Too much training for jr. high?

Placing kids in club soccer with 3 games on a given weekend is what's wrong, not the running.

If your daughter is 7th grade and is playing competitive select soccer at a very high level, well then you've already made the decision to specialize. Running xc is just making a bad situation worse.

As a high school coach, let me say the soccer - xc pairing never works. We've had athletes who started doing both, decided to focus on running and did great. Those who stay dual athletes never achieve much in either . Your daughter has talent, but in a couple years the kids who are training full time for running are going to start beating her and it is going to get a lot less fun. Also, it seems like the soccer players who also do xc get hurt a lot. Maybe too much training combining the two sports.

Last point -no one is less objective about a kid's athletic ability than a parent. The coaches can tell them the two sport idea doesn't work, but no parent believes that for THEIR KID. Then when things don't pan out they blame the coaches, school, other players, anyone but themselves.

I'm not talking about a couple of years from now, I'm talking about 7th grade. I highly doubt she will be doing both sports by then, but it would be nice for her to be able to try both in middle school without getting run into the ground. Ever since she decided to come out for the cc team, I've heard all of the talk about "records" and "best middle school team ever" and "potential" - it's coming form the coaches, not me. Trust me, I get it. It was her idea to try both, not mine.

Say what you want about soccer, but she's played for eight years and has never complained about sore knees and ankles after a soccer practice or game. It happens quite often after cross country, but doesn't have to. She is expected to train harder than the entire high school girls team and even some of the h.s. boys. She pushes herself very hard, so when she tells coaches that she is spent, I would expect for them to listen and not push her more. When she and I are told she will have a light day, I expect it will be a light day, not seven miles.

And for the record, she does not specialize in soccer only. She plays soccer on and off about six months out of the year and plays other sports, including basketball and tennis. Soccer is by far her favorite. She rarely sits still and does her own soccer footwork drills and juggling videos for "fun" in her downtime.

Charlie1216 wrote:

Say what you want about soccer, but she's played for eight years and has never complained about sore knees and ankles after a soccer practice or game. It happens quite often after cross country, but doesn't have to.

This is because she like playing soccer. Soreness is a state of mind. She does not want to say anything that may lead to missing a soccer game or even a practice session. I guess she is running because she is good at it. If she likes running as much as she likes soccer, she will not complain about soreness, and just suck it up.

Which coach are you asking to talk to, the XC coach or the soccer coach? She needs to cut back in BOTH sports, so talk to both. Which days will she cut back on soccer to be ready for XC? Unfortunately, from my experience, club soccer coaches rarely share athletes particularly well.

Both you and your daughter are going to have to figure this out or she'll be a broken down mess before she hits HS.

Charlie unfortunately you are going to get some very basic and idiotic responses on this forum. Your daughter will be fine but I would limit what she is doing in terms of volume. Keep it fun and the rest will take care of itself. A young soccer player came to me at 17 and 3 years later she ran 16:30 for 5k and sub 34 for 10k. All good fun!

Thanks, great advice!

Well, you all called it. Run into the ground all season and now she doesn't want to do it next year. And, for the record, we cut way back on soccer but xc coach continued with the crazy workouts. I talked to him earlier in the year, but finally just told him she couldn't practice much the last two weeks. If that meant she wouldn't be allowed to run, then that was fine. She was exhausted. She only practiced twice the last two weeks and ended up with a PR this past Saturday - 13:07. Watching her, it was obviously her strongest race physically AND mentally since the first race of the season. The season is over now and I feel like a pretty crappy parent for letting her go through it.

im a 13 yr old boy and i personally dont think its smart to get these really good times and train this hard at this age. about a year ago i was training about 3 times a day and i used to get knee pains and hip pains. i would neglect the fact that i was running too much, and would blame it on thinking i had a problem and stuff like that. so when im reading and seeing these kids my age training so hard and achieving these great times i dont get jealous, i pity them instead because the better approach is to start this intense training in high school, not when you are still a young kid.