He is, in my opinion, to young to do any structured training. He is certainly not too young to run. The best way to accomplish this, if you can work it, is to take him to the track with you when you do your track workout. Let him run his own workout, run, walk, whatever, as he feels like. Then let him go play in the long jump pit for a while.

Southern Man


------------------
We're on a road to nowhere. Come on along.

IMO he is too young ot run every day, but a few years ago when I was coaching a youth track team I had a couple of kids as young as 5. I didn't have them race anything longer than 200m & had at most 2 races in a meet 100m & 200m or 100m & a leg on a 4x100 for example (teaching 5/6 years olds how to hand off correctly was an adventure all its own). Also, we only practiced 3 times a week and one of those days would be some sort of game like tag or Red light / Green light where the running was part of the game. None of the youngest kids ever ran more than about 3 miles in practice including warm-up, form drills, and cool down, and it was usually closer to 2.
At that age it is important that the kids learn the fundamentals and enjoy what they are doing. I wouldn't let any child do specific running training more than 3-4 times a week until Jr. High age (10-11) I'm a big believer in play at that age and "running around" during play every day is no problem, but is very different than training to run.
The fact that he wants to do it is great and I think Southern Man's suggestion is great of taking him to the track would be good. Even getting him involved with a youth program in your area would be a start, just make sure the coach realizes he/she is coaching kids not elite athletes.
You said you entered him in a 400 yard fun run on Thanksgiving; see how this goes and if he enjoys it and really wants to do more find a race that has a kids mile, maybe sometime in the spring, there are lots of those around. Tell him he has to train for it, but don't force him to do it - if he is enjoying it he'll do it on his own.

------------------
My Profile[/URL" target="_blank">

You know your son better than any of us...

I ran my first 10K in Kindergarten. There was another boy in my class who also ran 5Ks and 4 milers. Be responsible enough to make sure he doesn't overdo it and to realize that at that age, he doesn't need to a training program per se. Southern Man describes precisely how I got into running.

I never tired of it and now in my 30s and with kids of my own, I absolutely still love to run with my Dad and family. One of the best things our parents gave us kids was a love for running. Whenever we're together we manage to work in a run.

There's quite a few kids in that age range in the youth club I help coach, including my own son. Believe me, when they're ready to stop, they'll stop. For some, that will be after a mile...for others, you'll have to stop them or they will run up to 10K or beyond. The ones on our club are much more competitive in the "longer" distances than in the 100/200 meter sprints because the age groups are either 8U or 10U. Their legs are just too short at 5 or 6 to support the fast sprinting speed needed to compete with the older kids at the shortest distances.

My four year old daughter also has an interest in running with me now. Often she'll come by out of the blue wearing my healdphones and one of her plastic green wrist bands that lights up (symbolizes my garmin ) and she announces she's going running. I can't help but feel flattered. When she sees me getting ready in the mornings, she often asks, "Can I go running too?". This is always the hardest part for me to start and make it out the door. Having to tell her no is very hard, but I always promise her we can go running together when I get back.

And when I do get back if she's still interested and ready to go, I take her down a few blocks and back. We might do it several times as long as she wants to continue. Sometimes she prefers to go up the hill by our house (walking a bit too) just to run downhill as fast as she can. I always make sure she's in front of me and I shout out to her how fast she is.

Unfortunately, she inherited my wife's poor feet. She is a severe pronater and we had her in orthotics starting at age 3. But she seems to enjoy what we do together and she does just fine. She's never at any of the races I do, nor is my wife. It's just something I realized I want to do solo. She doesn't know what competition is and I have no desire to introduce any of the kids races to her. I don't see the point at this age, and personally, I believe she should fall in love with running before developing any interest along these lines.

When she's old enough, I'm hoping she still has an interest to join me on easy runs.

------------------
Profile[/URL" target="_blank">