I have a girl on the team who is extremely motivated and hard working. She put in a huge base this summer and works hard during the hard days of practice. What I am worried about is overtraining, because she did mention recently her legs have been feeling tired (even though she's been taking iron), and I know her well enough to know that she really must be feeling tired if she says so... because usually she will try to play it down and keep running. How can I hold her back on workouts? For example, we did hill repeats on a big hill today and she normally does 8-10 (which is insane... more than any of the varsity boys too). Today I tried to get her to only do 6 or 7 (because she said she was a bit tired), and basically had to force her not to because she really wanted to run more.
I am blessed to have such a hard working runner (the other girls are also similar which is very good) and not have the problem of motivating runners, but what are some ways to hold a runner back? For example, she does not like going under 60 mpw, but I think it should be okay once the season starts because of the greater intensity. Also, I think she is only doing 3 hours between doubles because of how her schedule works (unscheduled period in the middle of the day), so she will do a 3-4 mile run and then only 3 hours later do the longer run. Is this a good idea, because it is very little recovery... any suggestions from you all? Thanks.