Well in grade 11 I decided to join the cross country team and after the season finished in the end of october/beginning of november I took a month off. The coach asked me if I wanted to do track a couple times, I declined both times because "I didn't like running in circles". Then one of the girls who was trying to get me to start toing track told me about the steeplechase. I loved the sounds of it so I told the coach I'd do it. So for the rest of high school I was a steepler and whatever other event had the most time between it and the steeple (usually the 3000). Now I'm a runner without an event since steeples are few and far between around here.

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Alex[/URL" target="_blank">

In 7th grade I went to a school where track was mandatory but you could do whatever you wanted the least you could do was the 100m. I ran everything but distance lol

In 8th grade i moved back to my old school and was 'pushed' into running the mile because i showed some talent in it. I ended up finding a love in distance running

In High school(first 2 years) my coach assigned events completly. There were 80+ people on the track team and he put people in events that were their strongest that they had chances to score in. We had some leeway in our 'practice dual' meet but couldnt stray too far off our normal events

Since i moved i have more choice in what i am going to run but will stick with what im used to.

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I do today what you won't, so I can do tomorrow what you can't.

MyProfile[/URL" target="_blank">

i dont remember much about jr high track...whether my team was good or not, whether I personally was good or not, what kind of workouts we did...i just remembered it being fun. we'd have pizza parties on fridays and we'd sing chants while we were warming up before meets. i didnt run distance in jr. high...i ran anything from the 55 to the 400, with the 400 as my main event, and i triple and long jumped as well. the first time i ever ran distance was when my only teammate who ran more than an 800 at meets decided to go for a 3-mile run at practice (we all thought she was crazy--3 miles without stopping??), and i decided i'd try it for a few laps. ended up running the whole thing and even racing her to the finish. that was when my addiction to distance running began, even though i didnt join xc and stuff for a few months...

id say let them do what they want unless theyre clueless. the only way you should assign events is to help them find the ones that they like. theyll probably shy away from the distance events--i know that happened on my team--so maybe have each kid run one longer race, to see if he/she likes it or is better at it than he/she thought. if i had been pushed, even a little, towards the longer events in jr high i know i would have switched--now im a 3000 runner.

my coach recruits some girls from jr. high and theyre doing high school level running at only 12 or 13 years old. there are a select few who really belong up here, but i think most of them would enjoy the sport more if they had eased into it and gotten to like it because it was fun.

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Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. - Confucius

well about your last post sportigirl. i am in 8th grade and i would choose to run the 600 indoor and mile/800 outdoor. but my coach also assigns me to do those events. lol. he assigns what everybody has to run

I've always done middle/long distance! I cannot sprint!! haha, but anyway - at our school we write down what events we want to do and then have trials to see who's best etc... some people just do any event the coach puts them in, but only b/c we have a pretty small school and those kids dont mind and just do it to represent the school in that particular event.

I didn't have a very fun Jr. High track experience, thanks mostly to the coaches. Luckily in 8th grade I was allowed to join the varsity team which worked a lot better for me.
I am a distance runner, but I was routinely put in the 400 and the 800, without even being asked what I wanted to do. I really would've like to run the mile. So ASK the kids what they want to do!!! And take that into consideration. But make sure they try everything and learn a lot about form and staying uninjured!! And field events--I liked long jumping but nobody ever showed me how to get my distances down. So I spent my entire 7th grade year scratching 2/3 of my jumps. Now I'm gonna try triple jump is excited!!

My MS didn't have a track team! The only sports you can do are basketball, soccer and volleyball.
In HS, I only do XC, wished I could do track, but at the same time there's softball. I might do track though, there's been a bit too much softball for me, overwhelming playing for 3 teams!
Track is going to start in a week. According to my friends who joined, you can choose which events you want to do. They divide the kids to specific groups such as: long distance, sprinters, field events, then you can alternate each day, until which suits you best. That's all I know