impact of horrible pacing?

5:00-5:05

My kids are 13 and 16 and still can’t pace right. It’s natural for children to know only two gears: Full speed and stop. Be patient. Proper pacing takes a long time to learn.

Hell. As adults a lot of us still go out too hard and blow up half the time, even with gps watches to make it avoidable.

No beans for your kid.

Teach him the tough lessons first.

Most adults can't pace themselves properly because they didn't got thought that lesson.

thanks that’s what i was thinking. After that first lap the look in his eyes was “oh crap 3 more of these?”

Running 5:11 with a 62 first lap in 8th grade suggests the kid has a good amount of talent. If someone he respects (or maybe a call from a coach) can talk him into signing up for cross country, he could be pretty good.

0/10

so is there any tangible benefit from starting to train at this age? My gut tells me no - let him enjoy soccer and maybe try outdoor track next year if there’s still an interest. too many over zealous sports parents start jamming training on kids prematurely, contributing to early burnout and maladjusted kids (who post anonymous snarky comments on forums). Remember seeing a town dad timing his 6th grade kid during an interval workout in February a couple of years back - kid ran a sub 4:30 frosh year then disappeared from the sport..just sayin

so his older brother home from college took him to the track yesterday- split trend completely reversed 1:22, 1:10, 1:18 and 1:08. Told him to take it easy first lap then turn it on. older brother called him a “freak” being able to break 5 w/ absolutely zero training or experience in 8th grade. Thanks for all the guidance - i’m hoping this sparks an interest in the sport for him but as of now soccer is firmly #1, even in the spring..

Every second out too fast means coming back 2 seconds too slow. 1:19 - 1:02 = 17 / 3 = 6 + 1:02 = 1:08 for the first 2 laps.

1:25 - 1:08 = 17 / 3 = 6 + 1:08 = 1:14 if even splitting. So theoretically would be right around 5:00 with good splits.

get the concept but not following the math - in basic form if he ran 1:02 first lap with a target pace of 1:15 for 4 laps (5:00 1600), then he would incur a “penalty” of 13 seconds above the target pace (5:13)

Heading into 9th grade is when probably most kids start training seriously. If he was still in middle school, there would be a case for waiting. But now really is the time to start.

my sister told me there was a kid from south jersey who went to cornell a little over 10 years ago - kid was a soccer player didn’t start running until jr year - became one of cornell’s best runners ever