Is This Normal - Running Competition

[purpleme12]

My child is in year 7
On Friday in assembly they were told there was an athletics running competition this week and anyone who wants to do it needs to sign up. And then they'll pick who goes through. They were told it was long distance.
My child put her name down.

Yesterday she found out she was picked with one of her friends. She found out it was 800 metres yesterday! She didn't really know what long distance looked like. And it's against other schools in our area. She had assumed it was just something in school.

However my concern more is that they've not even practiced this in PE at all! No build up or anything. The most she's run in PE is 100 metres.

Is this normal to do no practice or build up in PE for something like this?? It just seems wrong

2bh that only really three minutes running. Maybe three and a half. My 7yo did that on sports day and didn't train as far as I'm aware. Kids are usually fitter than adults unless she has a health condition she should be fine.

if this is a state school then PE lessons are short. Most sporty children do sport either in after school clubs at school or in external clubs (or both). Is there a school athletics club?

I would also suggest you tell your daughter not to sign up for things if she doesn't know what they are, in the future.

I remember PE in secondary school was always a trial by fire. Training to run further and faster wasn't really a thing, it was just something we were all expected to have a go at. None of it was optional, not even the long cross country runs.

I don't think 800m is an especially worrying distance to just have a crack at, most fit young people would manage it without any preparation.

Yes, it’s normal.

secondaries have lots of sports teams not all if which are for sports they’ll do in PE.

Normally they ask for people to sign up for the teams and for training sessions - the training sessions are often outside of normal school time and in a lunchtime or after school - eg football training, netball training etc.

but for some stuff they’ll open it up to everyone.

they are assuming that the people who sign up want to do it and are capable of doing it.

usually it’s students who do that sport outside school and want to have a go.

does your child do any sport outside school?

800m is not far. It will be 2 laps of the running track. But I would take her out to practice a couple of times. It is useful to understand how fast you should go at the beginning. (Ie don’t sprint like your life depends on it but a decent run is fine!)

I would measure somewhere 400m away and run there and back as that will help her with the two laps thing.

Loads of children a lot younger will have been doing Junior Parkrun (2km) for several years, even full Parkrun, so they probably felt there would be understanding what "long distance" was. I kniw my children were expected to run a lot longer than that in (State) Primary school PE.

Bloody hell - I was the most unsporty of people at school (1980s), and certainly running was not my thing, and I had asthma. But the warm-up for every PE lesson was once round the 400m track. If you were in the last few to get round, you had to do it again!
Do kids really not exercise at all these days?

I assumed until the 3rd paragraph of your post that the problem was that 800m is really more of a middle distance and she sees herself as a long distance runner! Reading the rest I suppose that's not the case though...
But sorry, 800m is not a lot for a fit and healthy child. As others have said, my child started running junior park run (2k) at 4y/o. We didn't do any build up, just went for it. Obviously stopped and walked when necessary, but they managed it fine.
I would say that you're proud of your daughter for signing up for the race, that it will be fun and send her off to do it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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? 🤔

The competition is today

No she's never done cross country or park run
At primary they didn't really do running for PE. Other stuff sure, but didn't really do proper running.
High school she said she's only ran 100 metres.

Perhaps I had different expectations of what the school did beforehand then, from what people are saying here

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”.

Most posts are fine

The last couple come across quite rude

This was not posted in AIBU

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

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.