Ok this almost seems ridiculous to me at this point but I’m at a bit of a loss. My son is 10 and a, fast for his age, distance runner.
Recent results:
1500m - 5:30 at 2021 AAU Junior Olympics - 20th overall 10 year old age division.
1 mile XC race last week - 6:08 4th overall 6th grade and under division
5k a couple weeks ago 22:03 - first place 9 and under by a large margin.
My issue is simple, he totally stinks at pacing himself. In all of the above results he was not really tired at the finish and could have definitely pushed harder. He has a Garmin forerunner 15 that he is supposed to use to help pace himself but getting him to actually look at it more than once during a race is virtually impossible. Also I don’t think its super accurate for what he is doing. At the XC race last week he was disappointed he didn’t go under 6 and insisted the Garmin was reporting his pace as 5:30ish whenever he looked at it. But its almost 10 years old so I cant be too judgy on it.
I want something that is accurate that I can set a pace alert for. Like if you go above 6min/mile it will beep, vibrate, electro shock, etc. I think that might work better if he doesn’t have to look at something and just knows that if he doesn’t hear beeping or feel the vibration he’s on pace.
I feel like its worth investing in something that will work better and right now I’m looking at the Coros pace 2 b/c it has track mode (most of his 1500 work is track based) and optical HR. Mom and I want to see what his HR is like to see how hard he really is pushing since our perception of him at the finish may not be accurate.
$200 is a lot though and there are a ton of features that watch has that he is never (or at least not in the next few years) going to use. Smart phone integration, daily activity tracking, multisport, etc. It seems like overkill to me but what’s keeping me looking at the Coros 2 is the track mode, but I seem to see various results on how good that actually is. Its also pretty big. He doesn’t really like wearing a watch and its taken some time to get him to wear the smaller Forerunner 15 while running.
So is there a better option that’s cheaper with less features? Is track mode overrated? How strong are the pace notifications for the Coros 2 vs say a forerunner 245?
I have a 12yo daughter who sounds the same, She finishes a race and always looks like she is ready to go again hardly even working out.
She wears a Vivoactive 3 but never really uses it during a run. I’m not sure that at this age they will ever use the watch for pace. Its more a fun thing to look at after
Not going to comment on the watch but a few insights on a young XC runner:
Struggling to pace yourself at that age is very common. Often times they will run out of gas in the tank or realize at the end they have way too much gas left. He will figure it out. Another thing is with XC races, its very hard to pace yourself when the terrain/conditions are constantly changing. You have steep hills, sharp turns, grass, sand, woodchips, other kids bumping into you etc. So I’m not surprised he isn’t look at his watch during a race.
Best bet is to do tempo runs with a gps watch or on a track (back in my day, I had the the splits memorized) so he can understand what a controlled pace feels like than run his race off of feel.
Now that I think about it, I’m kind of surprised they let him run with a watch. Back in my glory days (early 2000’s) you were not allowed to wear a watch or any jewelry.
Real time pacing using gps bounces around quite a bit. Just the nature of gps for slow moving objects.
A stryd pod will give a much more accurate instantaneous pace, but they are pricey ($220).
My recommendation is to do some track running, since the surface is consistent and you can check your time every 1/4, 1/2, or full lap and know your pace. When I was running track, I could tell you my lap time to the second without a watch, and my mile time within 2sec.
I have a Coros Apex Pro I’ll let go for 1/3rd the price that it’s currently listed in my classified ad plus $10 shipping. I think it does all that you’re after, but have not checked. Check for sure.
Rules of sale:
the only interpretation of the data by parent for child must come at child’s active/immediate request. (ie. not “you said you want help on pacing a month ago so we now talk about it without your request, after every race”) I am guilty as charged here, while coaching my wife, which has roughly the same result as when my father coached me as a child. (ie. sours relationship and deters improved performance)
the only other reading of data by parent can be used as praise for effort, not for questioning effort. ie. “Awesome heart rate PR! You must have been pushing really hard.”
Not going to comment on the watch but a few insights on a young XC runner:
Struggling to pace yourself at that age is very common. Often times they will run out of gas in the tank or realize at the end they have way too much gas left. He will figure it out. Another thing is with XC races, its very hard to pace yourself when the terrain/conditions are constantly changing. You have steep hills, sharp turns, grass, sand, woodchips, other kids bumping into you etc. So I’m not surprised he isn’t look at his watch during a race.
Best bet is to do tempo runs with a gps watch or on a track (back in my day, I had the the splits memorized) so he can understand what a controlled pace feels like than run his race off of feel.
Now that I think about it, I’m kind of surprised they let him run with a watch. Back in my glory days (early 2000’s) you were not allowed to wear a watch or any jewelry.
I agree with this. They are young and it should be fun. Also from a taking it serious standpoint, kids improve so much so fast learning to pace by feel won’t limit the child to his goal practice times, prior perceived hard effort, or his prior physical limitations. Let him just GO in a race. Sorry that got a little hyperbolic.
For XC the best option, if you can find, it is an old Garmin foot pod. The variations in elevation, terrain and speed will mess with a GPS. The Styrd is overkill but will do the same thing.
GPS is great for straight steady pace, but fails when you are rapidly changing speed and direction.
My experience of optical heart rate, is that I’d be significantly more accurate guessing my heart rate. It just doesn’t work. Sometime it does, but sometimes it’s off by 30-40bpm (that may be too high on a cruisy ride or too low on a hard ride).
All the garmins I’ve had can be set to beep and give you a time each 400m. This is more accurate than instantaneous or average pace and short enough to be an ok feedback loop. Wanna target a high 21 5k? Everytime it beeps it should show 1m44. Slow down if below, speed up if above. Simple. You just need to know what your number is before each race. Which is not a bad bit of planning to do.
I agree with exactly zero of these comments including yours. When he runs on the track there are all sorts of marks that he needs to learn how to use along with a plain old stopwatch to calculate his splits.
For cross country, he is running a race of placement more than time and needs to listen to his body and think about how to finish ahead of as many people as possible.
For the road races, he needs to develop a habit of looking for the mile markers.
Learning a sense for intuitive pace is essential for becoming a competent runner. Just a $20 stopwatch type wrist watch from Walmart is all he needs. It’s all any of us needs.
Teach him pace and not use the watch, he will thank you once he has developed the skill.
Pretty simple way to do it is have him do some time trials on the track. Workout the splits for 100m and blow a whistle at every split. Every time the whistle goes he should be at the track marker for 100,200,300 or 400m
Teach him pace and not use the watch, he will thank you once he has developed the skill.
Pretty simple way to do it is have him do some time trials on the track. Workout the splits for 100m and blow a whistle at every split. Every time the whistle goes he should be at the track marker for 100,200,300 or 400m
There is a coach in our town who runs a very good adult running program. He constructed a chart for different groups based on the Daniels running formula and one column that he added himself was countdown 100 split. He would have the runner set a certain number of seconds on their watch is a countdown and the objective was to Pace each interval correctly so that the watch started beeping right when they hit the hash mark. It was a brilliant approach and made running in a group fun because the objective was to perfectly pace the intervals rather than trying to beat each other.
I am already doing most everything that’s been suggested. We have been working on pacing on the track using timed intervals, 100’s 400’s, me pacing him etc. The problem is he’s 10. As adults we are able to look at a watch and perform some mental calculations on the fly and adjust pace as necessary but he’s 10 and like I said getting him to even look at the watch more than a handful of times during a 5k is difficult so having him remember splits and figure out how he’s running relative to that is virtually impossible at this point.
Case in point. At the junior olympics based on his training and his running leading up to it a conservative estimate of his time put him in the low 5:20’s for the 1500. They have a GIANT clock at the line so its super easy to see what your time is at every lap. We wrote out his splits in sharpie on his hand so all he had to do was look at the clock and look at his hand to see where he was at. After the race he told us he didn’t look at the clock or the splits on his hand once. And there is the problem. When he’s running in a race or training he’s just running. Singularly focused on one thing…running. I can yell splits at him during workouts where I am literally 2-3’ away and he tells me he never heard me. So that’s why I’m looking for something else like a GPS watch that will poke and prod him in hopes that a continuous input of some kind will register.
Now this does not mean I’m going to set the watch to something ridiculous like 5:15 to “see” what happens. I will likely for his 2 mile XC races put it at something like 6:15. An upper ceiling that I know he’s capable of and should not go beyond. If he runs faster than that great if not he will still be happy with that time and have fun doing the race and that’s the point.
I’m going to take up Dr. Alex on his offer as I think the Coros gets me everything I’ve been looking for including track mode.
thanks again slowtwitch community for your help and support!
No recommendations because any GPS watch will work. I would go for the cheapest you can find. But from a father who had 2 sons run HS/college XC understand most(maybe all) states restrict you from running with a GPS watch during a race(at least they did 2-3 years ago). So use it for training but not as a crutch.
Can I ask where do you live that has XC races for 10 year olds? Id love to have my daughter run one but most races don’t start till 7th grade.
Hi Andy, do you have a recreational department in your city/county/etc? A couple of years ago I started a cross country program for elementary school children through our city’s recreational department in Texas. It was pretty easy. Like…they were basically like we will handle all the paperwork, insurance, liability, etc. if you just figure out how to put on the event and deal the parents and so forth. I got the local running club and shoe store involved…also easy. Basically I just laid out some courses at a few of the local parks…typical school xc courses…start on the ball field, go around the tennis court, etc. Anyway…the courses ended up being poorly marked from week to week, the timing was fraught with errors, and…nobody really cared. It turned out to be a fun and healthy activity. I had four teams in the league. Each team had three age groups and two genders. So six races altogether. We started at 8am and we were done by 9am…everybody loved that part! FYI if you consider this you will probably get to be one of the coaches…jaja.
Over the years we got better with courses and timing. We even got the local high school xc runners onboard as assistant coaches, course rabbits, etc. and they earned community service volunteer hours (a grad requirement for them).
