youth runners in marathons +

Don't be a idiot and focus on XC and track.

are you mentally ill or what

focus on track

I'll never understand why high schoolers do these races. Focus on your high school sports in track and cross country. Running marathons isn't going to help you run your 1600 PR in high school.

Ritzenhein crackers wrote:

Don't be a idiot and focus on XC and track.

+1,000,000

Tell your kid to play school sports. He/she has the rest of his/her life to run marathons.

There is no benefit to it. I have seen a fair number of kids do marathons at an early age and never saw one go on to be anything other than a very average runner in college. Most burn out before then.

I have no problem with a good HS distance kid running a marathon just to get a taste of what it is about. I have seen some success in having that seed planted early. But the ones who run multiple marathons or ultras never turn out well.

Precious Roy wrote:

There is no benefit to it. I have seen a fair number of kids do marathons at an early age and never saw one go on to be anything other than a very average runner in college. Most burn out before then.

I have no problem with a good HS distance kid running a marathon just to get a taste of what it is about. I have seen some success in having that seed planted early. But the ones who run multiple marathons or ultras never turn out well.

Ran a couple of marathons in the (low 2:40ish) range in Highschool. Personally, I don’t think they harmed me( had my best XC and track seasons- talking mid 15s for 5k- after running a couple of marathons, and when I stopped doing them I actually regressed slightly) but I was very high mileage and mostly self-trained. I could recover incredibly fast.

In college years now and have seen many low mileage kids burn out and leave running while I’ve remained and flourished, although I have had some personal issues that have led me to taking a few long breaks- nothing to do with marathons though. You could say I could have been better, but I personally doubt it since I can’t break 28 seconds for a 200 or 60 seconds for a 400 but can run below 1:10 or near 15:00 on a perfect day.

I think it’s possible to do well in marathons and still run fast in XC but NOT FOR NORMAL AVERAGE HS KIDS. My situation and mentality was probably different than most others..... I could get away with this kind of stuff but I doubt others could.

So, is it possible to run marathons from a very young age and still run fast in XC and track? Absolutely. Is it possible to not burn out from it? In some cases. Should an average HS kid do it? NO. If I were a coach a marathon would be nowhere near a Highschool kid’s schedule.

Focus on XC, run some high mileage and good workouts, and you’ll go fast.

Kid Marathoner 1 wrote:

Ran a couple of marathons in the (low 2:40ish) range in Highschool. Personally, I don’t think they harmed me( had my best XC and track seasons- talking mid 15s for 5k- after running a couple of marathons, and when I stopped doing them I actually regressed slightly) but I was very high mileage and mostly self-trained. I could recover incredibly fast.

I call bs

I smell a lie wrote:

Kid Marathoner 1 wrote:

Ran a couple of marathons in the (low 2:40ish) range in Highschool. Personally, I don’t think they harmed me( had my best XC and track seasons- talking mid 15s for 5k- after running a couple of marathons, and when I stopped doing them I actually regressed slightly) but I was very high mileage and mostly self-trained. I could recover incredibly fast.

I call bs

Email me at

if you’re really that interested.... I can send you links to results and verify all of this for you....

jeff72 wrote:

hey LRC, question about ur guys thoughts about teens in marathons and ultras, if self motivated, have taken steps to injury prevention and train 40-50 mpw. thanks.

The OP never mentioned anything about benefits for track or XC, just asked thoughts about teens doing ultras and marathons. Everyone is so quick to judge!

Maybe they have no desire to compete in high school or beyond. Maybe they just want to challenge themselves for their own reasons.

Running marathons or beyond are not "good for you". Doesn't mean there aren't some awesome benefits. I think if a kid is self motivated, doing it for reasons that are healthy, it's a great accomplishment and can be very rewarding.

Give them the best advice you can based on the best evidence you can find, then let them decide. Still better than if they chose football?

Running 26.2 miles hard on pavement beats one up pretty bad. So there is an injury risk (esp if under 18). I started running marathons in college (age 21) which was pretty early, but I also ran a 1:13 half during "winter base" in hs as well as lot of 10km road races (32:05 in hs). In general the marathon training in college allowed me to run PRs in track from 800m to 10km and have my best cross country season ever the year after I ran 2:22 and 2:21 within a 6 month span. However, I haven't never improved much since my debut of 2:22. I was putting in 100mpw as a sophomore in college and up to 70mpw in hs. If you want to just have fun and do trails-ultras then it could go okay with running on the team for xc...but if you are serious about track it might be hard to reach your potential at 1600m-5km while also doing serious road marathon training, school, and racing ultras on the trails. Then of course the shift specific training with a general in lack of speedwork (track intervals for example) and the injury risk. You can always move up in distance as you get older in your 20s....esp if you really enjoy the sport.

Click To Continue wrote:

Give them the best advice you can based on the best evidence you can find, then let them decide. Still better than if they chose football?

I was shocked to see this 10 year old in the results for this marathon. He beat me in a 5k last summer, mid 18:xx. Marathon time was 3:52. Don't know what kind of mileage he's running.

https://www.webscorer.com/racedetails?raceid=129141&did=141911&cid=730783&gender=M

dirtroadSC wrote:

I was shocked to see this 10 year old in the results for this marathon. He beat me in a 5k last summer, mid 18:xx. Marathon time was 3:52. Don't know what kind of mileage he's running.

https://www.webscorer.com/racedetails?raceid=129141&did=141911&cid=730783&gender=M

Needs to do more aerobic work. He should easily be running 3:10. Or he went out too fast and bonked.

OP, I have to think you knew the reaction this would have. I certainly knew the moment I saw the thread title. The MB crowd is violently opposed to teenagers running without school sanction. The court of public opinion allows you to run for reasons other than the glory of the school at the age of 24. This is nearly universally obeyed in the US (although nowhere else) but this was not always the case.

When I was in HS, I ran road races not as an adjunct to something else, but it's what I - and most of my friends - mainly did. These included marathons and in our sophomore year 3 other guys rode with me and my dad to one. I was the only one under 3 that time, but the point is that 4 underclass men from one school ran one on the same day. Other guys we knew did various other races too. By the way, I didn't get on the 17-and-under podium that year nor the next when I ran the same event and took off a chunk of time. We didn't know the kids running in the 2:40s, nor did we approach them afterwards in amazement that other teenagers from another school and another town were there. We didn't consider it strange: there were a bunch of 15 and 16 year olds at every race we went to. It often took a 34 minute 10km to get top-3 in our division but in a big race with people from around a large area that wouldn't do it. I did around 33:30 once and didn't need to stay for the awards. Incidentally, the marathons I mentioned were during track season - or so I thought, but since my crowd and I had nothing to do with the school's team we didn't really know when that was.

OK, so what's the problem now? Public opinion. That's it. No problem otherwise. Nearly everyone in this country believes your teens 'should' be spent running non-standard non-events like 1600m. Then for a few years you can run 5 and 10km. In you late 20s you are 'allowed' to do a marathon, but not without a half first. This is what the masses and the MB says you are 'supposed to' do. What authority do they have over you, OP? If I were to demand that every 14 year old immediately run a marathon, they would ignore me, as well they should. Ergo, OP, ignore them!

I think the overall attitude towards running is different for a lot of people nowadays. Lot of kids used to hop in races and run a lot of miles and didn’t particularly specialize. Personally, I trained much more the a 70’s and 80’s kid than a ‘10s kid- I ran, and still run, large #’s of races( probably more than almost anyone nowadays) and high mileage without much specialization. If you’re that person, this is going to work out much better for you. Road racing was incredibly fun and rewarding for me and I did a lot of it for the love of the sport. You can definitely make it work- but you have to have the attitude for it, which most kids nowadays do not have.

The problem is most kids nowadays have specialized training programs and their attitude has changed. I can tell you from looking at the guys on my team- if they ran a marathon, they’d be fried for a while. They have a different kind of foundation where they don’t have the ability to handle that kind of race. It’s not a smart decision for most kids- given their attitude. If you have a more care free, high mileage, hop in a ton of races attitude- and it won’t psych you out too much- then I think it’s ok to do this.

jeff72 wrote:

hey LRC, question about ur guys thoughts about teens in marathons and ultras, if self motivated, have taken steps to injury prevention and train 40-50 mpw. thanks.

I am a passionate runner, I love the sport and all it entails. Honestly though, if my son came to me in 16 years and said, "Dad, I want to run a road marathon," I'd have some initial concerns and thoughts of my own.

I'd want to know why and if he is running XC or Track, how he believes it would benefit him. At 16, he is in the height of development, and I am personally just not sold on running that distance is going to benefit him. I'd be proud, no doubt as many kids that age want to experiment with other not so benefiting endeavors, still I'd have my hesitations towards it.

I'd probably shift him towards a trail or road half marathon and would highly suggest waiting a few more years. If he finds a passion in running, I'd try and help him see the bigger picture of long term development. Focusing on top end speed and efficiency at 16 will benefit you more than logging big time mileage that their body likely isn't built for, yet.

Hey man, it's cool that you're doing road races at all. I mean, I look at results today and in my old division there will be a 'finishers' (you know, 1:50 half) scoring the win. You're right that it is rare and you're probably picking up age-group wins all the time. I certainly did, but as mentioned, there were times I did pretty well only to find 4 or 5 random 17 year olds ahead of me.

What I was describing , though, was not so much a Bill Rodgers, etc approach in which a lot of races were run as workouts without tapering much or peaking for them. It's true that's what the pros did when I was a teenager. They took Boston and Fukuoka very seriously but a 15km in Toledo or whatever was just a workout. It's not really what we did, though. The Spring marathon was perhaps the highlight of the first half of the year. It sounds like you're on a team and ripping of a half or full then getting on with track season. We didn't. After the full, I probably didn't crank the training way up for a month. I wasn't letting a team down. You'd have to be on one to do that. The track coach didn't know I existed and I got no static for not participating.

It does sound hard to do what you're doing but I'll admit I admire it. I often try to ascertain how the US will be in future generations in the distance events and think: Wow, we don't have a 16 or 17 year old who's finished a 10km... The future is grim indeed! You're proving me wrong. Keep it up!