I think it’s a pretty universal thing. It’s become quite apparent that most kids are very reliant on structure and routine in the training they do. We are going fine with routine (school to timetable), but everything else is a struggle.
My sister's kids are apparently very good at school but since they started travelling earlier this year, her attempts at home schooling them has resulted in failure. Now that she's stuck in Perth for the foreseeable future, she's enrolled them at the local school for six months.
School hasn't been too bad (so far), but both kids normally have a lot of organised activities for exercise. It has required some effort to try and work out how to replace it. At least when they go to school they get a few kilometres of walking into them just getting the school day done, plus a couple of phys ed sessions per week. Thankfully Liam's tennis coach has been given the go ahead to re-start private lessons this week, which will help a lot.
@Rachel what they walk all the way to Shenton College. I did a bike count at Daglish station a couple of years ago and was amazed at how many SC kids were catching the train!
It's hard for adults to lose structure too...harder still when you have to change your plans and the kids...hopefully a few weeks of repetition will help. And the tennis coach.
When did you start ‘training’ in a self-motivated fashion Craig? For me it was only when I started ski paddling (was rubbish, wanted improvement) in Year 10. And that consisted of school holiday paddles a couple of times a week. Running wasn’t on my radar until Year 12.
I didn't become a 'runner' until my first Metro event at City Beach in 2007 (which I won) when I was 30 and realised that I seemed to be good at something. Never did any actual proper training for years after that though and still don't do any structured stuff. I barely even structure my bike training (and definitely not right now, it's all willy nilly based on how I'm feeling the day/morning before I head out).
I started training seriously in Year 9, which was probably one year too early - I've seen a lot of injured 14-year-old distance runners.
I don't really remember details of what I did when I was at school. There were probably times when I thought I was training but I was actually just going for a run once or twice a week. I remember when I was about 14 I made a plan to run 400km in 12 weeks leading up to City to Surf, then revised that to 200km and fell well short of that. I didn't really start training seriously until the end of 1990 when I was 18.
I would do well to run 400km in 12 months, let alone weeks. Only done it once (2019) since I started my AP log (well unless you add in all the orienteering events and Suburb Runs, in which case I'd have to add in a few more years).