My 6 yr old wants to run a 5K... need advice

Colbyandsage

My 6 yr old daughter (turns 7 in Jan) really wants to run a 5K. She has been bugging me all summer. She is a pretty fit kid but I am not sure if she is too young so I need advice. I am going to take her out for a run tomorrow to see how it goes, that is if I can walk....I ran my 2nd half today. Yay me!

She has good shoes for running and I won't push her but I also don't think she realizes how long 3.1 miles really is. I gave her an idea but telling her is was from our house to a point and back, she still wants to try. There is a 5K at the end of the month through a festival of lights at dark so it would be really neat to run/walk it with her so I need advice. Has anyone out there ran with their kid? If so, can you give a mom some advice? Who knows, she may blow past me and have no issues but we will see tomorrow

motherflutter13

I will preface this by saying that I do not have a child and am not looking to give you any child care advice because I am the furthest thing from a expert.

5k isn't too bad. My suggestion would be to try the C25K program with her. Its a great running program and you could easily do it with her. At most your daughter will be running for 30 mins.

I would also look into the race she wants to join in, where is located, the route she will take, and if there is an age limit. I would venture to guess that she is too young to run but I could be wrong.

Colbyandsage

Thanks! I could try the C25K app. There is a 10 and under age group so she isn't too young for the race. It is through Xmas lights, so it is a very family friendly race with lots of jogging strollers.

tappae

I just wanted to say that I got beat by a 9-year-old girl in the only 5K I ran this year. She looked 7.

Also, I just read this, and thought it was pretty interesting:


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/sports/too-fast-too-soon-young-endurance-runners-draw-cheers-and-concerns.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y&pagewanted=all&_r=0

Colbyandsage

@tappae... Holy crap! And I am worried about 3 miles and it being too much. I remember a few kids in races with me and some have beat me but I am talking 5k not a half or whole.

I have my opinion on the article, I think that is a bit much.

T1mH

Lots of kids in the 5k I ran yesterday, It was a walk/run. My kids can go that distance, at least walking. We've done some hiking and they can do it with backpacks on. The youngest I took one of them was 3 miles when she was 4 and she carried her own pack with sleeping bag and a change of clothes. My oldest 3 want to do my next 5k with me (they are 10, 8, and 6 now)so I'm going to schedule one with them that is a run/walk so if we walk the whole thing no big deal. Having a spouse or a friend that can pick them up in the middle of the race if they decide to bail out would be a good backup plan. Make it fun for them, if you push them to hard they may hate it and never want to do it again. You have to ease them into it and go at their pace.

Yesterday I was beat by a 6 or 7 year old. When I came running into the home stretch he was sitting on the ground. I was unwinding everything I had left. He decided he wasn't going to let me beat him and jumped up right before I got to him. I raced him down that last 300 meters. At the last 50 I could have passed him with my long strides but I let up and let him cross the line in front of me. He's got bragging rights now. It wasn't like the race was being officially timed or anything. I had a 34 minute time so nothing to brag about anyway. I'm not a fan of letting kids win just so they'll feel better but in this case I thought it was a good idea. I don't know him or his family but I'll bet he'll be back for another race.

3girliemomma

My oldest two daughters (oldest turned 8 in September, middle will be 6 in February), have both ran 3 5Ks this year. My 5 year-old ran her last one 33:42 (she ran the whole race, never walked), while my 8 year-old ran 44:02. We don' t push either girl, if they choose to run with either my husband or I we take them, if they don't want to go, they don't go. My 5 year-old started asking to run a 5K when she was 3, but we chose to wait until she turned 5 (at that point we felt like if she wasn't able to run she could at least finish it walking) ... We talked with their doctor about it prior to running, and he said that there was no reason that either of them couldn't participate. With that being said, every race the girls have done the 5 year-old is the youngest runner, while there are usually several 7-10 year-olds.