If you noticed your young son was extremely talented at distance running, how would you handle it?

-the kid should play what sports they want

-serious training doesn’t need to start until 9th grade

I'd stop kidding myself.

Make sure he is running 100 mpw by age 8.

Let him join whatever sports he likes but include some races here and there so he knows he’s good at running.

Let him decide for himself what sport he wants to do. My dad played baseball in college and tried pushing it on me but I burned out pretty quickly. If you try to force running onto your kid, he probably won't stick with it long term. I knew a lot of guys in high school who played certain sports moreso because of their parents than because they had an interest in it.

If I were you, I'd probably just introduce him to a lot of different sports so that he's active, then when he's in his teens give him the idea of doing XC or track to get in shape for his primary sport. If he gravitates toward running, then that's that. If not, let him live his own life.

I hate you dad wrote:

Let him decide for himself what sport he wants to do. My dad played baseball in college and tried pushing it on me but I burned out pretty quickly. If you try to force running onto your kid, he probably won't stick with it long term. I knew a lot of guys in high school who played certain sports moreso because of their parents than because they had an interest in it.

If I were you, I'd probably just introduce him to a lot of different sports so that he's active, then when he's in his teens give him the idea of doing XC or track to get in shape for his primary sport. If he gravitates toward running, then that's that. If not, let him live his own life.

Don`t forget it can be a daughter also... ;) Well......I have a son , and I saw early he had some good talent for running and ball-sense. We went to a soccer -club for him to test but he thought the other guys were to good and lost interest quickly. He also tried basketball and liked it but we moved to another city without a club . I say the same as "hate you dad wrote", introduce him/her to a lot of different sports so that they are active . The problem we have today is often that the children end up sitting several hours with their computer games and so on and not being active with their bodies. Now he is age 14 and I will introduce him to go out with me sometimes and do some running and hopefully he will discover that it`s nice to run (and walk) just to get the feeling of a body that works well. Then he decides himself if he will take it further and test his limits. Ron Clarke was age 15 when he started serious running. So the best advice must be to introduce the kid to different sports and let them decide themselves if they want to go more seriously for one of them .

First thing you do, take him to the hospital and tell him and the wife that he’s getting hernia surgery. But actually pay the doctor a bribe to give him a vasectomy instead. Nothing ruins a running career better than having kids. Then with kids out of the way, really nothing will stop him from reaching his potential.

I would shun said "talent," all the while explaining to him that trudging around slowly for a long time is not something anybody but skinny crackas cares about. I would start him in real sports with real athletes and ban distance trudging.

Geez. All parents think their kid is the next LeBron James. Sign the little pecker up for an Ultra and see how he does. Jamil Koury will probably let him in one of his Aruvaipa races.

Don’t turn him into another Todd Marinovich..

Tell them how horrible the corporate world is.

After watching Ingrid in Team Ingebrigtsen, my 11 year old daughter asked me to start a xc team with her friends.

If I go ahead with it, a few years ahead of when I think it would be valuable for her to start running instead of playing soccer, basketball, gymnastics and the like for general fitness and speed, should I have them do mostly drills, some change of pace runs, and really light mileage, e.g. no more than 3M per day for now?

zxcvzxcv wrote:

After watching Ingrid in Team Ingebrigtsen, my 11 year old daughter asked me to start a xc team with her friends.

If I go ahead with it, a few years ahead of when I think it would be valuable for her to start running instead of playing soccer, basketball, gymnastics and the like for general fitness and speed, should I have them do mostly drills, some change of pace runs, and really light mileage, e.g. no more than 3M per day for now?

Start an XC team? What’s wrong with joining the school’s team?

Anyone else thinks it funny that when Kenyans run fast we talk about them running 5 miles to school and back sincr age 8 but we arent into having our kids do that?

Obvious answer is soccer. You get in running and some coordination work. Through in a couple if conditioning rums and your kid will be fine. Baseball has no conditioning. Football and hockey have too many collisions. Tennis might be ok but odds of developing knee issues is too high.

Pappy wrote:

The thing is if your kid is going to be good it has to be her or his choice. It will not matter how talented they are if they do not want to do it for themselves.

This, times a thousand! I've been on, and now coached, teams with kids who were pushed into it by their parents. The kids, while talented, are miserable and bag off workouts and drag down their teammates. Better - for running and for life skills in general - to let the kid self-motivate while you just offer support and opportunity. There are way too many coddled kids out there who relied on their helicopter parents' constant prodding to get anything done, and who are now adrift in adulthood with no effing idea how to work hard without that external stimulus.

Matt Centrowitz Sr used reverse psychology on jr and told not to run that it was too hard. So I would use that too.

my son was good at running at an early age as we found out when he wanted to sign up on a city league with his friends at an early age, about 5 years old i think it was. He participated for a few years and we encouraged it, and i even ran a few 5ks with him and many of the practices. It was fun.

When he discovered team sports like baseball he quickly abandoned running in favor of team sports, and he was rather obstinate about it, which was fine. That was about 5 years ago at least.

He's still on a team sport which he loves and plans on continuing into college.

So I am of the camp like many here who say let them discover what it is that they enjoy and support that.

Anything else would be a big mistake, imo.

LoneStarXC wrote:

zxcvzxcv wrote:

After watching Ingrid in Team Ingebrigtsen, my 11 year old daughter asked me to start a xc team with her friends.

If I go ahead with it, a few years ahead of when I think it would be valuable for her to start running instead of playing soccer, basketball, gymnastics and the like for general fitness and speed, should I have them do mostly drills, some change of pace runs, and really light mileage, e.g. no more than 3M per day for now?

Start an XC team? What’s wrong with joining the school’s team?

Here's what's wrong with it:

Coaches.

Just look at how many threads exist to complain about school coaches. You may have to visit the High School Forum. Apparently these kids don't realize that by signing up for the team, they made the decision to be coached by this clown. He's your coach because you decided he was.

Heavy racing.

When I was in school (and probably eligible to join the teams) I raced a handful of times a year. Same as now. Well, a little more often, as my recovery powers have waned. How often do you see Kipchoge or Rupp on a starting line?

Red tape.

Nothing to join. No paperwork. No promising to only run for them. No nonsense. You train and race however you see fit. What are the requirements for participation in HS track? I don't know and never asked.

Distance events.

I may have looked into school track if 10,000 was an event they offered, considering I had the school record at 10k road. Your school doesn't have a 10k record? That's right. You have to have a student who has finished one to have a school record. 1600 and 3200? Those are not events. If you disagree, tell me the world record for either one.

Perhaps the question should be: Why run for the school's team?

I saw no upside in my youth. I see even more disadvantages now, and will guide the next generation accordingly.

Sand Dunes wrote:

Matt Centrowitz Sr used reverse psychology on juniour and told [CentroJr.™] not to run that [sic] because it was [sic] . . . and . . . still is . . . too hard. . . . So I would use that two.

That is an interesting idea.

X-Training™ is also an interesting idea.

For example:

1) Fortius™:

I just did Eka Hasta Adho Mukha Vrksasana (One-Handed Downward Facing Tree) and I was able to hold this asana for . . . 63 seconds.

It also turns out that High-Intensity Intermittent exercise Training (HIIT) has been proposed as an effective approach for improving both, the aerobic and anaerobic exercise capacity. However, the detailed molecular response of the skeletal muscle to HIIT remains unknown.

We examined the effects of the HIIT on the global gene expression in the human skeletal muscle. Eleven young healthy men participated in the study and completed a 6-week HIIT program involving exhaustive 6-7 sets of 20-s cycling periods with 10-s rests.

In addition to determining the maximal oxygen uptake ([Formula: see text]), maximal accumulated oxygen deficit, and thigh muscle cross-sectional area (CSA), muscle biopsy samples were obtained from the vastus lateralis before and after the training to analyse the skeletal muscle transcriptome.

The HIIT program significantly increased the [Formula: see text], maximal accumulated oxygen deficit, and thigh muscle CSA.

The expression of 79 genes was significantly elevated (fold-change >1.2), and that of 73 genes was significantly reduced (fold-change

Sand Dunes wrote:

Matt Centrowitz Sr used reverse psychology on jr and told not to run that it was too hard. So I would use that too.

Alpha): . . . (continued) . . . (fold-change = 0.8) after HIIT. Gene ontology analysis of the up-regulated genes revealed that the significantly enriched categories were "glucose metabolism", "extracellular matrix", "angiogenesis", and "mitochondrial membrane".

By providing information about a set of genes in the human skeletal muscle that responds to the HIIT, the study provided insight into the mechanism of skeletal muscle adaptation to HIIT.

Beta):

The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that PGC-1alpha is required for exercise-induced VEGF expression in both young and old mice and that AMPK activation leads to increased VEGF expression through a PGC-1alpha-dependent mechanism. Whole body PGC-1alpha knockout (KO) and littermate wild-type (WT) mice were submitted to either 1) 5 wk of exercise training, 2) lifelong (from 2 to 13 mo of age) exercise training in activity wheel, 3) a single exercise bout, or 4) 4 wk of daily subcutaneous AICAR or saline injections. In skeletal muscle of PGC-1alpha KO mice, VEGF protein expression was approximately 60-80% lower and the capillary-to-fiber ratio approximately 20% lower than in WT. Basal VEGF mRNA expression was similar in WT and PGC-1alpha KO mice, but acute exercise and AICAR treatment increased the VEGF mRNA content in WT mice only. Exercise training of young mice increased skeletal muscle VEGF protein expression approximately 50% in WT mice but with no effect in PGC-1alpha KO mice.

Furthermore, a training-induced prevention of an age-associated decline in VEGF protein content was observed in WT but not in PGC-1alpha KO muscles. In addition, repeated AICAR treatments increased skeletal muscle VEGF protein expression approximately 15% in WT but not in PGC-1alpha KO mice.

This study shows that PGC-1alpha is essential for exercise-induced upregulation of skeletal muscle VEGF expression and for a training-induced prevention of an age-associated decline in VEGF protein content.

Furthermore, the findings suggest an AMPK-mediated regulation of VEGF expression through PGC-1alpha.

Gamma):

Oh well.

It's not a big surprise.