Children Beginning

I have joined this forum for the purpose of seeking advice for my daughter. She is 11 years old and is keen to start running. I am not sure if this is a fad or not. She does have the capabilities of running short distances at a good pace.

She wants to run longer distances and not on a track, as 'its boring', her words.

I took her out last night for the first time and we ran around 1 and a quarter miles. My approach, so as not to damage her confidence was to walk and then jog.

I decided on a 5 minute walk then a 5 minute jog to see how it went.

Of course, being 11, she was naggeing during the walk 'when can we run'. I kept rigid and waited the whole 5 minutes. Guess what. 2 minutes into the run and she wanted to walk.

However, again I stuck to my guns. Then a slight change. I told her we would walk for three minutes and the jog for 3. We did the two and on the next jog went all the way home for a full 6 minutes, she sprinted the last 30 meters.

She enjoyed the second half better, probably second wind.

One thing for sure, I need to get her better footwear, as her feet were hurting.

Any advice or useful tips on this would be very helpful.

At least she's keen on run 2 on Tuesday, but we will see soon enough.

Thanks In advance

Comments

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    The right shoes are important.  

    Take her to a running shop (NOT JJB or JD, or Sports Direct type shops) for advice.

    Don't let her choose shoes based on what they look like!

  • Do whatever you can to make it fun; join a club with a kids section, have a fun end- stop where there is a park, or whatever her joy is.  Don't let her do too much- do too little if anything.  Better to be wanting.

    Go to a proper running shop and get advice there.  They should be able to offer a range of shoes suitable for her particular running style.

    It's great that she wants to run image

  • The short advice would be to get her to join a club with a good junior section. They could offer her a good support group, plenty of advice and opprtunities to race cross country. She might even find she likes the track if she sees others competing.

  • She could build up to a parkrun - free 5ks every Saturday in a lot of towns and cities.



    It is competitive at the front and at the back you get people just happy to finish.



    At my local parkrun there is a 7 year old who runs every week - bags of energy - he runs through the finish line and straight into the play area. Very impressive.
  • The kids are taking over our parkruns here. They love it. 

  • MillsyMillsy ✭✭✭
    I think some places also have specific junior parkruns.
  • yes .let her set her place and mske sure its fun.too much running on tarmac is not great for kids.....

    Parkruns are great for this........under 11 or 12 I can't remember they have to have an adult run with then.after that they can run the 5k on their own.......

    as you say it could be a fad...most kids have loads of them..but it could turn out to be something that she really enjoys for lifeimage

  • I'm suprised that happy le hasn't been back to discuss this further..did they go running yesterday or not......

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    He probably tried, and got "Oooops!.... "

    image

  • Probably will come back later.......I probably just have a suspicious side to my natureimage

  • Hello

    Sorry, I kept getting a Oooops Something's wrong and could not open the thread.

    Now I can.

    We never went, but plan to go out at the weekend and invest in some running shoes.

    She does not want to join a club yet, so I will carry on taking her and see how it goes.

    Thanks again for your help.

  • I have run two parkruns and they are both on tarmac. The beauty of parkruns are they are regular, easy, free, early and local. 

  • roebyroeby ✭✭✭

    Our parkrun has a regular group of kiddies, we had our youngest complete a full 5k a few weeks ago 5 yrs old , took ker over 40 mins and we did a run walk stratergy but she was brill.Ours is a 3 lap course so its easy for little ones to do just 1, 2 or 3 laps as they get better.I,m sweeper so usually take the youngsters round with me they all love itimage.Get down to your local one and see how you get on theres no pressure at all and usually newcomers do a walk/run.

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