Daughter wants to join me on runs

Haile Gebresslie ran 10k to school and back growing up. Jogging with you won't hurt her.

If she is having fun, let her run! Keep it simple and unstructured. Good luck!

Thanks! I figured I was overthinking it.

Your very lucky, like they said take it easy and go with it

Yeah I’m super jazzed, but I wanted to make sure I’m not overlooking something with growth plates or bone density in my excitement to have her so interested. I’m really looking forward to having some short, easy runs with her ?

I am now in my late 60s with my two sons in their mid30s. My sons started wanting to do the same thing with me when they were about 7 and 5. I let them do it as much as they wanted but never pushed them to do it. Once we started that soon became a couple of miles, often with stops to look at "interesting" stuff. It really put a dent in my personal training but was absolutely wonderful parent-child interaction time. When they were in their pre-teens we signed them up for about every type of YMCA sports camp offered, which they enjoyed, but they still gravitated back to running. We would average about one 5k or 10k road or XC race a month up until high school. They both ran XC and track in high school and college. One of them made all-American in XC in college. These days one of them still runs competitively in local events and the other runs regularly but rarely competes. Running has been a wonderful shared interest between us and running with them has been and continues to be some of the best times of my life.

Kids (used to) run around more than a few miles a day. It should be no cause for worry. Take her jogging with you on soft surfaces if you have a trail nearby. You should be fine either way. Have fun!

My 5 year old ran with me this morning. I deliberately went on a path she'd never been on before and then picked up the pace, dropping her. This will teach her not to walk on runs. She showed up at home 4 hours later DEVASTATED!

A poster used the African runner example. I haven't been to Africa for awhile, but last time I was there, I noticed many dirt roads. Running on dirt is far different than running on concrete or asphalt. Don't over do it with your five year old.

I’d also be interested to hear from a pediatrician if there are any PROVEN negative consequences to distance running for young kids. Where I grew up in the 70’s it was commonplace to see a half dozen elementary /jr high school kids each year running in our local (Palos Verdes) marathon. Many went on to continue running in high school, college, and beyond. I never heard about any ill effects other than some kids burned out...but kids burn out all the time from stuff- piano, soccer, etc. Are the “dangers” just a theory or is there any evidence to support the warnings?

RunningOtaku wrote:

I’d also be interested to hear from a pediatrician if there are any PROVEN negative consequences to distance running for young kids.

There is probably no proof that running is 100% safe either. Would you let your kids eat something that might cause cancer (but not PROVEN)? Or let someone babysit your children that gave you a bad vibe?

I’m not saying there is even plausible evidence that running is bad for kids, just that your requirement for proven negative consequences seems like too high of a threshold to prevent kids from doing something.