Is This Normal - Running Competition

Well done to her for giving it a go! My son randomly put himself down for high jump at the school county athletics. He’s never been taught how to back flip over the bar because they don’t have the right mat so just winged it on the day! His school also just say you can sign up to do whatever and they don’t do much (if any) practice before hand. Mine said he came 6th out 10 and was happy to have a day out of school!

Well done her! Given she’s done no training and it’s the first time doing it, just putting herself forward is brave. We should all try new things. Hope she thinks about doing it again!

Congratulations to her for putting herself out there and doing it. Someone needs to be second to last (and even last).
The world would probably be a better place if we all spent more time doing things we weren't very good at, just for the sake of doing them and not to win.(that's not to say she couldn't improve and become good at it if she practices!)

So next time (and hopefully there will be a next time) she'll know not to go off too quickly.
My DD used to run the 800m at primary school sports days (did yours not do this?) and every year she won by letting the field run away from her at the beginning while she gradually overhauled them one by one once they got past the 400m point.

Good for her for taking part.

You say ‘well done’ and move on

I run a cross country/athletics club at a local primary school for a year or so (I was planning to teach). As it was a club, it was self-selecting - i.e., only keen, reasonably athletic kids joined. And it was frankly gob-smacking how many of the children started by being unable to run around the field a couple of times.

They did all get there - but as a fat middle aged woman who can thud around 5K reasonably easily (as long as it’s fairly flat), I found it shocking that they couldn’t all run it easily.

OP, I’d take your dd to run around the nearest park a couple of times, just so she gets a feel for a longer run.

Tell her not to sprint off - I'm a track official and have been loads to school athletics events. Most of the kids who have not run middle distance before, sprint off, run 100m and then spend the next 700 / 1400m jog/walking. Pace it slowly and if she's got a half decent level of fitness she'll be able to do an epic sprint finish at the end!

It's a nice way to spend time out of school, cheering on your teammates.

It will be this term that they do athletics, so they'll probably do 800m at some point this term. Some schools do "cross-country" (a mis-nomer when you're not allowed off-site, really) during the winter. If they've just run round the field she probably has no clue how far that is.

800m is not a long distance. The kids version of Parkrun is 2000m. An average not-particularly-fit 12yo can run 800m in a few minutes without training. Good on your DD for giving it a go. However she did in this competition, encourage her enthusiasm. If she practices for just 15 minutes 3 times a week she will improve massively before the next opportunity and she could do even more than that if she chooses.

In my secondary school in the 80s every single girl (all-girls school) had to run the 1500m at least once a year because the house points system docked your house a punitive number of points for each of the list of basic athletic events that you didn't attempt even once each summer (with massive bonuses awarded for improving on previous efforts)

On sports day long distance is usually 800m for 12 year old. What distance did Op have in mind? 400m is considered a sprint. I'm just confused as long distance means that. My dc did not train in year 6 apart from daily run at school and ran cross country for her school. I think thats 3k, she was usually in the middle to last third. She is not a runner. It was ok.

I think that you’re taking this too seriously. It’s not the Olympics or something serious where I’d expect preparation. Your dd volunteered so is presumably pretty fit.

I’m saying she may not have run it under “race conditions”, but unless she is incredibly sedentary (in which case she presumably wouldn’t have signed up), she will have covered that distance before, and should be able to complete it quite easily.

800m is nothing really. A healthy child should be able to run that in 4 minutes. It’s basically twice round a running track.

Unless the “m” is short for miles and not metres, YABVVU.

800m is not a long distance at all. I’d be surprised if any child couldn’t complete that, regardless of fitness. I also highly doubt the furthest your DD has ever run is 100m - she has never run for more than 20secs? Never played tag or chase games at lunchtime? Never played football or hockey and run up and down the pitch (which is about 100m long)?

If she really never has run in her life before, I’m a bit surprised she signed up for a “long distance run”.

They were told it was long distance.
My child put her name down.

And?? Why can you dc not run 800m if she put her name down for long distance. Is everything ok? 🤔

Also I would be surprised if she has never done the bleep test – that was certainly still done in schools 8 years ago and you would run a lot further than 100m.

Can you take her to the park tonight with a friend @purpleme12 and have a try at 400m and then 800m? They key if you have not done it much or at all is to take it steady at first.

It’s definitely a thing at my kids secondary school. 2.5km run around the grounds fairly early in Y7 - I think to sort the sheep from the goats for class groupings.

Has your dd ever done Cross Country or laps of the field? (If not, I didn’t realise that this wasn’t a thing any more) I’m pretty sure that a lap of the field was a primary school long distance race when I watched my kids.

Yes as others have said, 800m is not that far. It's twice round the athletics track.

I also was expecting 800m not to be far enough - it’s middle distance not long distance (which is really 3k+).

Has she really never run further in PE at primary or secondary? My DC did runs of that kind of distance in primary school as a regular thing. I also agree with @Octavia64 that they will presume those who signed up perhaps do parkrun or athletics out of school. We have children aged 8 upwards in our athletic club. True, the U10s (year 3 and 4) usually do 600m but U12s (year 5 and 6) might well tackle an 800m and U14s (year 7 and 8, so your DD) certainly would.

Suggestions of some practice for her ahead of the race are good.

Is this a school on a very restricted site? If they've got a school field, or access to a similar space, it seems odd that they've never had to do a circuit of it. Where do they play football / rugby?

(Even more odd if they've got a field with a track marked, but haven't used it).

If you've got an accessible park / recreation ground, your DD and her friend could do a few practice laps there.