Help!!! Youth Track

Well, from a distance perspective (actually Middle Distance), its not hard. Have them increase base (most bang for their buck) and throw in 2 quality sessions a week of Intervals and or speed and or threshold. Meets are one quality session. Kids in MS will slot in around 12-20 miles per week. Early season core and strength after practice simple--pushups sit ups planks....If nothing else the quality stuff keeps it interesting. It would be weird if they ALL are starting running for the first time? Eventually you will have to break them up a bit into groups esp if some have more base than they let on, or are swimmers or soccer players etc....The one way to lose them is have them run around the gym for 15 min and go home. Running is already not super exciting, try to mix in that quality stuff. Have em log miles on an app like VDOT. Thats a bonus, I cant get mine to do it largely.

Now, if the question is about all track and field? Thats tuff. At that age I would say encourage them to do events that match their talents but dont force them. Every year we have people who insist they are sprinters. They go, they lose, they come back to our middle distance group better for it. Skinny kids wants to throw shot, have at it. If you have at least 3 coaches-- have a sprint, long sprints (400, 800 even) and middle distance group (help all us out in coaching by avoiding the term "distance group" for people running 800-3000!). I am on a crusade to get people who run 2-10 min races to start thinking about themselves as fast, not thinking about themselves as slow kids who do "distance". On a speed day they will notice some of them are faster than kids in sprint group! I digress.

Field events? Some set up field events at this age group -festival style. Have whatever field events you want set up late in practice and let them try it out. Easiest for MS is long jump and shot. LJ will be by far the most well attended and is the default field event in my experience at this age. If you are a one woman/man show, the USATF Track and Field manual has some basics for every event. I have found you can work kids at this age a good bit, AND keep it fun. The feed off enthusiasm (some that is)

Next year, find a way to get a group together 2-3x week or send out an email having them do base miles before track starts and tell them why. A percentage of them will listen. Needless to say have a foot in XC program if you can. MS programs by me range from 5 kids to 80+. If you build a rep, kids will come out, even at a small school.

Most kids that age dont know their interests or talents. Id run it like a speed/mechamics development program for a while until they are ready for event specific lessons such as block work, field events, hurdles and relay exchanges. Everybody practices everything to learn and appreciate the sport and work toward self discovery and improvements. There's plenty of ideas out there for drills, equipment that supports those drills etc...to keep things fun and interesting. Each session should always start with the same speed/mechanics/drills warmup no matter what the theme for the day is though. They need lots of repetition with immediate feedback. Help them learn what to look for in their peers so they can begin assessing others to help self improvements. As stated, keep it fun. I always tried to end a session with competitive track and field games so they can apply what we learned right away. Kids love to be timed and measured for the most part. Post results so they can see self improvement. Always be positive and encouraging but be firm and keep your expectations high. Be patient. No kid should be ignored. Start by knowing their names. They will figure out if they matter or not by the way and frequency in which you engage them. Be organized, have a plan, get everything ready before they arrive, get them to help clean it up/put things away and always a group cooldown and stretch.

If you create the right culture, most everything falls into place after that. Just dont pidgeon hole them at that age. Speed/mechanics first. Exploration after that. Nature will balance and they will gravitate to where they belong.

I coached that age group for several years. My advice:

1) Have them do everything...any field event possible in your setup, sprints WITH BLOCKS, distance; lets them see what they might be good at or like. We didn't do pole vault with that age group.

2) My group included kids as young as 3rd grade. I never made them run a "mile" (really a 1600, but we called it a mile). The furthest I ever made them run was 800 meters, but I gave the option to run a mile to those who were interested, and a surprising number were. I'd say 35-40% on any given practice day who would want to. It would just be during the time that everyone was running the 800, and if anyone wanted to do 2 extra laps, they could.

3) For any of the kids, but especially the ones who are excelling, ask them if they like it. If they do, encourage them and tell them that their enjoyment of it is one of the biggest things that will help make them successful.

A surprising number of the kids I coached ended up running in college at all levels...eventual high school state champions, tons of D1 athletes, etc. It's the opportunity more than anything that gets them hooked early. Good for you for spending your time to do this. It's a worthwhile way to give back to your community.

I dont disagree with speed and mechanics, even for middle distance.. But i will say these days, MS may have a full meet schedule and its a whirlwind season, usually about 8 weeks total. The kids need to work on events too though right away. They want to be good, they want to get good results. It can be done without the dreaded burnout. Get miles in and increase slowly. Building an aerobic base is all good--makes them better, makes them more injury proof, and gets the most results. Mix in quality-speed which helps with boredom and strength, and mechanics indirectly. I am speaking about 6-8th grade.

Sorry, you did say elementary too? I would agree mostly speed and mechanics and field events, keep it interesting. About 4th grade you see kids are ready for low key distance events. We have upwards of 200 kids running 2 or 2.5k in XC for K-6 at one meet one gender! They enjoy it. It wont kill them. So I imagine k-6 can easily compete in 800/1500 in track as well.

The greatest middle school coach I ever saw had the kids run, do push ups in the middle of the run, carry rocks, yell every now and then. Games, fun, slide in the mud, pizza day, etc.

They would basically work on general fitness for 2 hours a day mixed with a lot of play. 0 skills.

I was coaching the high school team at the time watching him win the middle school state meet 6 years in a row doing this. They wrecked everyone off of sheer fitness. They out jumped, out threw, and out ran everyone, it wasn’t even close.

As soon as he left, the team got smaller and started finishing outside of the top 10.

Make the practices fun. Ice cream day, cookouts, make the focus on fun.

I have come to believe that the best coaches hardly have to take attendance. The kids don’t ever want to miss practice.