Crosscountry

Web: www.athletics.org.nz
Email: cosullivan@athletics.org.nz

RJT Cross Country
This section has been designed to help schools and clubs
develop fun and varied cross country or distance runningsessions for children. Some children ﬁnd running difﬁcultand often don’t enjoy the annual school cross country.
This section pulls together fun games and activities thatenable kids to practise the skills of running in a way thatbuilds endurance while having fun.
The Run Jump Throw philosophy that children should beable to learn skills in a fun, non-threatening environment
is applied here. All games in this section are fully inclusiveand can be modiﬁed to meet the needs of the wholegroup. All children should be able to achieve successand individual effort should be recognised. The emphasisshould be learning and building endurance through fun andplay rather than drills and long repetitive runs.

RUN – ENDURANCE

Setting up a Cross
Country Course
A good cross country course is:► Easy to follow and interesting.
► Has obstacles or hurdles.
► Has hills but not too long or steep.
► A bit of water or mud is also fun.

Recommended Distances
Distances should be long enough so that children are not
tempted to sprint the whole way and short enough sothey don’t stress participants. The effort should be aerobic
which means that the children should be able to talk toeach other while running.
Recommended distances for timed runs
► 6-7 year olds – 1000m.
► 8-9 year olds – 1000-1500.
► 10-11 year olds – 1000-2000m.

Recommended time on task in activities todevelop Endurance► 6-7 year olds – 3-8 minutes.
► 8-9 year olds – 4-10 minutes.
► 10-11 year olds – 5-15 minutes.

Games and Activities
Enjoyment and variety are the keys to any successful
running/walking programme.
The objective in cross country related sessions is to havechildren running, jogging or walking continuously foraround 10 mins. A great way to do this is through fungames.

Exploring Spaceand Direction
Equipment► Cones/markers.
► Hall, grass area or hard surface.

Instructions
Children to run in the following ways
► Forwards.

► Curved.

► Backwards.

► Zig Zag.

► Sideways.

► Around objects.

In pairs, explore a path, one child copying/following theother. Then change. As you run, make shapes, letters etc.

Running for Endurance 1
The focus for this card is exploring running for endurance. This includes
running in a relaxed style and exploring different paces.

Key Skill Criteria► Running with a mid foot contact
instead of a fore foot (balls of feet)contact used in running for speed.
► Posture - ears above shoulders,shoulders above hips and hips
above ankles.
► Running with relaxed arms – arm
action will be a little lower than forrunning for speed and a little morerelaxed.
► Hands should be relaxed – like holding
on to eggshells.

RUN – ENDURANCE► The torso and hips should be kept
square to the front – there should only
be a little shoulder movement and norotation of the body.
► Knee lift is lower than for running for
speed – the knee should still comethrough in a straight path.
► An even rhythm is important.
Note: Before any participant attempts
timed runs or races, he/she should havea good background of steady runningand running activities. It is preferable touse soft surfaces because there will beless stress on their legs.

Verbal Cues:• Even rhythm – stay relaxed.

• Lower knee lift and arm drive.

• Landing on the mid sole of the foot.

• Eyes focused forward.

Breakthe CodeOpposite
Pairs Run

EQUIPMENTEQUIPMENT• Cards with letters on them.

• Cones / Markers

INSTRUCTIONSINSTRUCTIONS• Set up up to 7 stations, 150-300m apart.

• Mark out a circuit of about 500m withthe midway point marked.

• Split group into smaller groups, 3-4people per group.

•Divide group into pairs.

• At each station have either a person whowrites a letter from a pre-selected wordon the participant’s card, or a big cardwith the letter on it and the participant
writes it down.

• Each pair runs in the opposite direction
around the circuit and attempts to passtheir partner at the halfway point – ifthey don’t meet, they wait at the midway
mark, then complete the lap.

• Participants run to each station to get theletter for that station.

• On the second lap they meet halfway
again, waiting if necessary, then run forhome to gain a point against their partner.

• Remind people to run at a comfortable
pace, it is not a race.
• At the end, participants unscramble theletters to make the word – e.g. fitness.

• The first lap and half the second lap
should be run at a comfortable pace.

• Groups can go to the stations in any
order, but will need to collect ALL letters
before heading back to the start tounscramble their word.

MEET

DEEPS – NURW
E ECNARUDNE – NUR

RUN – ENDURANCEI

RUN – ENDURANCEECNARUDNE – NUR

NSRNSTARTW I N N E R S

should your eyes look when
Q: Whererunning towards a target?

can you and your partner
Q: How
work better together?

Make sure everyone is involved and enjoying the games. To varyor modify a game, think about which STEP you can change:

STE

SPACE

TASK

EQUIPMENTPPEOPLE