Age Children Start Running/Athletics

SideBurn

Tired Runner wrote (see)

Oh SideBurn - that is so sad. Did her parent run with her?

Her Dad (I assume) was with her but did not run, hopefully she will run regularly and not take it too seriously (Internet has been down ). Hopefully she will eventually help to address the lack of youth in this sport.
 

[Deleted User]

my girl started running at school , yr 4 , try outs for X country, got in the team and was in it every year, she was 4th overall at our city yr 6 finals . 

she loves running , but she also plays netball and trains for that weekly , keeps her fit 

she runs in secondary school X country now, 3k series  , and comes to parkrun if they they have no netball matches , shes now 12 and has a sub 24 5k, she can beat me, which i love . 

i have never put her in a club , they are odd times for us to get her to, 

i think if children love to run they will always love it , and will only compete well if they love it, 

we recently took her to an open X country , the under 11s race 8-11 yrs was 200+ the under 13s had around 40 girls, every one of those girls in the under 13s wanted to be on that start line, the younger crew didn't look as thrilled to be there ! 

parents can be a great encouragement for children to be active, if they see their mums and dads and adults having fun, running and competing , they will be more inclined to join in and its normalised into a healthy lifestyle 

i used to run with her at parkrun a year ago, now she deffo runs with me

Dustin

Its always awkward what time to start.
Our club start them from  year 3, so aged 7/8.

However the reason we upped the age several years ago (from 6) was that too many younger ones lose interest mid-session or have tears and tantrums and don't want to carry on.
By junior school age they are disciplined enough to handle a 1hr session.

Nayan

more competitive at that age too - makes it easier for the coach to control a class if they know what they are doing.