Want to encourage young runners? Here’s what to do (and what to avoid)

When two-time Olympic champion Kara Goucher was growing up, she was used to seeing her grandfather run five or six days a week, but she never thought of it as a sport because he didn’t compete. She only discovered organized running in high school.

“I fell in love with it, obviously,” she said.

While sports such as baseball and soccer have organized youth leagues across the United States, there are fewer programs dedicated to running. Girls on the Run is one of the biggest, with 2.1 million girls participating since the nonprofit started in 1996.

Before the start of the coronavirus pandemic, about 200,000 girls were enrolled each year, according to the organization. Numbers haven’t returned to those levels, but there are around 142,000 girls taking part this year.

More road racing is adding children’s races and more racing organizations are offering options for middle and high school students.

The Rising New York Road Runners program began more than 20 years ago with 12 kids at a Brooklyn high school. Today, 112,000 children participate at 800 locations across the country, with about half in New York City, said Marissa Muñoz, vice president of community impact for New York Road Runners, which organizes the New York City Marathon and dozens of other races.

“By offering youth races in our adult races, we really open the door for youth who are not in our Rising program,” said Muñoz.

Bart Yasso, retired running director for Runner’s World magazine, said big events often have “all-comers” races – races that are open to all, fun and shorter distances – but in recent years he has seen more children’s races organized.

Molly Huddle, 38, an American long-distance runner, approves of the rise in youth running. When they were children, she and her sisters participated in some open races in events that her father competed in.

“I think people are realizing these are family events,” she said. “Race directors are trying to make it fun for everyone.”

Every adult race the Atlanta Track Club organizes now has at least one shorter children’s event, said Jay Holder, the club’s vice president of marketing and communications.

“Youth programming is the only thing in our organization where we’ve had an increase,” Holder said.

This includes the Kilometer Kids program, for children in kindergarten through fifth grade, and their competitive teams for high school students.

When schools were closed early in the pandemic, parents started Kilometer Kids programs in neighborhoods, said Madison Hafitz, their supervisor. Since 2000, the program has grown each season to 85 locations in the fall of 2022, with nearly 4,000 children enrolled.

More youth programs could also expand the adult running community. Basil Rowell had to run to pass physical fitness tests in the Navy, but stopped after retiring in 2006. His eldest son, Yosif, ran a local 1-mile run in Norfolk, Virginia, when he was six. , and loved it.

“I said I needed to get in shape so I could start running with him,” Rowell said.

Rowell hated racing in the Navy, but with a different motivation he found that he liked it. He started seeing the same people on different trials, another change from when he was in the Navy and often away from Norfolk. He has become involved in the local running community and serves as vice captain of the Hampton Roads chapter of Black Men Run.

Yosif, now 16, runs for the varsity team, and his younger brothers, aged 13 and 9, also run. Sometimes the four run together.

“My goal is to show them that running as an event exists,” said Rowell. “I, as a young man, didn’t know there was evidence.”

Life lessons on the run

Program organizers and professional runners suggested focusing on progress and setting goals rather than times to encourage kids and teens to run.

The New York Road Runners’ Run for the Future program, aimed at girls in their third and fourth grades of high school, ends with participants doing a 5K but includes plenty of life and leadership training along the way, Muñoz said. .

Girls on the Run takes a similar approach. This includes picking a friend for the 5K event, which gets friends and family running. When Amelia Kwan’s stepdaughter Alma Menard made her first Girls on the Run 5K event, her older brother Kiefer was her running buddy. That was her first 5K, Kiefer said. Now he’s finishing up his first high school cross-country season in Washington State, where they live.

“Kiefer talks about running a 10K soon. Maybe I want to run a half marathon,'” said Amelia, who is a board member of the Puget Sound chapter of Girls on the Run.

Huddle still remembers the lessons he learned running in high school. Her school didn’t have a women’s cross-country team, but she had heard about the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships, which was the national high school meet at the time. She wanted to go, but first she had to qualify. That meant finding a solution to her not having a team. She worked with her school and ended up being a one-person, self-funded team.

“It was the first opportunity I’ve ever had to set multi-week goals,” Huddle said. “It taught me a lot about organization. It was like a big project and, in the end, a big payoff.”

Introduce children to running, but don’t force it.

For adults who want to encourage their kids to run, there’s a balance to be struck, something Goucher repeatedly emphasized. His son Colt, 12, started running with a Colorado club, the Boulder Mountain Warriors, but only after Goucher talked to the coach and convinced himself that the group was a playful, not a competitive, approach.

Colt also plays other sports. Goucher and her husband, Adam, who also race professionally, prefer it that way. Neither of them majored until later in high school and college, and they want Colt to feel like he can play a lot of sports.

Will Martin, who lives in southern New Jersey, learned the benefits of Goucher’s approach the hard way. He started running after the high school cross-country team recruited runners at his school. Years later, when his oldest son was in high school, Martin encouraged him to run, wanting the boy to love the sport. But after participating in the Amateur Athletic Union’s youth programs he didn’t want to run in high school.

“I learned a valuable lesson from him: don’t force it,” Martin said. “I walked away, and now he does martial arts.”

After that experience, Martin didn’t put pressure on his youngest son, who ended up taking up cross-country in high school and now wants to continue in high school.

“I know it’s genuine and he wants to do it because he’s going to race alone or with his friends,” said Martin.

Professional runners agree: giving kids the opportunity without pushing them is key.

Four-time Olympian Meb Keflezighi has three daughters. The older one told her that running is not her sport. He prefers to play football. But her middle daughter, Fiyori Russom, is finishing up her junior year cross-country season and challenged Keflezighi a few weeks ago to race her in a 5K.

Keflezighi is happy with both choices — and not just because he said he found it easier to watch a football game than face the action on a cross-country course.

“I think they’re talented, but I also know it comes from the heart,” he said. “I can’t force them to do something they’re not passionate about.”

More tips to encourage young runners

All the tips adult runners have given parents who want to encourage their kids to run come back to Goucher’s focus: don’t be too serious, too soon.

This is what the Kilometer Kids program tries to communicate to children and parents:

• Show them that running can be fun and enjoyable.
• Kids can participate in youth events, but winning shouldn’t be the goal.
• Focus the kids on how they are improving with training and racing so they are not comparing themselves to others.
• Show them it’s something they can do with friends and family.

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves