Daughter down on herself in XC

Lazy does not make good runners.

Summer of Malmo would be good where she joins her teammates for track intervals, doing the faster work from 150-400 with the others, since she has speed, and on longer intervals, doing a lap with the others, resting a lap, rejoining them, and then gradually being capable of going further and further with them. Since she has speed, she should do hill sprints and strides often outside of track season. You can also encourage her by citing examples of runners who started out near the back in the summer but vaulted up to the top ranks by September or October.

A few suggestions/thoughts:

- It's completely fine that she isn't at the level of the other girls yet. They have different strengths and skills than her and therefore have had different training for the past 6 months. There should still be some differences in their training. She needs to have the self restraint to run with girls at her current fitness level rather than where she wants to be. If her coach is encouraging her to run with the top group, she (not you) needs to have a conversation with them about feeling worn down.

- Look for leadership opportunities. There are still ways to contribute to a team even if your fitness isn't at its peak. If she's a talented sprinter, maybe she has great mechanics and can lead strides, hill sprints, or drills. Can she plan some sort of social activity for the team to reconnect with her distance teammates?

- Set weekly process goals. This can be simple (run 6 days this week, add 1 mile to my long run, lead a core workout after a run, etc.) but allow her to focus and celebrate on things within her immediate control.

Most distance girls peak in 9th and 10th grade, so it she's running with rising seniors and she can't hang anymore it may be lack of training and it may just be the fork in the road that happens many times. My daughter ran for a HS team that perennially posts nationally ranked runners, and there were several that were top-7 as sophomores and dropped to JV-A by seniors; others like my daughter just kept getting faster as she moved up through the ranks, never got hurt, finished as a top 3 by senior year and will running in college - I run 40-50 miles a week and never get hurt so that may have helped her as well.

She hasn't done any running for a year and is way out of shape;

All she needs to do is to get back in shape for cross country, do this gradually and have fun. The main thing is to have healthy fun, and a good time while getting in good shape. There's never anything wrong with being in good shape, it's all good.

martalus wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVlKVWFmfhk

If that doesn't get her fired up about running, nothing will.

This worked for me. It got me searching YouTube for more of these videos.

In the loop wrote:

Good article from yesterday that might help her:

https://qz.com/1026992/the-cognitive-trick-that-elite-athletes-use-to-achieve-seemingly-impossible-goals/

Thank you for this great article.

Chembiodad wrote:

Most distance girls peak in 9th and 10th grade, so it she's running with rising seniors and she can't hang anymore it may be lack of training and it may just be the fork in the road that happens many times.

Could be. She put on 5 or 7 pounds since last year's XC season, partly muscle but also the natural weight gain that happens around this age. She's chipping away at it now, just by adding miles every day. Older varsity girls often have the vital additional experience and mental grit that younger girls haven't accrued but it's true that that doesn't always make up for the body changes and they get left behind. The girls on her team mostly seem to PR senior year or at least stay as strong as they had been. It's not common for an 8th grader or freshman to be the fastest on the team.

I Chose DNothing wrote:

"Worried mom", what is your daughter's ferritin level?

Good call. Getting that checked today.

It's a patience and work game - the same as it was as she was sharpening speed. Summer work will pay off - keep working, keep running, enjoy the people she's with. It's about October success, not July success.

Why would a top 5 xc girl be running short sprints in the first place? Seems like the track coaches were just looking for easy points and/or your daughter took an easy route to short term success (school record). If a distance girl is breaking your school sprint records they are weak anyways.

Can't expect to jump back where you left your teammates. So put in the work and get back to it or just enjoy the xc season and being mediocre. Her sprint season in track is just around the corner.

The best thing to do is to encourage her to train hard (reasonably so). Have a good time--stick with your X-C Friends. Don't worry about sprint training vs distance from months ago and you still have 2 months to get in shape. And why is she not running X-C in college?

The fact that she broke a school record in a sprint does not mean that much unless your school has an incredible record. Many people do not realize how many great runners there are in America. I used to think that running under 2:00 in the 800 was special for a high school boy. There are literally thousands of boys who can run under 2 minutes in the half. (LRC doubters look it up for each state on Milesplit.com!)

In training the easiest thing to increase is strength, the second easiest is endurance and the hardest thing to build is speed. But it can be improved if it is worked at every week doing 5 X 70s, short uphills, downhills, bounding uphills, rope skipping, fast dynamic running drills, form work, plyometrics and etc. To get fast you have to run fast in practice!

Perhaps the best thing she could do is get a sprint coach for the fall and winter (never run sprints outdoors when it's below 50 degrees!).

She might be motivated if she can work at what she is good at. I'm not sure that running cc will help her sprint better. The only way that would be true is if she is the type who sits around all fall and winter. Another option is for her to play lots of basketball and volleyball although I do not like the sprained ankles in those sports. Perhaps she could just play a few minutes of that daily.

It's possible that she could be better at long distances but you did not give us a time to go by in her sprint record so it's hard for us to judge. It is true that some people cannot be distance running greats and can only be good at sprinting! She may suspect this and thus is not encouraged to try.

If you cannot get her with a sprint coach perhaps she can get with some of her track & field sprinter teammates and workout this summer. Sprinting does take work but it's more technical that distance running. They must learn acceleration, the classic running form, and starting techniques. Perhaps they could get into watching You Tube.com videos and teach themselves. If inspired...they will do it!!!