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

In year 7 in the mid 90s, we got dragged onto the school field and made to do 3 laps of the school running track. The whole year group got made to do it, no excuses.
Kids were dropping like flies 😂
When I told my mum what we’d had to do, she just said “that’s nice, did you manage it ok?”
No fuss, no “but you didn’t do any training!”

Do parents question everything nowadays?

Thank you ❤️

It would be really good if she could do that or something else sporty at school. Hopefully

Our primary is awful for sport but my son can make it round junior parkrun, It's great that your DD is having a go - she might enjoy it and if she doesn't, she doesn't have to do it again.

Well done to your DD for giving it a go. The walking a bit probably means she started too fast if that is something she wants to work on for next time (assuming she wants to do it again). Incidentally, my year 9 DS doesn't usually do well at 800m and would be annoyed at anyone calling it long distance, as he can't get the pacing right for mid distance. He can however run parkrun a lot faster than me and do a 10k in less than an hour, so there's clearly more to it than just fitness.

It’s normal, yes.

And ‘long distance’ is usually a minimum of 2 miles. 800 metres is the shortest of the middle distance races. While I appreciate that your daughter has only ever done 100m sprint races (and that’s fine!), 800m is a normal distance for kids to run and there will be loads of kids who run that sort of distance frequently. It’s really good that she gave it a try and managed to complete it even with a bit of walking - sounds like she could certainly build up to being able to run it easier and faster, so hopefully her PE teachers will encourage her to keep trying.

Yes, pacing is definitely the key. I’d be useless at 800m; I can either sprint or jog, nothing in between. And my brother was a county 100m, 200m and 400m champion throughout his teens but wasn’t a good long distance runner at all.

Hopefully if they do athletics in PE, the OP’s DD’s teachers will explain that as they do a bit more running.

I think it is great mini purple had a go and tried something new. It was a bit naive to sign up for something described as long distance when they have never run more than a 100m, but tweens are a bit naive by definition.
What I am amazed at is that PE teachers entered kids into an inter-school athletics event without at least some assessment of their ability. At DD’s school kids are selected based on their performance in PE lessons at a minimum. However, this is often followed up by looking at performance in after school clubs and trials. PE lessons include sprints, middle distance etc. Teachers have a reasonable idea of performance & fitness. In the autumn they run multiple laps of the field (not the track) to trial for x-country. A Y7 walking in a 800m race would be last by some considerable distance at our district athletics event. This isn’t a poor reflection on mini purple - she was just enthusiastic & didnt understand the level of fitness required. However, if schools are going to enter an inter-schools event, teachers running some sprints & middle distance practices in PE or after school would seem a pretty essential preparation. This is partly to check the kids have the capability to run and partly so they are familiar with the distance and that it isn’t advisable to sprint off like a rocket at the start.

@Justploddingonandon @BauhausOfEliott @Owlbookend thank you