My 7th grade son just started running cross country and really likes it. I hated running long distances, so I have no idea how to help him. Does anyone have a book they recommend? Also, any tips and strategies you can give me would be appreciated.

There's probably some dumb UIL rule why you shouldn't/can't do this, but you could try talking to the high school cross coach. Totally a crap shoot on what they may know, but you might hit gold or at least prepare a bridge for a few years down the road.

As far a learning on your own, watch the sport and peruse runners world stuff. They've gone pretty woke, but I used to enjoy gleaning bits of info or new workouts from there.

I think their coach is the real deal, not just some coach from another sport that got thrown in there. They seem to do pretty well every year in XC so he must be doing something right.

So I'm not trying to coach over that guy but mainly want more info for support. I know there's more to it than just telling him to finish his 2 miles as fast as he can. Things like breathing techniques, running form, etc I know nothing about.

I think parents probably can make the biggest difference by making sure the kid eats right. Not suggesting your kiddo doesn't already, but I certainly did not as a high schooler. We were a pallet of coke in the garage family. Pop tarts for breakfast, fast food for lunch, and probably something frozen from sams for dinner. I was a moderately successful middle distance runner but looking back at the garbage diet I had back then, I probably could have been way more successful had my family been a little more cognizant about balanced nutritional needs.

7th Grade is still young. If your son likes the sport and wants to do it all through high school and/or beyond; the most important thing is learning to enjoy it. That is a prerequisite to running a lot, which is ultimately how you get good. Having a good coach at the junior high level is not important as long as the coach isn't crazy.
Long-term performance for an individual is largely determined by consistency and volume.

Junior high is a great time to learn to enjoy the sport and even potentially developing routines of running 3-4 days a week, even out of season with no practices. 20-30min runs at an easy pace are wholly sufficient at that age. As a parent best thing you can be is to be encouraging and let your son discover the sport for himself, ideally get a group of friends who can run together, set some goals, and get ambitious; which makes it fun.

If you have any specific questions feel free to reach out at sub4506410@gmail.com
This is my kind of thing.

Affirming some of the comments,

Yes, Let the coach coach. Big fan of this unless something is very wrong.

Breathing techniques- As soon as you stop thinking about breathing you'll start breathing normally in an efficient manner. There is no right way. Don't worry about it

Running Form- This is hard because your kid is still developing and subject to change. If it is atrocious this may be something to look at in the future. But that can be visited in High school if needed. Huge loping strides are bad which is the typical error.

Diet- bigger for girls than boys, but good diets always help. Sugar is bad. Hydration is good. I wouldn't put a focus on anything too specific this young. In hot climates, iron supplements are important for distance runners. Absolutely necessary for girls.

My daughter used to finish last on her team every distance race in middle school.

She's now running XC and distance at a small D1 school.

I HATE running and knew nothing about it. But, I have grown to love the sport. I'm that dad that spent hours researching supplements, form, and anything else I could find to help her succeed.

As others have said, sit back and enjoy right now. The big jump for boys will happen sometime between months and a couple of years from now. He should know by the time he has his puberty growth spurt if he wants to do this at the varsity level.

Also, make sure he is fitted for some really good running shoes.

Finally, don't cheat your recovery days. When it's time to rest, rest.

My daughter runs varsity cross country for a team that will challenge for the state title this year, and has done so the past 2 years. I took up running 4 years ago when she was in 7th grade. I have learned a lot, and ran my first 3 marathons this year. I could say a lot, but this sport comes down to 3 things. Loosely speaking, it's about 50% discipline, 25% effort, and 25% talent. Discipline is about showing up every day, even when nobody is there to run with you, even when the weather is bad, even when you're tired...but balancing all of that with intelligence. If you excel at 28 miles per week, don't run 45 and injure yourself. If you need speed work or tempo work, do the right workout...every time. This is where effort comes in. When it's a hard day, finish the job. Run the last mile hard, hit your lowest split on the last 200, etc. Make it count, and on race day, if there's anything left in the tank at the finish line, you let yourself and your teammates down. This sport sucks beyond all belief, but if you pay the price you can always be proud of what you achieve.

Some basics to start:

Good running shoes
Stay hydrated
Cut the soda
Proper warm up and cool down

Good shoes is a great one.

I ran XC in 7th grade in basketball shoes because I didn't know any better. Hell, when track season started we just bought whatever running shoes were on sale.

2 mile Classmate Challenge was at Atascocita Sat morning. Just brutal weather this time of year. Our girls haven't really started interval training yet, but we had 10 run under 13:20. I ran 14:48 on the track in these conditions, so mad respect for all of them. Even the ones who look slow were absolutely killing it.

If you want to see what big time cross country looks like, the Katy Seven Lakes Invitational will be this Saturday at Seven Lakes HS. Be there before 7 a.m. And if you are near Austin, the McNeal Invitational is very good.

One other thing about CC. You don't have to join all those exorbitant, steal-your-weekend, child-centric, overbearing parent, travel all over the world scholly hunting clubs. You run with your school. The good programs don't even allow outside coaches. It's the most mellow sport with the hardest working athletes you'll see anywhere.

Good info, thanks for all the responses. He had his second meet this past Saturday and his personal best time. He's really enjoying cross country and so are we.

94chem said:

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If you want to see what big time cross country looks like, the Katy Seven Lakes Invitational will be this Saturday at Seven Lakes HS. Be there before 7 a.m. And if you are near Austin, the McNeal Invitational is very good.

One other thing about CC. You don't have to join all those exorbitant, steal-your-weekend, child-centric, overbearing parent, travel all over the world scholly hunting clubs. You run with your school. The good programs don't even allow outside coaches. It's the most mellow sport with the hardest working athletes you'll see anywhere.

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That doesn't jive with my experience. Would you expand on this?

My experience - Boerne Champion boys and girls have skins on the wall and most of the runners use a private coach.

aggiebrad94 said:

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94chem said:

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If you want to see what big time cross country looks like, the Katy Seven Lakes Invitational will be this Saturday at Seven Lakes HS. Be there before 7 a.m. And if you are near Austin, the McNeal Invitational is very good.

One other thing about CC. You don't have to join all those exorbitant, steal-your-weekend, child-centric, overbearing parent, travel all over the world scholly hunting clubs. You run with your school. The good programs don't even allow outside coaches. It's the most mellow sport with the hardest working athletes you'll see anywhere.

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That doesn't jive with my experience. Would you expand on this?

My experience - Boerne Champion boys and girls have skins on the wall and most of the runners use a private coach.

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They should hire someone who wants to coach the sport and stop that mess. While there may be some benefit to individual instruction, it's a great way to break the kids by not controlling mileage. Even in the off-season our kids run together. There's no need to outsource toughness, discipline, and accountability. The kids have 39 regional championships and 16 state championships. Maybe there are a lot of private coaches out there, and we're just blessed to have a good one at the school.

...and the families in this sport, yeah, they can tend to have some money. There are some destination meets, camps, etc...but that isn't what makes great runners.

94chem said:

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If you want to see what big time cross country looks like, the Katy Seven Lakes Invitational will be this Saturday at Seven Lakes HS. Be there before 7 a.m.

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Congrats to the Kingwood girls on their win today!

My 9th grade daughter ran at the Seven Lakes meet today and it was a great race day. She started running in 8th grade and is running varsity this year and it was her first 5K race of the season because everything else has been shorter. She is loving it though and that makes it worth driving her to those early morning practices.

Nice. I took up running almost 4 years ago as a last resort to balance workouts with personal stuff. It's been fun to pursue goals alongside my daughter. As of late, this has been helpful in seeing how we possess many of the same gifts and limitations.

AggieOO said:

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Does his school have a real XC coach, or is it just someone who got roped into XC bc they coach spring sports? I ask bc if the coach is good, let him/her do their job, and you just encourage him.

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I'll agree that a real coach that loves the sport makes all the difference.

I ran CC just to stay in shape for track, but I was terrible at it. I'm just not built for long distance. I was a former offensive lineman who was also the anchor leg on the sprint relay if that describes my build in HS. I still run today because I had such a good time with it and a great coach and built an appreciation for it. Again, I'm a terrible distance runner, but there's not a market for a 40 year old guy that can still run a fast 400.

My coach ran CC and track at A&M in the 80s and still wore his tiny shorts out there with us and actually had real workouts tailored to the type of courses we were running. He went from having all the football drop outs to making state consistently and winning a few championships in the late 2000s after my crew graduated.

ag97tx said:

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My 9th grade daughter ran at the Seven Lakes meet today and it was a great race day. She started running in 8th grade and is running varsity this year and it was her first 5K race of the season because everything else has been shorter. She is loving it though and that makes it worth driving her to those early morning practices.

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The times at the meet were awful, with that oppressive heat, and 100% sun on the course. Our coach decided to race shock the team on top of that. My daughter, who has the dual curse of being an 800 specialist and always listening to her coach, went out in ~5:50, went lactic the first mile, and couldn't recover. I'm a fast twitch athlete myself, so I knew exactly what it feels like to get the fast twitch muscles engaged too early in a distance event. Speed athletes just have some different needs when it comes to training for distance events; you can tell which is which by watching the 5K finish. The natural sprinters can just turn it on the last 100M. Or, you can just watch them interval train. The distance runners look like wounded elk when they try to sprint, but the natural sprinters easily transition to the needed stride and arm motions.

Once you've been running a while, you see who you are as a runner, how the weather affects pace, how fast you really are. At the middle school distance, let's say you've got a 16 minute 2 miler at 60F. At 85F, you simply can't run that fast. But how fast should you run? Maybe 8:45...every runner has to figure that out, because there are no miracles on race day. You are who you are. Try to run at a 7:30 pace, and you'll finish in 19 instead of 17:30.

Train enough to know what your race is. You can get faster next month or next year, but right now you are who you are.

Start the race with your head, and finish with your heart. Every runner gets it backwards at least a few times before learning, but when you see that humiliating finish, use it as a teachable moment about race discipline. Even splits aren't some made-up goal. They truly will unlock your best race.

Never finish with anything left in the tank. Maybe you've got too much left with 400 to go. Don't wait till next week to fix it - let it rip. I have a disposal charge for unused fuel.

Finally, for today, nothing will get you more engaged than taking up running yourself. Did I mention that this sport sucks? Empathy and encouragement mixed together in the right portions can be a fearsome motivational force.

I decided on short notice to enter a 10-Miler two weeks from today, not having run more than 6 miles (at one time) since Feb.

At this point, not much I can do to train for it so my plan is to drink no beer between now and race day. And that's pretty much it.

But to make this high school CC related, I ran 4 miles with my son today (High school JV CC runner) and he was nice enough to run with me until the final 400 before leaving me in the dust.

aggiebrad94 said:

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94chem said:

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If you want to see what big time cross country looks like, the Katy Seven Lakes Invitational will be this Saturday at Seven Lakes HS. Be there before 7 a.m. And if you are near Austin, the McNeal Invitational is very good.

One other thing about CC. You don't have to join all those exorbitant, steal-your-weekend, child-centric, overbearing parent, travel all over the world scholly hunting clubs. You run with your school. The good programs don't even allow outside coaches. It's the most mellow sport with the hardest working athletes you'll see anywhere.

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That doesn't jive with my experience. Would you expand on this?

My experience - Boerne Champion boys and girls have skins on the wall and most of the runners use a private coach.

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I'm sure things have changed since there was only one school back in the day, but it was a one man (coach) show back when I ran for coach Fulkerson.

You are 100% correct!! My choice of events and training horizon are definitely impulsive and not the smartest way to train especially if bragging rights are at stake. I'll be happy just to finish the 10-Miler and not be last in my age group (50-54).

So on the high school CC question, curious what thoughts are on distance spikes? My son is very much a middle of the pack finisher at best and not sure if spikes are worth the $.

Middle/Jr high School cross country doesn't need spikes. If his whole team has them then I would get them. but if a minority does it then I wouldn't bother. Don't need to bother with that till Highschool.
Entry level XC spikes are only ~$60 range, so stay in that price point if you do get em. No need to get the $100+ spikes yet

Sweep4-2 said:

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I decided on short notice to enter a 10-Miler two weeks from today, not having run more than 6 miles (at one time) since Feb.

At this point, not much I can do to train for it so my plan is to drink no beer between now and race day. And that's pretty much it.

But to make this high school CC related, I ran 4 miles with my son today (High school JV CC runner) and he was nice enough to run with me until the final 400 before leaving me in the dust.

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I had never run more than 10K until a week before my first half marathon. I did 8, then 3 days later did 10, then 3 days later did the race. Given your fitness level, I would guess you could hold around 9 minutes on a cool day. I ran 10 at under 8 on a 50 degree day, but on a 70 degree day, I'd be more like 9:15. Try an 8 miler at sunrise, start at a 9:30 pace, and slowly work your way down. If that goes well, step it up a tick. I'd try that distance twice before race day. If you know your 60 degree pace add 1% for every 2 degrees of heat index above that.

Wait. You said no beer? How's that gonna help anything?

Thanks Sub4, much appreciated. Will probably hold off since very few are wearing them (and my son keeps outgrowing shoes quickly).

94chem, thanks for the info re training/temp. I'll try a run Wednesday morning (got to let this storm blow through Houston) and see how it goes. As far as the beer, I was going to be 'heathy' but I've already blown it. Wife wanted some 'storm beer' to ride out the tropical storm rains and I gave in.

Since I kind of hijacked the cross country thread by mentioning my latest ill-advised and poorly thought out event, I thought I'd at least follow it up and mention that I'm realizing just how badly this 10-miler in a week is going to hurt.

Ran 8 miles tonight (at 8:35/mile) in cool, misty weather. Pace stayed +\- 5 seconds from average for each mile. At mile 6, I was feeling great. At mile 8, I wanted to lay in the wet grass and cry.

Sweep4-2 said:

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Since I kind of hijacked the cross country thread by mentioning my latest ill-advised and poorly thought out event, I thought I'd at least follow it up and mention that I'm realizing just how badly this 10-miler in a week is going to hurt.

Ran 8 miles tonight (at 8:35/mile) in cool, misty weather. Pace stayed +\- 5 seconds from average for each mile. At mile 6, I was feeling great. At mile 8, I wanted to lay in the wet grass and cry.

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When I went out for my "cool run" at 6:30 tonight in Houston, it was actually 80 with an 89 heat index. As I write this at 10:10 p.m., the heat index is still 80. Sure, that's fine for a nice long run, but it will have a significant effect on pace. You were just going too fast, and you're not going to have time to recover if you don't chill a bit.

For reference, my PR for 5K is 22:50, but as soon as the weather gets cool, I'm going to go under 22. Tonight I ran a 5K fartlek, with a dozen or so microsurges of 10 - 20 seconds. The time was 25:09.. My Garmin may not agree, but I know that was a pretty darned good run. Subtract 14% for temp effect, and it's right about 21:30 for a 5K. I don't know how low I'll really get, but you have to respect the weather.

I did about 2 weeks this summer at 9000 feet. The altitude had a similar effect on pace, but once I got in a comfort zone, I could maintain heart rate without dropping pace. In Houston, no chance. So, since I've come back down to hell, I've started off long runs slowly and not increased pace until I'm completely comfortable at a given heart rate. I'm able to run a 10K with negative splits for every mile. The finish time isn't great, but I'm running comfortably at the top of zone 4 at the finish instead of praying for death and dropping pace.

TLDR...try starting at 9:00 or 9:15 and drop 0-5 seconds for each mile. I'll bet you can do the full 10 around 8:45, and be looking forward to your first half marathon at the same pace with just a little more training. And when the weather gets cold, you'll be ready to run the half in 8:15 or faster.

Future addict alert!!!!

And this is very cross country related. Not all runners get to the fastest 5K by the same route. There is this myth that you have to be a high volume runner to reach peak performance. It's just not true, but if you're gonna be a 20 - 25 mile per week runner, you better make those miles count. My daughter doesn't go over 30 very often, but she's faster than several of the 40+ runners. Every runner has to figure it out. Hint...if your family is full of sprinters, you may not benefit much from higher volume training.