She is in 8th grade running track right now and struggling immensley. Brief history of her running:
She ran a 6:40 mile in 6th grade gym class on zero training. Since she grew watching me run XC/track (I'm 10 years older), she decided she wanted to go out for the cross country team in 7th grade. She didn't train at all in the summer but got in decent shape by the end of her 7th grade XC season. Jr high girls run 1.5 miles for XC, she started the year at 12 minutes (8:00 pace) and ran just over 10 minutes her last meet (6:4x pace). Her training was pretty slack, basically 10-20 minute runs with some strides. I also convinced her to run 30-40 minutes on Sundays.
After xc she decided she would actually do some off season training and averaged about 15 mpw over the winter. She opened her 7th grade track season with a 6:33 1600 and 2:51 800, and got down to a 6:05 1600 and 2:37 800. She probably could have gotten under 6 with better pacing but she always went out too hard. The high school coach was impressed with her season and asked her if she wanted to move up to varsity as an 8th grader, which she accepted.
Over the summer before her 8th grade XC season, she bumped up her training a little more, running about 20-25 mpw with a 2 mile tempo, a fartlek, and a 50-60 minute long run as weekly workouts. Unfortunately her first few races were a bit disappointing, 25 minutes for 5K the first meet and like 24:20 the second. She eventually got down to around 22:20 by the end of the season, but was overall disappointed, as her track times from 7th grade indicated that she should have been faster.
She upped the training again this past winter leading into her 8th grade track season, about 25-30 mpw, again with a short tempo, fartlek, and long run each week. Unfortunately, her track season has been an absolute disaster so far this spring. Her first 1600 was 6:43 and her next was 6:51. 800 was also bad, 2:49 and 2:56. Her third meet she ran the open 400 and 4x400, running 71 in both races, which was promising. But her most recent meet was just horrid, a 7:09 1600 and a 2:57 800.
How is it that she is running so much slower even with more mileage? She said she doesn't feel like she's overtraining, and other girls on her team seem to be doing fine. She hasn't been sick at all and is eating healthy. Also no injuries whatsoever since she started running. I am just baffled. Anyway, this post is getting long, so if anyone has any advice I (we) would greatly appreciate it.