How can I get kids to run in the summer?

Which question would you like answered?

The workouts during the season is the easy part of coaching. Motivating, inspiring is the hard part, you need to get them to understand that xc is a summer sport played out in the fall. Your job is to get them to run in the summer. You have November til June to do that.

Don't push long slow distance especially high school. I recommend doing cross training, quality running vs distance. M- track time maybe 12 400's with 60' between with warm up and cool down. Tues 5 miles brisk Wed Combination of brisk distance and some track time Thursday 7 miles Friday Brisk 5 miles. 3 days of swimming / light weights, also biking. High school races are short. I ran on a state champion team with all our 7th guy at 16:05. Times 14:50, 15:35, 15:58, 16:08, 16:20 were our top 5 guys a Florida Cross Country State ChampionShip. We never rained more that 35-40 miles a week. I track I ran 9:25 to win the 3200m. Long slow distance is for marathon runners. During my senior year I ran the 200m and 400m events at meets. Focus on long term goals. You need to start a running club that focuses on summer fun runs

Thanks for telling us how awesome you were. I'm impressed...anyone else?

You need to sit down with each runner talk about goals and get them to understand that mileage is money in the bank. Explain that even 20 to 30 minutes can be the difference between mediocrity and a state qualifier. Motivate, motivate.

The good programs in my area, which is Dyestat call the best conference in the country, all have some type of summer running program, most with a training trip at the end.

They need to run 200-400 miles in the summer, go to at least 8 captains practices, hand in training logs, and do a road race. Set-up a system like that. The kids who do it get to go on a sweet training trip.

The trip itself builds culture, work ethic, fitness, win, win, win

Udaman wrote:

Thanks for telling us how awesome you were. I'm impressed...anyone else?

Not impressed. Not one bit, especially by the claim that the LR is only for marathoners.

^^^ this

1. Pick team captains and make them responsible for organizing a summer of Malmo type dealio

2. Summer xc camp, but only for those who've gotten 500 miles half way through the summer

3. Meeting with the athletes to discuss goals is good like the other guy said above

4. Make them want to be in shape, talk about one or two big meets you'll do and type the team to fl or Nike regionals

5. Encourage kids to watch the trials and olys, nothing is better for motivation

6. Any 19-20 year old guys from your program running in college? Have them organize group runs once or twice a week even if they're just there but running their own pace, not really with the hs ers . Hsers want the approval of cool slightly older ppl for some reason.

7. Have your own 3-5 day team camp a week before school starts, emphasize athletes need to be in decent shape for some time trial there or some long run up a mountain. Rent some cabins or something.

//the camp stuff assumes parents can and will pay for these

Team time trial at the beginning of the fall season is a good way to help motivate that summer training, in addition to the good advice above.

RT @ Edward Teach

You need to rely on your runners to organize their own summer training to a certain extent. If you have some already-motivated runners you should have them organize regular group runs.

SWAZ wrote:

RT @ Edward Teach

You need to rely on your runners to organize their own summer training to a certain extent. If you have some already-motivated runners you should have them organize regular group runs.

Yes, something simple like summer of Malmo works well

The problem is most kids don't really understand "why" they need to run over the summer.

Most HS kids are under the impression that taking the summer off, and starting back up in the fall WILL lead to faster times. More often than not, it will, simply because they DID do some running in track season in the spring and not all that fitness will be lost so they are starting off at a higher level of fitness, plus they mature physically which can naturally lead to speed increases.

If you tell them how FAR BEHIND they are going to be by not running over the summer, emphasize the point about aerobic development and how you need a good base to do good workouts and get faster, well now the kids are informed. It is up to them now to decide whether or not they want to get faster or not.

No amount of pushing or "inspiring" is going to help a kid who knows the deal, who knows what's at stake, and decides it's not for him.

You're not allowed ANY contact during the summer? my high school state it was just a few weeks after track season and a few weeks before XC that was no contact period I think.

We had a summer camp 3x per week. Days were usually long, easy, and hills. Varsity athletes would meet a 4th night during the week to do tempo intervals on the track.

During no contact periods we had captains practice every morning.

I might get ripped here for saying this.. but I'm inclined to say you can't teach motivation. Inspire, yes, but teach motivation I don't know. You either have the kid that is going to wake up and put in his 6-8 miles in the morning and do another 15 min in the evening, or the one that will only run if his friends call him up. But it is up to the coach to find a way to inspire kids to train. Little motivators along the way can help. Depending on your location, have a mid summer trip into the mountains and base the cut off on times from track. End of summer have t-shirt awards for mileage. Have an online board that your athletes track their mileage on and can see what everyone else is doing.

Need to explain the simple sand castle analogy to them on why base phase is so important.

Have an xc team meeting before the spring semester ends. The meeting is for all who are interested in xc, returners, new comers. Talk about the season, goals, expectations, practice schedule, etc. Give them a SIMPLE PLAN to follow. 6 days a week, 45-60 minute daily runs.

That's pretty much all you can do.

Sounds like your team was already pretty well motivated. Kids who literally have no interest in "reaching their potential" or what not, and only run because they need the varsity letter for college applications (the vast majority), won't be motivated by gimmicks like t-shirts or "mileage trackers." Kids these days have a billion distractions and other things in life, and quite honestly, I think most kids are better off spending their summers having fun as opposed to running hard (unless you are scholarship material).

I mean this is high school, not the army. It is too tall an ask for a coach to "inspire" kids to spend off-school hours doing extra training.

Give the kids the information and knowledge, and let them make the choice. Ramming a summer program down their throats is going to turn them off from running. Trying to paint running as a "fun" activity for kids who find it unenjoyable isn't going to fool anyone. Kids aren't stupid.

Although it's not the most popular way, road racing every 3rd week or so always kept mine motivated. It's not against any rules for them to "show up" at some races. A medal or two does the trick

I started this thread. Thank you to all who have posted to this point. There were a few I disagreed with but what they said led to good comments by others.

Obviously not all teams run 1000 miles during the summer, but some do and they also have put in many miles during the track season. Since the football coaches are in charge then and all I can do is attend meets, not many kids put in a lot of miles. I even have CC kids who do not run Track!

We built up a good team during my first five years when I was Head CC and then Distance Coach in Track & Field. Then after some big CC wins the Head Track & Field coach, also the Head Football coach, fired me from track!

I guess this is not all that uncommon in other places. It might happen in a slightly different manner, but is basically the same. So you do have many different philosophies in the local community about what the kids should do in training. Obviously the A.D. does not care about winning and is against Camps and things of that sort.

But there are a lot of good ideas on this thread.

coach registered said:

You need to sit down with each runner talk about goals and get them to understand that mileage is money in the bank. Explain that even 20 to 30 minutes can be the difference between mediocrity and a state qualifier. Motivate, motivate.///

I like what you said and suspect that you may be a long-time LRC poster because of your common name "coach-registered."

We have a kid in our area, not one I am coaching, who almost won the state CC meet as a sophomore. She never ran before that season.

Her sister finished one place ahead of her and then went to college on scholarship. Now the younger girl, despite landslide wins in nearly every race, say she does not want to run in college?!?

Her times this spring have been sub-par. Again we have the different coach for CC and different coach for Track thing going on. I suspect that she has never ran beyond 5 miles in training. Is it possible to motivate such an individual? She hates being compared to her sister and feels pressure which I think leads her to want to drop out of the whole thing.

Yet I think it's weird. I know her Dad, but cannot communicate with the girl very well as she hates people. (That is what a community member said!)

Any advice?