send these kids to camps, personal training, etc. And the kids often like it... at first.

Then the kid graduates the sixth grade and getting all A+s while exercising/training every day isnt so easy anymore. The kid gets tired of 10 mile runs and wants to hang out with friends on the weekends, or maybe just goof around and be a kid. They develop attraction to the opposite gender, they want to play a different sport, and all of a sudden theres more to life than running/soccer/etc. 24/7 of anything is more than likely to cause burnout, I'm not saying thats exactly the case here but it certainly looks like it.

As a track coach and director of several road races/5ks I sometimes run into stuff like this.

Who knows, maybe these kids will set HS records, state championships, NCAA titles, Olympics, and thats great for them if they do.

As they get older, both girls will tell their idiot father to shove his pathetic head games up his azz.

LOL, look at that clowny tall dude in the X Terra photo with all of his gear. LOOOOOOOSSSEEEEEEEER

Behind bib 265 some dude's eating poo.

redux wrote:

Behind bib 265 some dude's eating poo.

Is that a dude? I think it is the other Welsch girl. Tats McGee clipped her heels because he didn't want to lose to a girl.

Idiot parents are overracing them. Really they aren't even THAT good. 20:00 for a bunch of 5ks? Meh. At the end of the NYT article one of them runs 1:30 for a half marathon, which is decent, but now she's going to thrash herself over some stupid hard trail run. These girls couldn't make varsity at a good high school. Not yet, at least. Definitely lots of talent, but just stupid dumb parents. 12 year olds going running every day or almost every day is great. Racing every weekend is stupid. Especially running on an injury—what kind of idiocy is that? Call me when they are winning Foot Locker...oh wait.

This discussion is a completely different one than when an intelligent parent trains a talented young runner (often a girl) and is much more likely to have good results. You can all probably think of some good examples right now. What do the successful ones have in common? NOT racing 90 times a year, I can tell you that much.

Oh, I think your right. Sorry. That sucks.

I think it's great that they are running the way they are.

However, I am concerned about their father. He's going to ruin their love of running.

I guess these girls have had their 15 minutes of fame. Kaytlynn is a senior and Heather is a sophomore. Neither one has panned out to become the great runners they were hyped up to be as preteens. They are mid-19 5K runners now, which doesn't even put you close to a Regional title in Texas high school competition. The previous articles bragged about them being world-elite and age group world record-holders. Now they will be lucky to get a NCAA D1 offer.

Let kids be kids. Let them run for fun. They should not be seriously training for marathons at age 10.

BigTex wrote:

I guess these girls have had their 15 minutes of fame. Kaytlynn is a senior and Heather is a sophomore. Neither one has panned out to become the great runners they were hyped up to be as preteens. They are mid-19 5K runners now, which doesn't even put you close to a Regional title in Texas high school competition. The previous articles bragged about them being world-elite and age group world record-holders. Now they will be lucky to get a NCAA D1 offer.

Let kids be kids. Let them run for fun. They should not be seriously training for marathons at age 10.

Thanks for the update.

To play devil's advocate: if they are still running (even not particularly fast), that means they are healthy and not damaged by the running very long distances at a very young age?

BigTex wrote:

I guess these girls have had their 15 minutes of fame. Kaytlynn is a senior and Heather is a sophomore. Neither one has panned out to become the great runners they were hyped up to be as preteens. They are mid-19 5K runners now, which doesn't even put you close to a Regional title in Texas high school competition. The previous articles bragged about them being world-elite and age group world record-holders. Now they will be lucky to get a NCAA D1 offer.

Let kids be kids. Let them run for fun. They should not be seriously training for marathons at age 10.

Good for them, it seems that they improved from 20min 5k to mid 19min 5k. I hope that they keep running and improving

It seems they both do tri/du with some good results

The fact they're trying different types of races and still having fun in sport would indicate to me that it was/is mostly for fun rather than pressure