Walking. It's an epidemic that plagues my Middle School Cross Country team every day. I emphasis running as a team in the warm-up, but how can they when there's those few who WALK the warm-up?? the WARM-UP!!!! So my first move was to have the 6th graders (who make up most of the walkers) go on a separate warm-up, a shorter warm-up, than the 7th and 8th graders. But, what came of that was I was holding back the 6th graders who actually run and not walk from doing a good warm-up because half the time they had to stop and wait for the walkers to catch up. Then I would find those same walkers walk during the workouts. I tried to stop that by having them do sit-ups if they chose to walk. That didn't really do much justice since half the time they did sit-ups they would just sit on the ground. So, I really didn't want to spit the team up with runners in one group and walkers in another, but it has to be done. They are keeping the actual runners from running, from doing cross-country. So today, before I had the team go on their warm-up, I had all the "runners" who walk to step out and come with me. I then sent off all the runners who run on their warm-up. With the walking group in front of me, I laid it all out to them. They're still on day one with cross-country practice. They will start day two when they have stopped walking. Does a basketball player ever not dribble? or a football lineman not tackle? or a soccer player not kick the ball? No, because if they don't dribble/tackle/or kick, they're not playing the game. Same goes for cross-country - if you don't run, you're not doing cross-country. So I had them line up behind me and grab the persons shirt in front of them. I was setting the pace and if one of them tried to walk, I told them we're gonna be dragging them to the finish, because once you let go of that person's shirt, you've stopped being a runner, you're not doing cross-country, so hang on! And so I went at a slow and steady trot. The walkers-soon-to-be-born-runners screamed and yelled "It's hard running like this!" "This is weird!" "I'm gonna fall!" and I just trotted along, not listening to their complaints, to their screams, only to the sounds of their feet strike the ground not as walkers, but as runners for once! We made it one loop around the school, barely a 400m, with everyone we started with, hanging on to dear life to that person's shirt in front of them. It worked, it actually worked! I found a cure!
Then, for the workout, it was just a pre-meet day since they have a race in the morning, I sent them on what is known as an " easy distance run" for middle schoolers - 1.65mi for 7th and 8th grade, and 1.2mi for 6th grade - the equivalent distance to what they're racing in tomorrow. So for the walkers I had for the warm-up, I told them the distance they had to go and that they are to do the same thing - grab a shirt. Over half of them stood in terror and shook their heads, "No, no! We'll run, promise!!" And off they dashed. The few that still considered themselves walkers went ahead yanking on shirts and still finished, as runners! I did do my recon and spied on my walkers who promised they'd run and only came upon one who walked, but I squared that choice away with the back of my shirt and told her to hang on. So, if you feel like walking, better find someone quick who's running and grab on!
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