Everything a parent of a runner needs to know - From a fellow parent.

I worked many years in college and Olympic sports, and the only thing that was less interesting to me than track was field. However, when my eldest son discovered cross country in the 6th grade, and became motivated to serve as an integral part of one of our state’s top high school programs, I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have to love field, but I did have to get up to speed on track and cross country.

On the best cross country teams, runners 1-7 try to beat runners from other teams. On insecure teams, runners 1-14 all try to beat each other. This concept was a difficult one for me to understand. I still really don’t get why teammates hold back to ensure they beat each other instead of try to beat an opponent. My kids have intuitively never raced that way, perhaps because they came to running from team sports; I have grown to learn that this trait of theirs makes them foolish purists rather than simply good teammates.

Distance runners in both track and cross country do many other things that seem counter-intuitive to the regular sports fan. They run up to 3 miles as a warm up before a 3-mile race. It makes no sense—why would you warm up the same distance as your race? Do marathon runners do a 26 mile warm up? I still really don’t get it. They do interval training, a high intensity type of thing, on the track, as a workout 20 minutes after running a mile PR. Pretty much, they run a lot. Which is why they are so skinny. My 6-0 son weighs 98 pounds. It is OK.

My boys’ coach always says that every runner has a story. For some, the story is simply that they used to be fast and now they are slow, or that they used to be slow and now they are fast. Some runners have battled injuries that are apparent, like the kid in a boot who comes back a month later. Some, though, fight things we can’t see, and as a parent, I admire all runners because it is unlikely one isn’t running away from something and beating it at the same time: parental divorce, autoimmune disease, asthma, gender identity, eating disorder, depression, anxiety. 

Your child who loves the sport will question training and racing strategies at the dinner table. Answer them always with: ask your coach. We are so lucky as running parents, because there is very little politics to cross country. Runner #2 may annoy the coach with her drama, but if she is fast, she will run. Runner #11 may be an awesome hardworking senior, but if he can’t outrun runner #7, that mouthy freshman, he’s an alternate. This aspect of the sport takes overbearing parents out of the equation. Mostly.

So what can we do as clueless parents to support? Learn the sport. Watch the Diamond League on the Olympic Channel and college cross country on Flotrack. Follow @dumbflotrack. Study orthopedic medicine and orthotics. Know that spikeless spikes and spikes are two different kinds of shoes, both different from road racing flats. I think. Prepare healthy iron-rich meals and snacks. Cheer loudly. Be grateful.

- Anonymous