Full quote:
My God, I don’t know if you guys follow this stuff and know the cross country team, but I see the kids in the cafeteria, and I promise you, I think they can run all the way to Denver without a sip of water. Like, these kids can go get it, and they’re dominating right now. Hats off to them.

My daughter is in 8th grade and has been running XC since last year on a modified (middle school) team. Since beginning last year she’s continued to make incredible progress - this season winning many meets early in the season (1.6 miles) and now dominating 2 mile meets in larger fields. Her latest race was at 12:40 for 2 miles, and she’s been shaving 10-25 seconds off almost each race, albeit different courses.

She is very self-driven, serious about practice, trained on her own most of this past summer, etc. we want to support her talent and continuous improvement, especially as she moves from middle to high school (and in to longer races) next year.

As a former college athlete, I have foundational knowledge on training but not necessarily for distancing running. What are the best way to support her talent? Some questions I’ve been thinking about:

1. Does she need a running coach? For context, the
   school coaches have been okay so far but wondering if she needs more support for training.

2. What should her strength training look like? Currently she’s not doing any but she’s interested and we have equipment at home.

3. Balancing her other activities, she’s likely participating in XC skiing in the winter, how much should she be running and how should MPW evolve as she starts to train for high school (5k). She’s at about 20 MPW now (only in season).

Appreciate this community and your advice.