Middle School Track Training

If you think about it, 20 minutes per day at 10:00 pace (most of them are faster than that) equals 2 miles per day, which equals 10 miles for the first week. So you'd recommend a continuous run instead of it broken up? How would you go about it? If you don't mind, give me some reasons, too.

Back in my middle school days, we played a game called "Surge".

It entailed a group of 5-10 runners running in a line, follow the leader style in a big field. When the coach (who's in the middle of the field observing) yells "SURGE!!" the front runner would take off at ~80%, and the last person in line would take off and run hard until they pass the first person. They would then both go back in line. The person who was just last in line and ran hardest in now in front, waiting to be caught on the next "Surge".

Make sure to have the person in front not run too hard so the last person can't catch them.

Divide the groups up by skill levels.

Have 2-3 minutes of running in between "Surges".

It's a pretty entertaining way to create fartlik workouts at a young age.

At the time I thought the workouts were pretty fun, but now I realize they were quite beneficial.

Thank you for the great response! I used similar ideals when I coach wrestling for 15 years.

My daughter is in 8th grade. She is a first year runner. We used to have her in elementary track where she won every race she ran. But soon after she just didn't like it enough to continue. She always showed exceptional speed among her peers. To my surprise this winter she changed her mind from all-star cheering to give sprinting a try. She ran a 1:14 in a 400 finishing leg of the 4x400. I wish she had stayed with it as a elementary runner. Any advice you could give her? She is very competitive and wants to better her times. I don't want her to over do it but at the same time I would like her to excel as she desires.