Too much training for jr. high?

My daughter's the same age, isn't very athletic and hasn't played any other sports before, ran her first 3K two minutes slower than your daughter, and has been doing 20 mpw. So maybe 30 mpw plus soccer is too much for your daughter, but it might not be too much by itself for a talented athlete. Does your daughter show any signs of overtraining?

Why is she attempting to run and play soccer at the same time? Maybe she should pick one she likes more/is better at.

Way too much running for her age. XC and soccer at the same time is too much. She will likely breakdown with an injury or burnout in a few months

Cool it dad....choose one sport for fall

Speed doctor wrote:

Way too much running for her age. XC and soccer at the same time is too much. She will likely breakdown with an injury or burnout in a few months

Cool it dad....choose one sport for fall

100% agree it is too much training for her age. I've seen it too many times. If she is talented, that talent isn't going anywhere and will be waiting for her freshman year of high school.

when i ran xc my first year in middle school, they encouraged fun in the sport and weren't concerned about being competitive. i made the mistake of pushing myself too hard the other two years and so i had to work even harder my freshman and sophmore year as those two years you don't get a ton faster. in 6th grade, off 6 mpw, i think i ran 15:07 for 2 miles followed by a 6:09 for track. in 7th grade, i ran 5:25 off of 10 mpw, then 5:03 off of 25 mpw. in highschool, i think it was something like 4:46 off 50 mpw then 4:29 off 60 mpw.

Thank you for the feedback. I'm not a runner, so I am in the dark about what is normal and what is too much. She is a little sore and tired right after but seems fine a few hours after running.

I'm sure I come across as overzealous dad, but this is all her. Soccer is her passion, but her cross country coach was her elementary gym teacher and he has been trying to get her for years. He knows about her soccer commitment but I feel like he is overly excited about her running potential and is overtraining her. He is also the high school coach.

Ironically, her times aren't much different than when she was just running events here and there for fun. She ran a 6:03 mile last year with no training outside of soccer.

I'll talk to her coach. Thanks again for the advice.

Way too much. Even if not playing another sport it's too much.

It's also probably too much soccer tbh. Three games?

She had a tournament this weekend, so that's the reason for the three games. The norm is one or two games per weekend. She does play almost the entire game at outside midfielder, which does a ton of running. Ironically, the other outside mid is a dual cross country/soccer player, too.

I am going to talk to her cross country coach and see if she can take a break from practice twice per week. She is getting plenty of running in at soccer.

I appreciate the feedback.

Both my kids did this and loved it and had no problems. Her training sessions per game ratio in soccer is off, have her back off on the amount of games she plays and she'll be fine.

Current National Academy of Pediatrics recommendation is that children and teens shouldn't train/compete more hours per week than their age (e.g.. a 16 year old shouldn't be spending more than 16 hrs/week training or competing); and children/teens shouldn't spend more than eight months in the some sport. Research shows that doing more than this predisposes them to overuse injury.

It sounds like she has success with running and with soccer, each at a relatively high level, so maybe let her identify which one she enjoys most and stick with it that for now. Soccer would build a great base to transition to distance running later on.

Here's a link to the latest research:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0363546517690848

The problem is the XC coach. Under no circumstances should 12 yr olds be runnng 7 miles. He's an idiot and is going to to kill the desire in these kids.

Pull her out of XC and wait until high school.

Charlie1216 wrote:

I am going to talk to her cross country coach and see if she can take a break from practice twice per week. She is getting plenty of running in at soccer.

From a coaches standpoint that might cause some issues. No offence meant, but what makes your daughter special that she can take a break from practice a couple times a week for a soccer team that, I assume, isn't a school sport. All the kids are going to see this and think it is ok for them to take some practices off as well for whatever reasons. I think you and her need to make a decision if she is going to run or play soccer this season, if she does both you stand a good chance of her getting hurt.

Way too much. Girls should not be doing training runs of 7 miles until sophomore or junior year. Tell the coach to back off otherwise take her off the team until high school.

What about all the East Africans who run 6 miles to go school and than back everyday. This seems to produce some great runners. Think Daniel Komen and Haile Gebrselassie. As long as it's mostly easy mileage I think this is completely fine. Let her do both and stop worrying even though she's takented this doesn't mean she's going to be world class in 10-15 years so let her experience both cross country and soccer

Here's what I say...make a choice. Everyone (primarily parents) want to bitch that coaches won't work with their kids and won't make adjustments so the kids can be multi-sport athletes. I coach HS XC. I have no issue with one of my athletes being involved in multiple sports...BUT not at the same time. Nearly always it's the club soccer kids who want to "try" running but want the XC program to make concessions for them. And usually, they never miss anything for soccer but expect to miss running. If your kid chooses to do soccer all year long you can't expect other coaches to be OK that you want to come and go as you please. You might say, "well my kid is running a lot at soccer." That is true, but you don't build a team/program with kids coming and going at their leisure...pretty simple.

Qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm wrote:

What about all the East Africans who run 6 miles to go school and than back everyday. This seems to produce some great runners. Think Daniel Komen and Haile Gebrselassie. As long as it's mostly easy mileage I think this is completely fine. Let her do both and stop worrying even though she's takented this doesn't mean she's going to be world class in 10-15 years so let her experience both cross country and soccer

Yeah but there is a difference if they have done it everyday since they were kids vs just joining a team for the first time and running on the concrete roads.

Plus Daniel Komen and Haile Gebrselassie were never pre-teen girls.

It's a smaller school so it's not uncommon for programs to share athletes. There are only a handful of girls on the team and had my daughter not joined and encouraged a few friends to come along, they would not have enough for a team. A little different situation than where some of you are coming from with 25+ kids on a team. Nobody on the team is a dedicated running-only kid. The coach has known from the beginning that she is a soccer player and had no problem with it. He's a nice guy and I expressed my worries early on about her overdoing it (she was one of two who actually did the summer training). None of her schedule conflicts are a surprise to anybody. My worry is days like yesterday where an "easy day" becomes seven miles. I really do appreciate all of the feedback because I have no clue if seven miles in one day is normal for seventh grade girls. There were days in the summer where she was paired with high school kids, running nearly nine miles. To me, just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should.

And don't worry, I don't think she is some kind of superstar. She just enjoys sports and being active and part of a team. I just don't want her getting hurt.

Pick one sport. Teach the child the value of committing fully to something. If I was the coach and someone skipped practice/workouts for a reason other than injury or sickness; family issues; or school (which is not skipping, rather excused absence) they wouldn't be competing in the meets. Simple as that.

Play soccer in soccer season, run in running season. If the soccer season is in the fall, run track.

And yes, I know parents unfortunately allow their kids to play soccer year round - which by all statistics is worse than diverse experience at a young age - but pick one season.

When the kid is an adult how are they going to be able to prioritize? Life lesson opportunity.

Bro Really? wrote:

Pick one sport. Teach the child the value of committing fully to something. If I was the coach and someone skipped practice/workouts for a reason other than injury or sickness; family issues; or school (which is not skipping, rather excused absence) they wouldn't be competing in the meets. Simple as that.

Play soccer in soccer season, run in running season. If the soccer season is in the fall, run track.

And yes, I know parents unfortunately allow their kids to play soccer year round - which by all statistics is worse than diverse experience at a young age - but pick one season.

When the kid is an adult how are they going to be able to prioritize? Life lesson opportunity.

Idiot