Too Much Racing: Are You a Victim?

by Marc Bloom

The development and nurturing of young runners is a fascinating endeavor with many twists and turns, and lately there seem to be conflicting ideas on how to get it right.

Currently, high schools are embroiled in a dispute with state federations over sanctioning issues, and where athletes can compete. I side with those who say there should be no restrictions. But I also remember years ago when the complaints centered on federation and league restrictions on the number of races an athlete could run per meet. Once, there were limits; now, none.

But some experts' major beef with high schools is that kids run too many races. The University of Colorado's Mark Wetmore, whose men's and women's teams swept the 2004 NCAA cross-country team titles, believes that frequent racing is counter-productive.

That is, counter-productive for college running. Do all high school runners compete in college? Of course not. How do we prepare some runners for college-if that is indeed a high school responsibility-and how do we handle those who after four years decide to stop competing, hopefully to continue running for health and fitness?

Of course, one of the major complaints against the college system has been too much racing-doubling and tripling in conference meets, going hard for three seasons, etc. Many college coaches seem to have pulled back on racing and now contest fewer meets, but Alan Webb still left college, to race when he wished and be more in sync with the international schedule.

Webb, with his extraordinary talent, may be a case unto himself. But we keep talking about producing more runners of his caliber. And why not?

To that end, there's a growing movement to steer elite runners away from the college system and into professional or quasi-professional coaching. For example, Alberto Salazar's Oregon Project, and its youth division, which could grow into a nationally-approved developmental system.

Is that approach the best way to create future world-class runners? Well, we don't really know, yet. But as an innovative experiment, it seems worth a try.

How we regard youth in our country keeps changing, and running reflects that. Whether teens are still children to be protected or young adults to be let loose is an eternal question. The over-the-top youth sports culture, like soccer and hockey leagues, treats kids like little professionals-after all, little girls dominate Olympic gymnastics. I notice a lot of pushing, and little "protection."

Since young people differ so much, there's no one right answer. What each youngster deserves, however, is to be treated as a distinctive personality, with a balance of freedom and protection that suits him or her.

I thought about all this as I prepared to deliver my first Barnes & Noble talk about my book, "God on the Starting Line." I decided to talk about the "love" between myself and the boys on my team. Imparting love came easily for me, but what I had to learn was how to trust them.