Why is my son getting slower?

Might want to check your child's gender chromosomes. XX or XY?

Boys nearly always speed up the older they get due to increasing testosterone. At worst, they plateau, but few actually slow unless something really goes wrong like a major injury or life event.

But many girls are at their fastest in grades 9 and 10, and slow down in grades 11 and 12 due to puberty.

https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20846860/will-puberty-slow-my-daughter-down/

Check his iron levels (ferritin).

I know in your mind , you think its your son , but would another person you do not know say " is that a ventriloquist dummy"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6MvRtdRcDY

I suggest you read Training Young Distance Runners. It explains what happens to young runners as they approach puberty and how it affects training and performance.

But since runners typically don't read, here is a synopsis.

Young kids grow unevenly. When bones get longer, it takes a while for everything else to catch up. This can lead to setbacks in running performance.

Puberty kicks in at different ages.

The stress of training too hard is also very likely if he is trying to keep up with the guys he formerly ran with the year before who are advancing through puberty faster than he is. This is a likely culprit. If he goes anaerobic in all his training workouts, he's not getting the aerobic benefit he needs to progress as a cross country runner.

XC is overwhelmingly an aerobic event. Once the runner goes too hard in a training workout, the body switches from aerobic to anaerobic systems. One good thing and three (or more) bad things happen.

Good: He gets faster over the short term. That is, for the first few weeks of excessively hard training.

Bad:

1. His body switches from aerobic to anaerobic training, so he is NOT getting a long-term, distance training benefit from the workout. Training will plateau or even regress. Worse...

2. Anaerobic training is very hard on the body, so it's hard to recover to run well the next quality workout, especially if the recovery day is also too hard. This is especially important for young runners who need lots of sleep because bones and muscles are growing rapidly.

3. Anaerobic training stresses the immune system, which can lead to more flu, colds, etc.

4. Anaerobic training causes form to break down in the latter part of the run, which increases the risk of injuries.

You should be able to look at your son's training and see if any of this applies to his situation.

He's slower because he's carrying you on his back.

Leave that kid alone, let him run and grow up... don't worry about off season training until he's older and in HS.

Are you making him drink soy milk? Soy is proven to reduce testosterone is men. If you want him to pay for his own college education (i.e. grown up to be a conservative and take responsibility for his actions, then you need to feed him real milk. I suggest 2 gallons per week on top of his current diet plan.

MUSAGA

If he's just getting beaten by kids he used to beat who've reached puberty before him I'd say that's the issue. But if he's getting slower there's obviously other stuff going on and probably no one will ever know for sure what it is. Maybe it's mental. Maybe losing to kids he used to beat has destroyed his confidence and willingness to push when races get hard. Maybe it's a training thing, specifically that it's gotten too hard and he's not recovering. If the coach has adjusted the team's training to accommodate the kids who've hit puberty that's a possibility. In fact, at your son's age hard running should be done with extreme caution. If I was coaching a kid that age who was getting slower I'd eliminate ALL of it for him.

It may turn out that as he matures he'll find that he's not as good at running as his early experiences suggested and he'll have to decide if he likes the sport enough to continue doing it anyway. But no matter, as he matures he shouldn't be getting slower. If he was my son I'd probably have him take a break from running now that the season is over then come back gradually with nothing but comfortable running.

PS,

All of this assumes that he's healthy.

deerny wrote:

My son just finished up his 8th grade cross country season. In 6th and 7th grade he was significantly faster than his classmates. Some have started going through puberty, but my son is not even close. His classmates all got much faster this year while my son got significantly slower. He had never run regularly in the summer before a season, but decided to this summer. This fall he has ran his slowest 5k ever and finished significantly behind his peers that he runs with in practice week after week. I watched him struggle all season and am worried about him going to high school and continuing to struggle. Any ideas as to what could cause this? He enjoys cross country so much and I would hate to see him to get discouraged and quit.

Could just be a growing thing - he may improve next year. You should definitely get him tested for celiac disease.

HRE is right. There could be an underlying health problem. I’d check Ferritin levels and TSH (thyroid) function, especially if your son is tired during “normal life” (outside of athletics).

I’m in a similar situation with my 12 year old, who doesn’t train a lot (only in-season) and has gone from a 6:11 mile as a 10 year old to struggling to run 6:30 and 16:00 (2 miles) as a 12 year old. We have totally downplayed his athletics and when he asks why he’s getting slower, I just tell him that happens sometimes... you get slower before you improve... he’s very competitive, so we are focusing on his academics and treating running and athletics as just s fun hobby. My son’s TSH came back high, so we are gong to recheck it in a couple of months.

My advice would be to act like getting slower is no big deal and these things happen... give him other activities to focus on and enjoy.

iron check wrote:

Check his iron levels (ferritin).

This. Especially if he just increased training (as OP said he did over the summer, training for the first time) he could be iron deficient, especially if there is a history of anemia in the family. Strongly recommend a serum ferritin test (NOT hemoglobin if you're reading this OP - they're completely different values). Should be 30+ for a distance runner.

Angry Willy wrote:

Maybe because you are an overbearing helicopter parent and it is time for you to do some introspection?

You know his stats from 6th grade ... c'mon.

Maybe he doesn't enjoy cross country and only says that he does to please you.

Maybe he isn't cut out for XC.

I remember a talk radio conversation between an NFL player and a NBA player. Both spent their summers riding their bikes and playing baseball on a vacant lot with their friends and never did any sport specific training until later in high school. Both were trashing summer sport camps, clinics, tee ball World Series, etc.

Don't listen to guys like this. Most are not parents, and as my great grandmother used to say, "People who don't have kids just don't understand". Anyone who is remotely interested in his kids would remember meaningful sports achievements, whether it be the time they scored 14 points in a 6th grade basketball game or ran their best 5K of the season. And they would get excited when their kid accomplishes a goal or gets excited about an achievement. That's not being a helicopter parent; that's being a dad who loves your kid.

A helicopter parent is someone who micromanages his or her child's life, not someone who cares about it. It is NOT normal for a 13 year old boy to run more slowly then he did a year ago, and the kid is obviously upset about it. So reaching out for advice is the right thing to do.

OP,

1. There is a lot on nonsense in this thread, first of all. In particular ignore the usual kooks who suggest "kids" (13) can't or should not "train". Sheer and utter nonsense. Or have him hurdle, lmao, yeah, thats it!!

2. There are many reasons why he could have slowed. Barring an unlikely health issue, my guess is that his skeleton has grown some and he is lugging it around with the same childish musculature. I've seen *many* boys get temporarily slower. For example, I know a current HS runner who ran 6 min in 5th grade and 5:55 by 8th grade.... Sub 5 by 10th grade. Just be patient.

What exactly are his times?

Oh, and for the last time LRC. Girls do not go through puberty in 10th grade. They might put on weight in 10th grade or 11th grade. But they already went through puberty. Probably before HS.

It is so hard to know what the heck is going on with kids at this age! If the season is over, then erase the word "run" from your vocabulary for a while. Replace it with something like, hike, bike, swim, play, fun, rest, read, study, talk. If your kid wants to start up again in the spring, see how it goes. If you are a runner, keep running, maybe seeing you do it will keep him interested. "Training" is a bit of a heavy term for some kids, I prefer to suggest "practicing" it sounds easier. Remember to always be proud and supportive regardless. My kid quit swimming after 6 years of year round club swimming, he just didn't like it anymore. Now running and racing MTB seems to be his thing, but that remains to be seen for the long term. My neighbor said, " Inevitably your kid will quit something at the apex of your involvement." I've seen that be the case too often.

Kids who want to "train" certainly can. Growing and hormones can play havoc with their day to day energy levels, and short term results. There are 13-14 year olds that my boy runs with who do the Middle School practices and run on their own, some up to 25 miles per week. If their mind and body is ready why not. Running is sort of a tough sell for some kids though, it is used as punishment in other sports! The book mentioned a few posts back has some great info about training kids. Cool thing is if a kid just stays fit and healthy they can pickup running just about anytime.

Another dad of 8th grader wrote:

Kids who want to "train" certainly can. Growing and hormones can play havoc with their day to day energy levels, and short term results. There are 13-14 year olds that my boy runs with who do the Middle School practices and run on their own, some up to 25 miles per week. If their mind and body is ready why not. Running is sort of a tough sell for some kids though, it is used as punishment in other sports! The book mentioned a few posts back has some great info about training kids. Cool thing is if a kid just stays fit and healthy they can pickup running just about anytime.

Agree, running can indeed be taken up anytime. I do think aerobic development has some long term component but yes it can be taken up successfully even later in life.

Tell that to Jakob Ingebrigtsen and his brothers and their coach Gjert, also father.;)

I can tell why his getting slower if

you show me his training up to date.

Maybe you have to change to a private coach to solve his running problems and that way continue improvement.