9 year old son broke his 5k PR

hmmm...so he dropped from 22.17 in February to 18:45 this weekend? EPO, short course or course cutter.

Damn that's fast.

Mine eyes deceive me.

bump up the mileage, more speedwork/short intervals and begin to incorporate basic strength training/weights at least once a week

weekly long run on Sunday and biweekly intermediate tempo/fartlek workout

The real Hingle McCringleberry can't even run that.

go to playmakers and get that kid a new pair of spikes and get him on the track!

Tyrannnosaurus Rexing wrote:

The real Hingle McCringleberry can't even run that.

Shut up. I probably could not run that right now, but I've run fast than than, and if I trained for 3 months, I could probably run that.

I remember when each of my 2 boys first beat me in a 5K. Very proud moment for me and my sons since I didn't 'let' them win. They both were in HS so much older than your son.

The 22:17 was through a foot of snow. Course was legit, check out his times on Athlinks if needed. He has run multiple 19 minute 5ks, this was his first sub 19. He does run junior Olympic track and XC, he is a two time All American for his age in XC and this year All American for indoor, 1500 meter and 800 meter. He trains as much as he needs to right now, he has lots of years to step up the mileage. He wants to run more but he is still improving consistently from 2-3 runs a week and 10 miles total. His name is Espen Lehnst if you want to look up his times. Just a proud dad sharing his accomplishments.

I am not surprised. He's a chip off the ole block.

Shane Lehnst wrote:

His name is Espen Lehnst if you want to look up his times. Just a proud dad sharing his accomplishments.

Please tell me you didn't name him after ESPN?

No joke - my kid ran a 5.11 1500 when he was 9 1/2, on zero distance training. He was supposed to be a sprinter, did that once a week. He only won by a foot too, and the other kid was the same age (and also didn't train).

Kids have a fantastic aerobic capacity.

Hey Steven, been a long time. I take a little credit for his genetics but he is far more talented than I ever was. More importantly I don't let him run the miles and amount of races that we ran growing up. My daughter Liliana ran a 5k last year in 23:49 as a 7 year old, so she has some talent also. It is a blast to watch them compete and improve.

'My son is 9 years old and loves running'

He will hate it when he's 19 then

Seems like you have a talented son and know what you are doing. When I was younger I would sometimes run a race against soccer players and they would sometimes beat me. This always bothered me because I ran track and they didn't. Turned out they did a lot more running than I did at that age while playing soccer. All I did was a 2 lap jog warmup, some drils, and then some fun stuff like long jump or javelin.

Doclove wrote:

'My son is 9 years old and loves running'

He will hate it when he's 19 then

In his part of the world, he could become a big fish. Girls like big fish, and I will assume that the kid will like that when he's 19.

Not sure if I know what I am doing but time will tell. I know how I was trained and the 70+ races I ran a year between ages 9-15 was not the right way. I threw away my scholarship due to mental burnout and at 37 my knees hurt every day. I hope making my kids scale back in training and racing and keeping them active in other sports leads to a different outcome, they definitely have natural ability. I also make them take a full month off of running after XC and after summer road racing, to give them a break. I figure when they get to 7th or 8th grade we can lift the restrictions so they are ready for high school training. I hope they stick with it, my son has a great attitude towards running and doesn't focus on winning or losing just likes improving his own times. My daughter though is a lot like I was, if she wins she loves running and if she loses she hates running but she is just 7.

A typical training week for them is an easy 3-4 mile run, 3 mile tempo run and either a race or 2-3 miles doing some hill repeats sprints. They never run two days in a row either. If they don't want to run a race or do a training run then I don't force them, but they understand you only improve if you train and if they ask me to sign them up for a race they follow thru and run it. They still have their moments where they run a few minutes slower than expected but they always bounce back.

Get him on a track.

The 5000m world record is 18:41.3.

How do you find current age records for track? I was sent the current age group records by USATF for road races but it shows the 5k record for a 9 year old boy is 18:07. My son turns 10 at the end of June so he has a slim shot at it.