NY TIMES Articles on Young Marathoning and Why We Are Built for Distance

Note these young runners all quit due to chronic injury and one acquired a disease known to be caused from overtraining at a young age. Too bad the reporter didn't research this further.

a friend of mine got osgood schlatter's disease also at 14, but still recovered by college sufficiently to run 1:58 (far better than he could run in hs).

This article made me nostalgic for a time when kids ran for pleasure, to get their yah-yahs out, without the micro-management of hyper possessed adults. Maybe if more kids ran distance as a fun after school activity there would be a decline in ADHD.

A lot has changed in thirty years, though. We used to ride our bikes to school, three miles! We would walk to the store or movies at dusk! No one in an urban area considers doing that much anymore, parents are afraid, kids are over scheduled or it is combination of many variables.

What a change of pace to read that in the NY TIMES, though.

It does help when the store or movie theater is within walking distance by walkable roads. For a lot of people it isn't.

Well after Jason Blair what did you expect?

They had to find SOMETHING with basis in reality.

Ivory and Ebony wrote:

Well after Jason Blair what did you expect?

They had to find SOMETHING with basis in reality.

90% of the stories fox news 'reports' are full of BS and are UNfair and UNbalanced, so why don't you take your whiny Blair comment, shove it up your ass, and shut the f*** up?

I was not implying anything negative about the NY TIMES. Rather, I was impressed to read a positive story about kids and running.

Charles Atlas Shrugs wrote:

90% of the stories fox news 'reports' are full of BS and are UNfair and UNbalanced, so why don't you take your whiny Blair comment, shove it up your ass, and shut the f*** up?

What an original thing to write!

I don't have a NYT membership. Can someone copy and paste the story? Thanks

2:38 for one of the kids at age 15, and 2:53 for another at the age of 14?! Those kids were fast! What do you think someone like Ritz could have run as a fresh in HS for the marathon? Or someone like Haile Geb?

I feel obligated to post in response to the article. I, too, was one of "those kids" that ran marathons at a young age.

I think running is great and still enjoy it quite a bit. I especially love competing in shorter events like the 1,500 that are more intense. I have no regrets about all the mileage I did at a young age, although perhaps I would have been faster later had I not started so young. But the friendships, travel, discipline and, perhaps most importantly, the enthusiasm for a great sport that I gained are worth it. Heck, I am posting on Letsrun 36 years now after I started running marathons.

I ran about 30 full marathons by age 10. It was not unusual for kids to run marathons in Southern California in the mid-70's. Mary Decker, at age 14, ran PV Marathon, for example.

I often ran one marathon one weekend and another the next. My parents never pushed me, although they ran marathons, too. My fastest at age 8 was 3:44, which at the time was an age group world record, beating the 3:45 of Tommy Owen of Redwood City, run at Avenue of the Giants. That marathon used to be a popular race. I ran the 3:44 at Santa Monica Marathon, which does not exist anymore. I think the age 8 record is now close to 3 flat. Amazing.

I ran 3:15 at age 9 at Palos Verdes Marathon. That was also an age group record, replacing the 3:19 from Daven Chun of the Hunky Bunch, who ran his 3:19 at Honolulu Marathon.

I ran 3:04 at 10, but it was short of Reggie Heywood's 2:57 record. My 2:54 at 11 was also short of Daven Chun's 2:52 record. I even did a 50 mile race in 6:49 (about 8:10 per mile) at age 10 and a 50K race thereafter a little faster.

My brother ran PV Marathon at age 6 and continued running until age 9 when club soccer became his big interest.

I was not so good at soccer, so I kept running. At 16, I ran 2:46 at Rose Bowl Marathon, and 2:43 at age 19. I ran probably two dozen times under 2:50 (lots!), but nothing really that fast. I ran Boston, Paavo Nurmi Marathon, Mission Bay Marathon, Marine Corps Marathon, D.C. Marathon, lots.

But just being part of a sport that rewards hard work is valuable. I also met a lot of faster people, travelled all over the world and met my wife through running (we were sponsored by the same company). I ran in college and competed post-collegiately on the track. It is just great fun.

I still run a ton, usually an hour a day, with speedwork on the track interspersed. I have never "burned out" or become injured by running at a young age. Perhaps I am the exception to the general rule. I am now 44. Maybe I'll have a knee go out tomorrow or get hit by a car when I'm running.

If Haile G had run the distances I did back then, he would have destroyed the times I ran. No doubt about it. He probably would have run 2:30 for the marathon at age 12.

My natural talent is very minimal - kids can run "fast" times at a young age if they just train enough. I have never broken 2 for the 800 or 55 for the 400. Slow, slow, slow.

I have three young kids, ages 6, 7 and 9. If they want to run long distances, I will let them. But I will never push them. They have to want to do it and they have to enjoy it. Track and road running and cross-country are great sports that I want them to enjoy on their own terms. With my genetic contribution to their make-up, hopefully they will have the same enjoyment, but run a little faster.

When I worked on kidsrunning.com one of the most frequent questions was "can my 8-year old or 9-year old son/daughter run a marathon? The interest is still out there. Right now, the PC answer is "no". But of course we all know "it depends" just like everything else.

It is interesting to hear about the kids who ran marathons as a young age and still run or have a good attitude about running.

But the numbers of kids who ran marathons must be very low, I am guessing.

I do see how the lifestyle of a runner would be appealing to some children, and how it would give some a goal, something to work on, and as Greg Hill said: travel, excitement, and an outlet for extra energy.

We were different as kids. Even I walked to school through the cornfields of Kansas and my memories of walking to school were so much better than the years I was crowded into a bus, or getting carsick in the back seat of a carpooled car.

Anyway this was an interesting read in the times and I'm particularly interested in how people respond to this article.

Not as many lawsuits back then, I presume.

Charles Atlas Shrugs wrote:

90% of the stories fox news 'reports' are full of BS and are UNfair and UNbalanced, so why don't you take your whiny Blair comment, shove it up your ass, and shut the f*** up?

So, yeah, that's a perfectly reasonable reaction...

sfgwegnesr wrote:

I don't have a NYT membership. Can someone copy and paste the story? Thanks

See

Man don't you realize that without Fox News we would have nothing left but state run liberal media. Oh, sorry I guess you wouldn't realize that based on your comment. Sorry.

What would geb have run....well at an older age he only ran what 2:59ish?

FOX is very enertaing but certainly NOT news.

Geb ran 2:48 at age 15, without marathon style training