It’s great to see the kids take an interest in following in your footsteps as a runner; but how far should they be running? On this episode of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, Lindsey gives you tips and advice on when best to start focusing on what distance. But the real question is; should you be focusing on speed over distance?

Transcript

Welcome onto this edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, I’m Brad Brown, Lindsey Parry joining us once again. If you’re listening to this as soon as we publish it this morning, don’t forget, coming up at midday today, we’re going to be having our next Comrades Marathon webinar. It’s happening at midday and if you want to register, coachparry.com/comrades-marathon-webinar is the web address to get to. All you need to do is go and register, it’s absolutely free and we’ll chat to you in a short while.

Lindsey, a wonderful question in from Jaco, he says his daughter Nicola will be 15 this month. She’s always been active in team sports at school, mainly netball and hockey. Recently, to his delight, she’s taken up running, the running bug has bit her. She started training last July, she used a Couch to 5K app and completed a 5km race at the beginning of October, another one three weeks later.

She’s keen to aim for longer distances, go up to 10km, however Jaco has heard that younger runners shouldn’t start running longer distances too early. Could you please give some advice on how she should progress as she gets older. When should she start looking to train for a 10km, half marathon, marathon, without risking injury. He says thanks for the great podcast, Jaco, you’re welcome, Happy New Year to you as well, Lindsey, a wonderful question.

Three ways to know when to increase mileage

Lindsey Parry: It really is a good question. So far, so good, it’s a nice, sensible build-up. Got some nice milestones along the way and it now sort of becomes, the question needs to be answered in two or perhaps three parts.

The first is, how well has she responded, how well is she running. The better athlete she is, the longer I would encourage her to stay on the shorter distances. To start focusing on maybe 800, 1 500 and 3 000 on the track. If it’s purely just really, she loves running, she’s maybe not so quick. She just digs being out there on the road, loves having the opportunity to be able to run with her dad.

Then moving up to 10km now is really not a problem, it’s A okay. I would hold back on moving beyond that, she could probably, when she’s 16/17 do the odd 15km. Maybe once a year a 21km as she moves to 17 and 18. Really no problem at all running a couple of 21’s through the year.

Focus on speed while you have it

Then once 18, of course, legally it’s fine to move up to the marathon, but I would only do that if there really isn’t any aptitude for running fast. In other words, it really has just become a question of, I love running, I want to keep doing this for the rest of my life. I’m not really going to get that fast, then perhaps from 18 onwards it’s okay to move up in distance.

I’d always tell people, once you move up, particularly to marathons and ultras, you’re always going to struggle to run faster 10’s, 15’s and 21’s, partly just because the opportunities to race them become fewer because you’re always focusing on a further run. But partly also because doing those longer runs does make you a little slower, particularly when you are recovering from it.

I’m a firm believer that if you want to run the fastest possible 10km you can run, you should also sort out your fastest 5km that you could run. Then that’ll then knock-on to your best possible 21, knock into your best possible 42. Spend some time getting good at the shorter distances. The better you are at the shorter distances, the longer you want to stay there. The more social you are; the sooner you can afford to really move up in distance.

BB: Awesome, Jaco, thanks for being in touch. Nicola, best of luck on your journey and it’s awesome growing up in a running family. I know Lindsey and I both did as well and it’s just a great, healthy way to spend time with your family. Thank you very much, we’re back again on Friday with the next edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast.

But we’ll be with you in just a couple of hours’ time for the next Comrades Marathon webinar, the link is in the show notes to this episode and we look forward to spending some time with you then. Until next time, from the two of us, it’s cheers.