Overtrained? Anemic?

Vegetarian athletes (particularly young vegetarian athletes) who are not supervised by a nutritionist often struggle to meet macro- and micronutrient and caloric requirements for their activity level. Yes, a byproduct of this is low iron, but I bet that's a symptom, not the cause, of your performance decrement. Do you have regular menstrual cycles? Consider meeting with a registered sports dietitian (CSSD) if being a vegetarian is important to you.

Eat something with vitamin C, as that increases the absorption rate of iron.

So, your first step is to go to your Dr. and get a blood test. Have them do a complete blood count (CBC) and serum ferritin check. They might fight you on the serum ferritin test but it's extremely important that you know what your iron count is available for your body to produce blood.

Do not supplement until you receive results! However, you can eat spinach and other high iron non-heme sources. Most importantly you need 8 hours sleep.

Yes, Anemia can greatly impact your performances.

Overtrained because of mileage? Probably not. But, three meets a week is not great. Little rest, not good. No recovery between hard efforts equals no adaptation to the stress. in that definition, yes, you maybe overdoing in relation to the amount of recovery you are able to have.

My E-Mail address:

runri56@gmail.com

I can help you further with this. I would prefer that your parents contact me or are at least included in the E-Mail if you seek my advice. Include details on your training over the past two months. The more info I have the better I can help.

Good luck!

What you wrote is stupid on many levels.

Most of the unhealthiest kids in any HS are likely to be eating standard American diet, with ample animal products. Moreover, most cases of iron deficiency occur in young athletes eating the standard American diet.

This kid is not suffering because she isn't eating. She is far more likely

doing too much racing and listening to what amounts to seriously bad coaching errors.

They pushed up the volume and intensity and she got slower. Happens all over the country.

your situation reminds me of myself last year a lot, I am vegetarian too. I would start taking chelated iron tablets (chelated helps them be absorbed better, also eat them with food.) , dont stop taking them when your season ends- the easiest time to get up your iron is when you are resting/ in offseason. Also sleep is very important, if you are tapering focus on sleep and recover scince you are putting less emphasis on running, aim for 9 hours and this should help your legs. It might be good to talk to your coach about not increasing milage so fast and at the end of the season as well as not racing as much. Hope this helps, don't give up sometimes you just have a rough season.