I'll try to keep this short. I apologize, but I really need help here.
There's something wrong with our top runner. Last xc season he basically over trained (not blaming anyone, sometimes it happens and at this point pointing a finger doesn't fix things) to the point where his body was too far gone to have a good finish to the season. Got his levels checked and his iron was supposedly in the normal range and his creatin levels were not producing at the rate of recovery that they typically should. I'm not doctor but this was my understanding of it.
We gave him 2 months completely off after the season, Bernard Lagat style. When he came back, we threw away the watch (he was allowed to use it, wasn't allowed to look at it during the run), kept him running in control each day and keeping it completely effort based. Track season came around, and he was a bit better, but unable to have the success he had the previous year. For instance, he was a 9:37 sophomore who had trouble breaking 9:49 as a junior. Part of it was him being afraid to push as hard in training, but regardless he just wasn't fully himself yet. He got 3 weeks off after the season.
So he had a so so season but he appeared to be getting better. We took to the summer, allowing a hard run only once every 4 days and 50 miles per week (in previous years he ran roughly 65mpw). We kept it under control and he felt good every day. He never had a good workout by his old standards, but we chalked it up to not being sharp and coming back from a lay off. We just kept it under control.
So things look to be going better this season, he ran a 16:30 (15:45 PR for reference) in his first meet and looked solid. His workouts have been good, but not anything super hard. They indicate around 16:00 shape.
Two weeks ago he drops a huge dud, running a 17:30. He started out around 5:20 pace and just slowly faded. We got a little worried and cut his miles from 45 down to about 5 miles a day and easy running, he took Thursday off even and ran yesterday just to be careful. We figured let's just donsomething drastic and not let what happened last year return. He comes out today and basically cannot even finish his race. He was only out in about 2:35, then a mile later he went from 15th to 50th, and heading for worse. We yanked him from the race to save him the potential damage finishing that race might have done.
So we are at a loss. Last year his iron levels were checked and considered normal, he had results that indicated overtraining but that was over a year ago and we've been very careful since then to keep him recovering, but it doesn't seem to help. Could this me completely unrelated and be an iron thing? He seems to feel good early but after a half mile he's basically useless and dead legged. It's really weird. He runs hard only once or twice a week and his miles are around 35 mpw, he's been running easy and being careful.
It breaks my heart every day to think that this kid cares so much and simply cannot do what he used to do..I'm looking for advice in any way.
Has anyone heard of anything like this or can make some guesses as to what could be wrong?