Building a quality Jr. High/Middle School program

We have close to 100 middle schoolers in our program, which is semi-integrated with our high school program. The integration alone helps a LOT. They get to see the faster/older guys training and racing on occasion. The numbers help too of course.

I like to think about middle school being "training to train." By the time they get to the high school level, they should be used to warming up for a workout, cooling down after, what going out for an easy run entails, what interval workouts entails, etc. Details don't matter. Stay away from hammering workouts. Long intervals (repeats anything more than 3-4min) are not great either, just from an attention-span perspective. Keep it simple...10x200m fast, 200m jog is an easy one. Hill repeats are good too: run up, walk down. Pacing for workouts is too much of a mess. Just use effort levels: "Okay today we're gonna do ten 200s at 80% speed with a 200 jog really easy!" You can talk up good pacing a little more on race day, but workout splits, recovery times, all that stuff can wait 'til high school. Remember, middle schoolers have an attention span of 30 seconds AT BEST! As soon as you start going on about workout groups or splits or whatever...you'll lose them.

As for run distance, pace, mileage, all that...not important. Ideally I'd like to get the kids working up to doing five mile runs at least a couple of times during the season, but I don't sweat the details. Plenty of time for that in high school. Just getting them out the door to run for 20-25min and not having them stop to screw around on the playground for most of it is good enough for me!

We do practice 5 days a week, plus Saturday which is optional. Usually 10-20 kids show up Saturday. Usually one game-day a week: soccer, frisbee, ships across the ocean, whatever. This helps keep things fun.

A few kids run in the summer, not many. Not hardcore training or anything...that can come later in high school. Just a few days a week of 2-4 miles. I don't know when the best time to "specialize" as a runner is (i.e. when to train year-round), but my best guess is that it's around age 15-16.

Having goals for kids to work for is nice. "Sub-6 mile club" t-shirts, keeping 7th grade / 8th grade records or top-10 lists, that kind of thing. You already know the most basic point: keep it fun! But try to instill the idea that WINNING is fun too. Take care of the above things, and with the right coaching attitude (focused on the kids, focused on fun, focused on the process) you'll start winning. It takes the right kind of coach...have to be good with kids. The maturity level of 6th-8th graders is very different than 9-12.

Final tip, try to identify talent early. We race a track mile even during the cross country season for a benchmark (good for sub-6 mile club opportunities!). We like to keep tabs on the fast kids...get to know their parents a little better, get an idea of what their other activities are. Most of our top high school runners were also our top middle schoolers. Obviously you don't want to play favorites though. kids pick up on that real quick.

Agreed with most everything you said, especially the benefits of being integrated with the high school kids. Getting to see the big kids in their colorful sweats and uniforms, seeing and being part of the camaraderie, having the big kids cheer for them are all big deals. Having a shirt or uniform in the same colors as the high school is also a big deal.

Hate what you said about hills though. My youngest came back from her very first middle school cross country workout not wanting to go back because they did hills on the very first day and she ran herself nearly to throwing up. She was excited to go out and run a couple miles with her friends and instead had an awful experience. Took me more than a week to get her to give it a second chance.

The thing I did with both my girls was recruit their friends to the team through their parents. My older one had 4 friends from soccer out for the team and the younger one has 3 friends from her class.

RebootRunner wrote:Hate what you said about hills though. My youngest came back from her very first middle school cross country workout not wanting to go back because they did hills on the very first day and she ran herself nearly to throwing up. She was excited to go out and run a couple miles with her friends and instead had an awful experience. Took me more than a week to get her to give it a second chance.

No good coach is going to start off the season by having kids do hard workouts. That was a mistake on the coaches part, as that could chase away kids new to the sport. That being said, incorporating hill repeats is important - that just shouldn't be a Day 1 workout. The first week should be about introducing the kids to the sport and making sure the kids have a decent base to work off of before you have them try to push themselves.

My coach in middle school turned a good deal of workouts into games. Myself and my team as a whole seemed to turnout fairly well.

ie: -turn repeats into a relay, separating kids into teams and competing

-go into a large field and play tag(10-15 push-ups when you get tagged, no walking, only sprinting and running)

Thanks so much! This is all great!

Some things that SHOULD happen:

Integrate with the high school coaches, providing they have established they know what they're doing.

Have high school coaches talk with your athletes at some point before the end of the season to try and keep the kids within track. We seem to lose good athletes each year to other sports that become available in 9th grade.

DO NOT have the distance kids run every event on the schedule each meet. It amazes me when I see a middle school coach run a 12 or 13 year old in the 4x8, 1600, 800 and 3200 in a meet. At the high school level I limit athletes to 2 races, 3 max if it's a seasoned athlete and a big meet.

I coached at the high school and the middle school brings out close to the same numbers as the high school. Number one thing is recruiting and when your a teacher in the school this makes it so much easier. And recruit everyone even if you don't think they will be good. Be a fun coach but serious about the work that needs to be done to get better. Teach the kids you can work hard and have fun. Smart training programs where the kids see the improvement aka PRing at the end of the season and year after year goes a long way. Myself knowing how little the middle in my town trains i look at the times differently. A girl running 6:30 to 7:00 mile maybe slow in middle school but knowing thats off four days a week with little running i know i can get that kid under 6 minutes as a freshman by the end of the year. Going on tangents now but make it fun and like above games once a week can be good and leave the serious training for high school. If you have a kid that wants to do a little more then why not. Within reason of course.

I have a 7th grade son who runs for what I would call a successful middle school program. XC was his first season in a school sport and it went really well.

At least on the boy's side, the middle school program is very well integrated with the high school program. They practice at the same time and place, although the HS starts earlier as they have last period study hall to go to practice. There are three coaches; the HS head coach, another that works with the freshman (not Jr high in this state) and the 'elite' (usually 8th grade) jr high kids and one that works with the 7th graders/newcomers. During XC season the practices for the 7th graders were focused on getting them running. I think they built up to 3 miles max. They did games to learn the top 5 scoring concept - run here take a picture of your group of 5, run there take another, etc. As top 7th graders emerged, they began to be integrated with the 8th graders, including running at the state meet so they have experience for next year.

The Jr High kids wear the same uniforms, do the same fundraisers and attend the same EOY banquet as the varsity and JV. It's very much one program through all 3 seasons and summer running.

Talent helps, too.

"The thing I did with both my girls was recruit their friends to the team through their parents. My older one had 4 friends from soccer out for the team and the younger one has 3 friends from her class."

This is key. My son ran some in elementary school but wouldn't run in junior high. In HS a bunch of the guys he eats lunch with decided, with some parental pushing (not me), to all go out for XC. I think they are in it for the long haul now.

My daughter has run all through JHS but her friends have slowly dropped out. My hope now is that she follows her brother, even if it is just to see if she can beat what he has done.

This

This is a very good post!

In middle school the most important thing you can do is get the talented kids to run. Keep it fun so they can all enjoy coming to practice. Year after year I see kids running well in middle school who I wouldn't consider runners. They are just talented kids and tough competitors. Also, if you are really interested in winning meets then look for the kids that have started maturing early (boys, not so much for girls). Unfortunately some of those kids lose interest in High School because they lose their greatest advantage by this time. If you really want to find runners with great future potential then look for the skinny little kids that are very stubborn and high academic achievers. Look for the boys who are obviously not anywhere near puberty but run very smoothly and can almost keep up with the more mature boys. I remember watching Matt Tegenkamp run as a freshman in high school. Skinny little kid that hadn't done much physical maturing. He wasn't winning anything but he looked really smooth and could keep up with much bigger boys for a good part of the race.

To have a successful middle school cross country team you really just need to get the fast/naturally competitive kids to run. Keep in mind that they will many times be the same kids that are good at other sports so it's not easy to get them to run. You just aren't going to get to do a lot of development in middle school. Now if you want to help your local high school program then you should focus on recruiting kids that have long term potential (and they are not always the same kids).

This is all great. Thanks all!

Just wondering what state are you from?

br0ski wrote:

Just wondering what state are you from?

Illinois. Are you a fellow coach?

Just another questions since I've seen and heard games being mentioned. What would be some examples of games that involve running where 100+ kids would be able to participate? Thanks!

Timmeh wrote:

My coach in middle school turned a good deal of workouts into games. Myself and my team as a whole seemed to turnout fairly well.

ie: -turn repeats into a relay, separating kids into teams and competing

-go into a large field and play tag(10-15 push-ups when you get tagged, no walking, only sprinting and running)

These are both good ideas. Also capture the flag where jail is an ab circuit or push ups.

br0ski wrote:

Timmeh wrote:

My coach in middle school turned a good deal of workouts into games. Myself and my team as a whole seemed to turnout fairly well.

ie: -turn repeats into a relay, separating kids into teams and competing

-go into a large field and play tag(10-15 push-ups when you get tagged, no walking, only sprinting and running)

These are both good ideas. Also capture the flag where jail is an ab circuit or push ups.

Thanks!

All good things. One thing that should be taught me more is proper track etiquette. When I ran in high school the junior high team had no sense of lane 1 has people running workouts at faster paces. The coaches didn't seem to care other and a few times resulting in some 13 year old girl getting run over when she stepped into lane 1 as the varsity sprinters launched into a hard 200.

Positive Contribution wrote:

All good things. One thing that should be taught me more is proper track etiquette. When I ran in high school the junior high team had no sense of lane 1 has people running workouts at faster paces. The coaches didn't seem to care other and a few times resulting in some 13 year old girl getting run over when she stepped into lane 1 as the varsity sprinters launched into a hard 200.

Again, thanks for all of the great responses. Another question I had is what would be a range of mile times needed in the spring (during track) before a runner could expect to break 11 for 2 miles the following fall?