My personal experience - don't force her, she'll reject.
Get her on a cross country team or something similar that is structured with a coach who isn't you.
I tried to force my two girls to run and they rejected it.
But when they are on a team with other kids and a coach, they respond better.
They don't want to associate pain with you; they think you are telling them to do something that is painful.
Let a 3rd party do it instead.

She is 12 years old, trains 5 days a week for soccer, and you are making her do 1-2 track workouts per week on top of that?

Is this something she wants, or has asked you to help her with? Is there a weight issue at hand? What does breaking 7 minutes in the mile have to do with anything? Don't mean to come down on you here, but this just does not sound good at all.

I second this point. I'm assuming xc team is a nonstarter as soccer and xc are the same season. I thought about going out for soccer, but decided on xc (myself) and that's probably why I'm here today.

I'm not sure why a 7 min mile is required to play varsity soccer. It probably depends on position. More endurance would help, which at that age is basically the mile, but there's more to being a successful soccer player than just your mile time.

If she's really focused on making the varsity soccer team, I'd position workouts in terms of building towards that goal, whether honing specific skills or using runs to build endurance. If she's not that focused on it, I think forcing workouts will be counterproductive at best and build resentment at worst.

When I played high school soccer, there was a 3 mile loop that you had to run in under 20 minutes or you were cut.

Cool. I think "roughly a 7 min mile" is probably not the same hard cut, but obviously fitness will play a major role in making the team, as with any soccer team.

It just seems like a kind of arbitrary goal, at a very dynamic age, that is probably not going to be the deciding factor in making the team and doesn't require specific training. But what do I know, I didn't play soccer in HS.

Sub 7?

Am I the only one here that read that and thought along the lines of "That's pretty slow for a 70.3, but it's a bit demanding for a 12 year old running a 50 miler, even on a flat course"?

Same advice though. She's got to want to do it.

“Trying to get my 12 year old daughter to....” bad premise right there...

Have you ever been a football player? (that's it's real name in the rest of the world)

You may, in the course of a game (at 12) run 5 miles in 90 minutes if you play the entire game. Considering substitutions, that may well be 2 -3 miles.
What position does she play. Forward, striker, defense, midfield (they run the most)
In any given game the farthest she will run is 50 yards.
To or from the halfway line.

But she needs to run that 50 yards as fast or faster than the person she's chasing or the person who chasing her.
Most of the time she will run 10 - 20 yards. Accelerating from a walk or a jog speed. The average players handles the ball for less than 3 seconds.

So why does she need to run a mile at a 7 minute pace, that's about 8 1/2 mph, which doesn't get close to the speed she needs.
She's already playing 5 days a week, which I assume includes coached time.
If her coach told you to do that, get a new coach or a new team.

Time her 10, 20, 50 yard dash times and acceleration. With a ball on her toes.
And figure out a fun way to speed that up, if she is capable and wants to..
But right now all you are going to do is ruin her for the sport.

At 12 years old, the game is 60 minutes.

This is what I thought

---

https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

What does she want? I think the motivation here is missing, or incorrect.
Also, I've played football in Europe my whole youth, we never had to run a specific time over a distance. It's football, not athletics. Romario was a brilliant player, but he couldn't run for shit. You never run a flat out mile during a football game, so why would you need to run a mile in a specific time to make the team? Seems silly to me. Would you turn down a player with a brilliant technique and who positions smartly to always be able to make that goal, but can't run a mile in sub 7? Similarly, would you take on a player who can run a sub 6 mile but has no technique with a ball and wanders around aimlessly around the pitch?

7 minutes is the number used by her high school team at the fitness test to try be eligible. The workouts have been 1 to 1.5 miles less than 15 minutes. I've been very conscious to keep them short. She is not happy with her placement on her current club team and needs to improve her running to move up. She is very skilled with the ball but needs to improve running.

Goal to be sub 7 by age 14. Was not super clear.

Yes, played my whole life. Soccer 1st then triathlon later in life.

7 minutes is the metric used by the school in the fitness test to determine eligibility for varsity. She wants to make varsity I want to position her to have a chance to do so. The workouts have been in the 15 min range with good rest etc... Im keeping them short but targeted to try and make progress. The mile goal helps her to have a goal and see progress...

I am watching my 12 year old boy faced with the same dilemma. Take puberty into account here. He is little and scrawny right now, but we already see what is coming and two years is a lot of change. In one year alone, without training specifically his fitness has risen tremendously. 8:25 mile has become 7:05... I believe this will be the biggest contributor to your daughters gains in the next 24 months.

Keep her focus on loving the game, that will help too.

My Daughter is 12. Her Primary sport is cheer-leading but is also training S/B/R with me for fun. She can run a Sub 7 no problem.

2 years ago she wanted to join cross country at school with some friends. After the first race she was not happy with her performance and asked me to help her improve. Most of the athletes she competed against were Hockey or Soccer players which is a much different sport that Cheer. She started running with me and found that she really enjoyed it. We started slow and she just tagged along and within a few weeks she was passing me and pushing me to catch up.

After running a few local 5k and 10K races together we decided to search for a group for her to train with. We found a local Tri club that also had a kids training group which she joined, within a few months with the group she made tremendous improvement. Most of the kids are a couple years older which is great incentive for her to push hard to keep up. There are a few younger kids who equally push her so as not to get passed by someone younger.

Keep it fun and she will want to work hard to improve all on her own.

Exactly. Maybe a slowtwitcher’s POV on football prep? Teach your daughter how to move, accelerate and sprint. Prepare her for her body to change and possibly put her knees in jeopardy. Plenty of prehab movements and regiments out there to safeguard female athletes’ knees.

It's been a while since my kids grew out of the game and found other "interests".....however different places different rules.
Must admit that after coaching for 13 years I had forgotten about age group match times. It's been twenty years.

Somewhere along the road I obviously lost the plot, no team I ever played on, no team my kids ever played on, no league they ever played in (junior to high school and club) ever had a requirement to run a mile in "x".

If them's the rules good luck with it.

I have to admit I have always been a Groucho Marx kind of guy and his attitude to joining clubs has always been well known.

my 2 cents: soccer is not a miler thingy. at her age, if you want to do anything with her, stick with much much shorter stuff. and then she can go on longer uninterrupted runs to work on endurance.

Just out of curiousity, because things are different here (Denmark, Europe), But we do play a lot of soccer. Why is there a middle distance running requirement for soccer? - from what I recall from soccer pratice at that age, running as such was a pre-season training drill, 5-10k casual depending on the age aside from that it was 10-10 og 20-20 sprint intervals, as you’re basically sprinting or walking during a game. Ball control, position, vision and general agility are far more important. If you’re good enough, you Can almost get away with not being able to run at all (depending on the position). Don’t see any particular reason to be able to run a fast mile. Sprints or a 10k maybe...(stamina plays a factor).
Don’t know if that’s a particular common requirement, But that might explain why usa are relatively bad a soccer - i know it’s not the biggest sport, But with the sheer number of people you’d expect more talent to be present.
As an aside, I dont really get the whole privately owned league thing, that Can only be bad for competition in the long run, new talent to show. Dont know a thing about it, But do anyone actually do a sport at High school age if the dont make the team?

AYSO has U19 teams.

I played soccer from the time I was 5 through Varsity in HS: center-midfielder (half-back as it was called back in the day), rover, etc. We had a similar requirement to make Varsity, except that it was 6 miles in 36 minutes. I never found soccer practice to be that "taxing" from an endurance-running perspective. Lots of sprints, hills, and other bursty type stuff---but, nothing to really work on sustained endurance. Soccer practice was more about skills, tactics, and strategy...not, getting "fit".

I don't see a need to focus on a "mile", though. A single 7 minute mile just isn't that fast---as others have noted it isn't that useful by itself. Just run for general fitness---the pace will come, and a lot will change in the next two years. 400s and 800s seems mostly pointless---its not specific to the demands of playing soccer, and its not very useful for general conditioning.

I grew up playing soccer in the states and played in Europe as well. I never heard of this mile test either until last year when my son tried out at the same school and had to run a 6:30. Our high school is very highly ranked in girls soccer year in and year out top ten to teens in the nation and always competing for the state title.
Agree... Even though our women are best in the world the US still needs to learn a lot about soccer.

She does all the soccer specific run training with her teams and I am trying to help build her endurance and get her prepared for the next step with an extra workout or two per week and want to be sure they align with what someone her age should be doing. For those who don't have tween and teenage kids I know 5 days may sound like a lot for them but when you see the alternative which is then on their electronics for hours at a time you don't feel so mean having them go out for an extra run here and there...