Any 2 mile runners here

[KsRancher]

My son ran his first CC event today. 1.8 miles in 16:42. By far the longest he has run. Never walked. Finished strong and was very proud of himself.

Good stuff! I never thought I would enjoy watching running. Buy I enjoy the heck out of it. Keep posting the updates

 

[Cervid]

There’s some bad advice and some good advice in this thread. The best advice: find a coach or someone who knows what they’re talking about for advice. Or educate yourself- Jack Daniels Running Formula is a good book for this. This book is written more for the competitive college level runner rather than a middle-schooler. At your son’s age, the most important things are avoiding injury, keeping it fun, and building base endurance (rather than speed). At his age, interval workouts should be designed more to teach pacing rather than improve speed. Kids tend to have high top end speed relative to their time in distance events anyways. Young and growing runners are like good bird dogs - they’ll overdo it and injure themselves unless you or a coach is keeping things in check. Too many interval/speed workouts is the quickest way to get a runner injured. I’ve seen far too many promising runners get derailed by a preventable injury. In terms of building base endurance, 35 min to an hour long runs are great. There are some good online calculators for this and I believe Daniels running formula also has some tables to get training speeds from race times - though these are not as accurate for young runners. The point is these longer training runs need not be especially hard or fast. Vary the length so that every week has some of the shorter 35 min runs and some of the longer 50-60 minute runs. But take the time to build up to the longer runs. It’s ok if a middle schooler is never doing a run longer than 45 minutes. In a few years, working the long days up to 90 minutes once every 1-2 weeks is good, but for now 60 min would be plenty long. Impromptu off days are necessary if there are signs of overuse injuries, an illness like a cold, or just lack of desire/exhaustion. Always better to be safe than sorry. But outside of this, I’ve found that running every day (year round) is very good for staying on a program and building endurance. I think most young runners race far too much. Races are a good motivator, necessary for learning how to race and push oneself, and a good way to assess fitness, but racing every week all season is a recipe for burnout - though this does seem to be how most middle and high school programs are structured. Limiting off-season races to none/only a few more fun/different type events is good.
Hope this helps, running is a fun sport and sets people up well for a lifetime of fitness.

 

[Fatcamp]

Kid ran his second race yesterday. Was very proud as were we.

He was slower but it has been a busy couple of weeks, and this was a huge meet. He seems genuinely excited, which is all we were after.

 

[Anglo-American]

Hopefully this isn't too long. Needing some help/advice for my 14yr old son. He has NEVER been a runner. Didn't have track his 7th grade yr due to Covid. Starting his 8th grade yr he played football. He was 5'4 and a half in tall weighing 135lbs. This winter/spring decided to give track a try. So around March 1st he started going out and running a couple miles. First track meet rolls around mid April. He is now 5'7 and half tall weighing 125lbs.



Starting out track season the coaches didn't know what to put him in. so he ran the 200, 400 and did shot and discuss. It was rough, best he got was 6th. Did the same thing for the second meet. He was super discouraged. So decided to try the mile. Third meet comes around and he ran the mile in 6:18 which got him 3rd place. That finally put little pep in his step.



He decided to try the 2 mile in the next meet. He ran a 12:23 which got him a 2nd place. First place ran a 12:21. Next meet he runs a 12:18 which gets him 1st place. Next meet runs a 12:09 and gets 1st. Those two meets there wasn't much for competition. Last meet of the season is up next, it's out league meet. Twice as many schools as other meets.




He is shooting for a time 12 minute 2 mile, but says whatever it takes to win. Gun goes off, he starts off really fast. But a kid is still right on him(3-4ft). So he keeps that pace hoping to lose the kid right behind him. Runs the first mile in 5:38. Comes the 7th lap, he is still in the lead by about 3-4ft. He gets passed on the back straight away of last lap. Could not take back the lead. Ended up 2nd place with a time of 11:19.32 first place ran a 11:19.15 He was bummed he didn't get first, but I was super excited about the time.



Sorry for all that rambling, but hoping to give a little backstory. What am needing advice/help on is what to do from here. He wants to be good at it and I know absolutely nothing about running. And at our small school our coaches aren't really there for much other than a formality. There wasn't even a coach watching him run in the 2 mile at the league meet. (I am not griping about our coaches, it's just he wants to be better). Is it just all on how bad my son wants it? Or is there something he could be doing to really help him. He is currently running from 3-5 miles a day, with 1 rest day a week.

Book: Pose Method of Running.

It's by a successful Olympic coach.

It's about form, more than training.

Red neck training:

Speed training:
Hill sprints.
Do you have lamp posts where you live?
If yes, sprint, jog, sprint, jog between the posts.


Make most of the long runs easy runs.
Easy = being able to have a conversation whilst running.
Fast runs should be fast as fu*k boyyy but trying to maintain a steady (fast) pace for the entire run.


Pro tip: the faster you can run the mile, the faster your marathon times get.
So his long push is one or two miles?
The harder he does speed training like above or a more complicated versions to achieve the same results, the faster his 1/2 mile times will get.

Core work: planks, push ups, Hindu pushups, body weight squats and lunges.

Recovery: cold showers, foam roller, lacrosse ball to massage the legs.

 

[socoalt]

Interval training and 200's There are some examples of 200 workouts online but an example would be run 8 200 meters at say a 1:40 pace with a full recovery between 200's. If the 1:40 is too slow for him then decrease time accordingly.