Forums >Health and Nutrition>12 year old wants to run with me
Okay, here we go again. He's now 13. And he's now on the 8th grade Cross Country team. I'm curious to see how he does this time.
Your toughness is made up of equal parts persistence and experience. You don't so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart them, and the toughest opponent of all is the one inside your head." - Joe Henderson
I think it's awesome that your son wants to get involved with running. If anything, it may be what makes him tick. Encourage him to keep running. As a young runner, I know what it's like to have someone to look up to and need for motivation. Without that motivation, I might not have stuck with the sport. Although, I would probably do your harder runs either in the morning or evening when your son is not running with you, and save the easier runs for your time with your son. I would have him start out easy (at his own pace) then build up each week. Good luck! And have fun! k
Michelle
I don't remember cross country being anything less than 3 miles
Another Passion
Charlie competed in his first school XC meet this past Thursday. They only have them doing 2 miles and they haven't started timing them yet. I guess it's a middle school thing, he's in 8th grade. I don't remember cross country being anything less than 3 miles, but I didn't run it until I was in 9th grade and joined the high school team. Charlie did well, he placed 30th out of 70 runners (I believe there were three schools there for this scrimmage meet). He's excited about getting better and will be running further distances starting this week.
Rick "The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare." - Juma Ikangaa "I wanna go fast." Ricky Bobbyrunningforcassy.blogspot.com
Go Charlie! My daughter started running XC in junior high (middle school) as well. Here it is 7th and 8th grade. Their races in junior high were 2 miles and then when she got to the high school as a freshman, they run 5k races for XC events. She is now a junior and much like your older son attitude-wise... punkish.
ROFL... They're so driven by spite and malice towards their parents at 16! That is how old my oldest daughter is, too. She just got her driver's license as well which severely inflamed the attitude. They certainly can be punks, and sometimes I don't like her a whole lot, but I will ALWAYS love her. She had a XC meet yesterday that the course humbled her spirit a bit though... about 1 1/4 mile into the race they had about a 70 degree hill that extended for about 100 yards to run up that was like a washed out riverbank! She was my biggest inspiration to start running.
That's too bad about your daughter's experience yesterday with the hill that did her spirit in. Maybe it will be an incentive to work do some hill workouts. Does your daughter plan on continuing to run throughout high school?
She does, and has throughout, starting back in junior high. She was somewhat of an unexpected phenom her freshman year for her HS team running varsity the whole season, PRing with a 20:43, and running in the Michigan State Division I Meet at Michigan International Speedway at the end of the season with her teamates. She had some nagging injuries her sophomore year and I think somewhere in all that she lost her "fire" to compete and improve. She could be such an awesome runner if she would put forth the effort. Don't get me wrong, I am tickled that she is out there doing it, but she has a gift that, if she chose to develop it, she could be great. She has to be the one to choose to do it though. An example is this past summers conditioning with her team. She showed up everyday at 8:00 a.m., Monday through Friday, to run with her teamates, but I just don't think she put the effort or miles into it that she could have to be great and started out the season very mediocre. She's "comfortable" sitting back and being the #6, 7, or 8 runner on the team and has even said she prefers running JV races when she gets dropped down. I think she enjoys the camaraderie of it more than the running which I've come to embrace. I'm just glad she's out there doing it. And, as I've said, she's been my biggest inspiration to get my butt out there as well. Sorry for the long reply post.