Daughter wants to start track but has no fitness

you can see the athlete, probably better than anyone here

-(1) motivation

-(2) consistency

-(3) patience; don’t get injured

Just go for a run with her. She doesn't need to get "fast". She just needs to have fun, and hopefully develop a habit of lifetime fitness.

Great for you and your daughter. Take it slow and be supportive. Even if it doesn't workout with the team it will give you something to bond over for a lifetime.

getting fast your first 2 years in high school typically can just come from running everyday. Had a girl go from 18 to 13 2 mile in a year. down to 12:20 the next before dropping out.

-(4) ‘wind sprints’ on a grass field, a couple of times per week. Make this a fun, engaging one, tracking her progress and sharing with her. Maybe even get her a HR tracker, so she can see differences between rest periods, etc.

-(5) talk about form, relaxing, etc, and observe and share with her findings from implementing changes.

-(6) longer sustained tempos come later. Teach good form and relaxing while running ‘fastish’; it will help with injury prevention. But remember (1) and (3), so don’t over-do-it.

and finally,

-(7) ‘whole body’ fitness awareness. Work this in over time to help her see how supportive stuff, like calisthenics (jump-rope, jumping jacks, etc). warmup, help progress building her body to achieve the goal of getting fitter and running faster.

This is what we're going for. We just want her to be "kind of good" so she feels like she fits in, she doesn't need to be an all star. And to build an athletic base which will serve her the rest of her life. And most importantly to have fun and make friends.

I was thinking about taking her out to the track on Saturday and doing something like "run the straights, walk the curves" type of thing. Keep going until you feel kinda tired (not gassed). Maybe and long bike ride on Sunday.

Thanks for the advice everyone, lots of good stuff here.

Lots of MS/HS runners are doing it because their friends are and have no ambition beyond just socializing and having fun.

Skip the structured approach unless she's asked about getting faster. Work on very small, attainable goals, and build from there. Maybe short-term goal #1 would be running the full 800m. Long-term goal for this school year could be run the full mile without stopping. Help her understand that lots of small progress leads to big progress. Let's say the max she can run without stopping is 400m. Go to the track and show her where 500m would be. Run 500m together. Walk back to the starting line (long way around or short way, either is fine). Run 500m together again. If she's still feeling good, then do it a third time. Then you can say that she ran almost a full mile.

This is basically like a couch to 5k run/walk plan. Search for some of those to get other ideas on how to extend the run time and reduce the walk time.

Help her find 2-3 friends that she can get together with over the summer. If your HS has a summer meet-up group, then find out where/when and encourage her to do that.

Run with her whenever she wants, and ask her what she would like to do (how far, etc.).

Good advice here ^

When I started running it was between 6th & 7th grade and it was really sort of a "fluke." We had a parcours trail at a park near where I live. It was one of those about 2 miles long with about 20 stations with various exercises and you run or walk in between the stations. I started doing it in the summer to get in shape for football. I didn't even have running shoes. I ran in a pair of Converse basketball shoes until my mom read something about runners should use shoes made for running. We went to Payless and she bought me some cheap shoes that probably were probably more like cross training shoes but they were better than the basketball shoes.

Fast forward to the next year and I was enjoying running more than football though I was still running with the idea if staying in shape for football. That summer there was a cross country camp that was like 5 days and we stayed in cabins. The coaches broke up the runners by age/ability so I was with the youngsters. I soon found that I was the fastest of the Youngers and sometimes I was put in with the older runners. That camp got me hooked and my 8th grade year was my last of football.

More info than you were probably looking for but the key for your daughter is to have fun with it. The minute it becomes a chore and/or she might not like it, it is time to do something else. My dad played football collegiately and I think he was initially disappointed that I didn't stick with football but he wasn't an overbearing parent that made me stay with it. He supported what I wanted to do and that was also key. At that age I was still pretty active and rode my bike all over the place so that helped with fitness also.

I agree with this. Just support her. I think it's more important that she enjoys running or hiking than making the track team. Not everybody is made for that. And there is a lot of running past the track. I had a lifetime of running and hiking adventures and I am not done yet.

She sounds like I did when I first went out for XC. I was super sedentary but just really wanted to try it for no reason other than that the kids seemed nice and the team didn’t do cuts. I had no fitness, walked most of the runs, and had shin splints lime you wouldn’t believed. But I loved it, loved my team, felt like I fit in somewhere for the first time, and was driven to succeed. Four years later I was too-15 in state got a scholarship to run in college. My point is, if she likes it and wants to do it, let her give it a shot regardless of her starting point.

I wouldn't think of it as needing to go from 0 to decent in 5 months. Decent means so many things. The title says something too. Of course she has no running fitness -- she's just starting off!

Focus on keeping it fun, while getting in the miles. Build to running 30:00 5-6 days/week. Start with 10:00-15:00. Bump to 20:00-25:00. Get up to 30:00. Maybe by the last few weeks it can be something like 3 30:00 runs, 2 35:00-40:00 runs, and a 45:00-50:00 longer run. Can add in tempo type efforts. Start with short reps but stress that they don't have to be hammered. Full recovery. Stuff like that will put her in a good spot to add on real workouts in the fall. Just build her base.

Stopped reading after this. I ran 2:52 with zero specific training and just mileage. I ran 120 miles a week and my long runs were always around 6:10 pace. I had no guidance or anything. I didn't take water the whole race because I was "bad at drinking" and I didn't consume any Gu either. I had to pee the whole time because I was so worried that if I stopped for 20 seconds to relieve myself I'd fall too far off pace. I didn't know what the heck I was doing.

A 2:53 marathon does not, in any way, indicate that somebody "understands running" so I think you might be smart to acknowledge you aren't going to be a savior here.

Let you daughter do whatever she might enjoy the most. Who cares if she sucks? Is she liking it? If she WANTS to run with you on the weekends or something then maybe that would be fun. There's no sense in putting pressure on her to improve, if she's running 13 minute miles you might make her miserable "helping" when really she needs to find a way to enjoy the grind on her own.

Another post had me thinking about this. T&F is the only sport available to everyone at our middle school. My kid did it and kept going back so there was something about it that he loved. It was probably all the hanging around with the team. He wasn’t good at first but that last year of middle school he had a lot of success. He now runs in college.

You know this. She just needs to run. Make sure she has a good experience this year and run summer miles with her to prepare her for cross country.

I used to be like that and eventually got down to a sub 17 my senior year in xc.

Basically when you're a total noob like that you have no aerobic fitness, so that should be the focus for awhile. Goal is to just run without walking, no matter how slow you have to go. Maybe she can go 800m now but over time she'll be able to go longer and longer then faster to at an easy conversational pace.

I think if she can get up to a consistent 4 mile run 5-6 days a week without stopping by the end of summer that'd be a huge improvement and be a really big accomplishment for her. Then she'd be ready for cross country in the fall. I think its a very realistic goal.

Let her decide how much she wants to run. If she is just beginning then doing less and continuing to like it is a far better path than doing more and hating it.

The penultimate paragraph sounds like you could be pushy and wanting her to achieve YOUR goals rather than HER goals.

If she likes running and wants to run in the fall, then see what opportunities there are over the summer for her to run with a group. The coaches likely know of options. Let her choose the one but you should also make sure they are not crazy and understand where she is right now.

It is her journey, not yours.