In middle school, I was the queen of "just enough."
I joined cross-country because my friends were doing it. I showed up. I ran (slowly). I left. Groundbreaking stuff, really.
Running was something that happened to me, not something I owned.
Then I started watching my teammates. Really watching them. These kids were trying. Like, actually pushing themselves. Faces focused, breathing steady, chasing something I didn't quite understand yet. Meanwhile, I was over there perfecting my "casual jog that technically counts as participation."
Something clicked. I set a goal that terrified me: a seven-minute mile. (Spoiler alert: I was nowhere close.) But each practice, I pushed a little harder. Each run, I shaved off a few more seconds. The day I finally hit that seven-minute mark, lungs burning, legs screaming, I realized something that changed how I approached every sport after that: This was mine. No teammate had carried me. No coach had run it for me. The win belonged entirely to me—and so did all the suffering that got me there.
That's the gift running gives young athletes. And it's why I'll die on this hill (probably while running up it): every youth athlete should try cross-country or track during their off-season.
The Obvious Stuff (Still Worth Mentioning, I Guess)
Let's knock out the predictable points so we can get to the good stuff. Running builds cardiovascular endurance, strengthens legs, and improves overall athleticism. Your soccer player will have more gas in the tank during the fourth quarter. Your basketball player will recover faster between sprints. Your volleyball player will move more explosively. You've heard all this before.
But here's the thing: physical conditioning is just the appetizer. The real magic of running happens between the ears.
The "No One Else to Blame" Factor
Here's what makes running different from team sports: there's nowhere to hide.
In basketball, you can lose because your point guard forgot how to dribble that day. In soccer, a defensive breakdown can erase your best offensive performance. Team sports teach collaboration, communication, and trust—invaluable lessons, truly. But they also give young athletes a convenient escape hatch. "We lost because of them" is a lot easier to swallow than "What could I have done better?"
Running kicks that escape hatch closed and welds it shut. Yes, cross-country is technically a team sport, but when you're gasping through mile three wondering why you ever thought this was a good idea, nobody else can carry your weight. Your finish time reflects exactly one thing: you. If you slacked during summer training, congratulations—it shows. If you pushed yourself through those brutal early morning runs? That shows too.
This kind of radical accountability rewires how young athletes think. The kid who learns to look inward after a tough race becomes the kid who watches film to improve their own game instead of pointing fingers. And that's a kid every coach wants on their roster.
Mental Toughness (The Kind You Can't Fake)
Let's not sugarcoat this: running is uncomfortable. Your lungs burn. Your legs feel like they're staging a mutiny. Your brain is absolutely screaming at you to stop, maybe grab a snack, definitely sit down.
Learning to tell that voice "no thanks" and keep moving anyway? That's a superpower. Athletes who run discover something crucial: the voice telling them to quit is usually lying. They have more in the tank than they think. And once they learn that on a running trail, they carry it into every clutch moment across every sport.
"But What About Burnout?" (Fair Question)
I can already hear some of you: "My kid is already doing seventeen sports, three travel teams, and competitive underwater basket weaving. Won't adding another sport just break them?"
Valid concern. But here's the key: the goal isn't to mint a year-round competitive runner. It's to use running as active recovery and cross-training—a way to stay fit without grinding the same gears.
Research backs this up: multi-sport athletes tend to have longer, healthier athletic careers than single-sport specialists. Running keeps your athlete moving without the high-impact repetition of their primary sport. Different muscle groups, different challenges, different mental game. It's a reset, not a pileup.
The framing matters, though. If your kid treats running as yet another pressure-cooker obligation, yeah, that could backfire. But if they approach it as a different kind of challenge—a break from the usual stakes—it can actually be the thing that keeps them fresh for their main sport.
Plot Twist: The Team Thing Is Actually Great
Here's something that surprised me about cross-country: for an "individual" sport, the team culture is unmatched. There's no star player hogging the spotlight. No bench warmers. Everyone suffers together, equally and democratically.
The fastest kid on the team and the slowest kid on the team? They both know exactly how brutal that hill was. There's a mutual respect that forms when you watch your teammates push through the same pain you're experiencing. It's camaraderie built on shared suffering—which, honestly, is the strongest kind.
For athletes coming from traditional team sports, this offers a fresh lens on what "team" can mean. Less coordinated strategy, more collective grit.
The Bottom Line
Running isn't going to make your kid a professional athlete. (Statistically speaking, neither will their main sport—sorry.) But it will teach them something that outlasts any trophy: effort and outcome are directly connected. Discomfort is survivable. They're capable of more than they think.
So this off-season, consider lacing up those running shoes. Your young athlete might just discover what I did chasing that seven-minute mile: there's something powerful about a win that nobody else can take credit for.
Even if they complain the whole time. (They will. It's fine.)
Brooke Watson is a content strategist for Sport Parent Survival Guide and all of Signature Media's youth sport newsletters. Drawing from her experience as a writer and former soccer player and cross country runner, she specializes in translating complex sports parenting challenges into clear, actionable guidance. Brooke's on a mission to improve the youth sports experience for players, parents, coaches and program directors. Her content reaches an audience of over 200,000 people each month.
