So I’m coaching middle school track and field and I want some ideas of track workouts for both speed and distance. Remember, these are middle school kids. We’re finishing up 2 weeks of strictly conditioning and 3 days of taking “times” for the 100, 200, and the 400. Non-throwers are running an 800 for time while only several others will run a timed mile. The mile is the longest event for middle school here in NM.
My track and field experince is limited but I’m that crazy teacher that runs, bikes, and swims so t&f is basically the same thing, right? At least my administrators think so!
I don’t have any coaching experience, but from the running I had to do in middle school I would say try to keep it fun. Outside of regular distance and interval runs maybe come up with some running games or even relays to teach team building?
Good for you for stepping up to the plate and coaching the middle school team. I cannot help with the field events but for the track workouts keep it fun. I would recomend doing team relays as speed work. Another team building work out is indian file runs where the group(s) run in a single file line and the person in the back sprints to the front, then when they get to the front the person who is now at the rear sprints to the front.
For sprinters have them work on starts almost every work out. You can google sprinter starts for some decent pointers on basics for starting out of blocks (if you have them). A good sprinter work out after doing some start work is to sprint the straight aways on a track then jog the turns. Then swap to have the sprinters sprint the turns and jog the straight aways. For your sprinters have them work on getting up to speed as fast as possible, do 20 meter starts to develop explosive power out of the blocks. Sprinting is about getting up to speed and then doing your best at maintaining that speed. (sounds simple but it is not).
After the team develops some base fitness a good work out to do once a week is an AT Threshold work out. Have them run a 6 minutes all out. Then have them run 3 minutes at the same pace they did in the 6 minutes. Then without stopping jog for three minutes. Work up so as to where they are doing 6 intervals of 3 hard/easy.
Always have the team warm up and cool down together. Work to not have division between the sprinters and the distance runners. Your team should break up into two to three groups (sprinters, intermediate & distance) but make sure they still are able to build the sense of team by warming up and cooling down together.
Break events down, so runners learn pacing, in the 400 and up distances have them learn pacing by running 1/4th the race distance at race pace. As the season progresses you can work that up to 1/2 the race distance but use that sparingly and not close to a meet since that could burn them out.
That is my 2 cents worth,
Good luck and keep us posted!
Where in NM are you? I’m near ABQ. I’ve always wanted to try assistant coaching track or CC, but haven’t stepped up yet. Anyway…
I did the mile and 1/2 mile in HS, and had some fun workouts. One of my favorites was “alternating 600’s” :
The runners will do an even number of 600s which are broken up - the 1st 200 is fast, say race pace for a 400, then the second 200 is slow, then the last 200 is fast again. Then the runners rest. The second 600 they do will be slow-fast-slow. Then repeat.
Common workouts were ladders - up and down (200, 400, 600, 800, 600, 400, 200), or down then up.
Or 400 or 800 repeats, like 6-10 of them.
Lots of times, the coach would have the slower girls start about 10 to 15 sec in front of the guys - helped teach pacing and passing.
As in everything else, they’ll need to workup to the distances. 3 miles of actual track work IMO is too much to start with. Hopefully some of the others respond with good guidelines.
Good luck!
What age group is middle school where you are? 12-14? I like repeat 200m and 400m intervals for the younger kids with a full 200m walk/jog recovery and anywhere from 6-12 200s or 4-8 400s. Another good one is a version of the old 30-40 drill (middle school kids won’t hit these times!) where you run 200m in 30sec, then 40sec, then 30sec, on so on with no rest until you can’t hit the time split anymore … for middle school kids a 40-50 drill might work. Relays among team members are also fun with 3 member teams each covering 200m with one resting and going against each other for 2k or so works well too.
So I’m coaching middle school track and field and I want some ideas of track workouts for both speed and distance. Remember, these are middle school kids. We’re finishing up 2 weeks of strictly conditioning and 3 days of taking “times” for the 100, 200, and the 400. Non-throwers are running an 800 for time while only several others will run a timed mile. The mile is the longest event for middle school here in NM.
My track and field experince is limited but I’m that crazy teacher that runs, bikes, and swims so t&f is basically the same thing, right? At least my administrators think so!
One thing that really motivated us in CC was that the top 7 times from the previous meet were varsity for the next meet. Didn’t matter if you were on JV or not, if you ran a top time, next week you ran with the “big boys”. There was also at least one meet a year where anyone that had not yet run varsity that year got put on the A squad.
Hill repeats/stadium stairs are good, and I always liked tempo runs where you get a certain window for a timed distance. (Such as 5 seconds for a 400). You must finish between say, 1:00 and 1:05 for the 400. Really drills in the ability to run at a given pace.
Follow the leader, where each person leads the pack for a certain distance (We used 3/4 mile for a 10 person squad), and everyone has to follow where they go (Within safety limits).
As someone said here, keep it fun since it is middle school. One workout i enjoyed in middle school (and HS) was Follow the Leader. You can have all your runners line up behind one another (mixing fast and slow kids are fine for this). The pace will be set by the person in front until the person in back runs up to the front and sets a new pace, then etc. If it is a big team you may want to consider two lines.
Fartleks - set periods of running fast, then slow/walk ie: 30 secs one and 30 secs off
Ladders are always a good workout as well.
If i can remember anymore from back in the days i’ll let you know
i did high school track so i have an idea. I’d say for ms kids, even the “distance” runners - keep the intervals short. kids lose their concentration on longer stuff, and start to get bored. Also, don’t start the girls in front of the boys and tell the boys to catch up and pass the girls. its really demoralizing to young girls and they’ll probably quit. keep the guys and girls separate unless there is a girl who can clearly keep up with the guys, and is ok running with them. even though its MS track and not NCAA’s, kids that age get shin spints at the drop of a hat cause they’re still growing. running on grass is good.
some workout ideas:
300 hard-ish, then jog (probably MS kids should walk) a 100, and then start annother 300. we’d do it four times and then take a break.
for shorter distance - run a 100 hard on the straight away, jog the turn, run the other straight hard, jog the turn etc.
some one else said it, but 200, 400 600, 800 type ladders are good too.
adding relays into the workouts was great fun. we loved the batons and it gets some friendly competition going. you can do like 4x200 relay teams, so that the kids have a break while one person is running etc.
don’t know why, but we all got a kick out of the long jump/high jump. let the runners give it a try.