Myself and my oldest younger brother used to time ourselves running laps of whatever (around the house, etc). When I was 7 and he was 4 or 5.

The next oldest (2 at the time) used to do it too, occasionally. Never hurt him any.

A month before my son turned 3, he ran a one mile "fun run" in about 17 minutes (stopping very briefly twice). He loves running and watching road races.

Both my son and daughter ran 1 milers at a (young) 3 year old. My son is 3 and my daughter is now 5. I keep the pace around 17-18 min/mi sometimes they try to run too fast. I dont think it is bad for them as long as they like it. Unfortunately my kids dont seem to like it.

We occasionally walk 2-3 miles mostly for mommy's and daddy's sake. Recently our family walked a 5k race. My kids were by far the youngest. I think the next youngest was around 11. We finished under 60 min and were far from last. How would you feel if you were beaten by a 3 year old? just kidding of course.

I am thinking about "making" them run with me more. 1 milers for the 3 yr old and 2-3 milers for my 5 yr old. I am not sure about this yet but I would love for my family to run some 5k's together.

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James[/URL" target="_blank">
Why be silent and thought a fool when you can post and remove any doubt.

quote:<HR>Originally posted by jhong:
Here is a very interesting article about a 4 year old who recently ran 40 miles: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12614823/[/URL" target="_blank">

<HR>

Someone posted an article about him awhile back. It is very sad. The boy runs to eat and to not be punished.

I hope you don't force your kids to run. Keep things fun and unstructured. I would love my son to do the kids races they have at some events or even the shorter races (he's 6). I can tell that he is a very good runner (he has beautiful form), but he doesn't want to join in the races. He just likes to watch mom for now. He gets a lot of exercise playing outside, swimming, hiking with us, etc..

A large part of the reason my wife and I run is to teach our kids that exercise is normal and fun. We don't push them to copy us and we don't need to - kids naturally imitate their parents. I think it's great that your daughter is out there running, as long as you don't push her it will be highly beneficial.

Just don't be surprised when she suddenly outgrows it at age 3! Don't worry, it will come back into fashion for her by age 5.


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