U14 Fitness

So you want to run 10K in May? You should start training now!

This is the John Stanton's training schedule for those who wish to run the 10k in 50 minutes. it's a 13-week program, and we have exactly 13 weeks to ORW. You have no time to waste.

LSD is not the drug. These are the definitions of what the terms mean (click to enlarge).




A big part of Stanton's schedule reasoning is to avoid injury. This is a must, and it is why we take the same precautions. In addition, there are certain exercises that the runners must do.

For Soccer players. 

Now for our kids who are playing soccer, and are at school, and busy with other activities, the above schedule is not feasible as they simply do not have the time. However, soccer players already do a lot of running, so they should be in some sort of shape. It's not exactly the same muscles that are used, but it's not too far either.

Since we will do runs every Saturday, I have the following preliminary schedule for our 10k runners (and players). This has a rough target of 55 minutes run time, which is about the time we did last year.

Please note that this is 2X/week and takes into account running Saturday mornings during practice (that's the 3rd run), as well as the soccer practices themselves, which helps fitness too.  You will notice that Stanton's program is 5X/week. Running should be at least 3X/week, but soccer counts. This schedule may change as soccer seasons starts outdoors.

The goal is fitness, and to avoid injury. It is not just the distance, it is the way each run is done that avoids injury (proper interval training), as well as how to improve speed. Speed is the last thing you want now.

You cannot do speed without the proper base. Please understand this.


Take this a rough guideline. Every runner is different, everyone is in different fitness shape, and everyone's objectives are different.

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