The most recent news is that now, a five year old boy ran the Trenton Half-Marathon in New Jersey last Saturday in a time of 2:22:25. He is now the yougest sub 2:30 half-marathon runner in US history.
After the event. the boy's father Nick Russo said......"He can take this as far as he decides to….We have no reason to push him to do this. He enjoys it and has a gift. If we restrict him that would be doing him a disservice. He was awake at 5:30 a.m. had breakfast, ran. Afterwards, he got his face painted, ate lunch, went to the store, came home, RAN to his friend’s house to invite him to play with his new superman toy.”
The boy's mother said.....“I don’t think he has any idea how much he’s doing. He doesn’t even think about the fact that this isn’t normal and most people can’t do this. We’re all just totally amazed that he could even do it. It was nothing for him at all to do one mile, so we upped it to two miles. Then there was a 5K coming around and he wanted to do it. He did it in about a half-hour and it was like nothing to him, so I just said ‘All right, let’s see how far we can go.’”
The parents said that they were not being reckless about their son’s activity. They’ve consulted sports doctors and pediatricians regarding how far he should run. “We’re not just doing this randomly,” Olivia Russo stresses, adding that her son “doesn’t get knee pain and ankle pain.”
Probably more worrying was the face that the five year old was....'putting in 35 to 40 miles per week for his half marathon debut.'
Brilliant time. Imagine being beaten by a 5 yr old.
ReplyDeletei'd have concerns that this 5 year old boys involvement in running such distances may not be as self-directing as is portrayed. There may well be parental positive re-enforecement factors at play. I particularly wonder how a 5 year old is aware of what a half marathon is and why he seems interested in increasing his running to that distance?
ReplyDeleteThis madness needs to stop.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid this madness won't stop. I've been running for thirty years and stories like this pop up all the time.
ReplyDeleteGenerally there are pushy parents who think they have a world-beater on their hands. They are going to start them young, to get a head start on the Africans/Japanese/Eskimos/whatever. Their child is not suffering/going to suffer from any of the injuries/afflictions associated with running so much at younger and younger ages.
So... thirty years on, where are all this little chaps predecessors, whose parents knew he was going to beat the world? I don't know, do you? They've all disappeared, very rapidly. I haven't heard of a single one that has stayed the distance (pun intended!)
The International Marathon Medical Directors Association (IMMDA) has a paper "Children & Marathon Running: How young is too young?", which is very relevant. Check out some of the quoted papers (no links - you'll have to search yourself!) http://www.aimsworldrunning.org/articles/Children&Marathoning.pdf