Katelyn Tuohy vs Natalie Cook at 5k who wins?

Did you read his post?

you tuohy fans will tear down anyone who is compared to her

Natalie had a bad race tonight, and even as someone who knows her, I knew that tuohy was on a different level.

I’m glad you guys are happy about someone having a shtty race.

D-bag award goes to Turbo Kick tbh

I'm sad for both Cook and Valby. For a brief moment in time it seemed like they had cracked the code on how injury-prone runners could compete with high mileage runners. But now I'm not so sure.

Also spare a thought for Starliper, who is in the same boat. It's a shame these young athletes are not able to realize their full potential.

No. The D-bag award here goes to LR and starting this stupid thread. Then they made a YT video on the subject.

PBs, especially when set by front running, matter more that “racing” experience. Racing is just not that complicated.

Dang. Yeah definitely. It will always be a struggle for them.

attempts to knock Katelyn off a pedestal any time any runner comes too close to her in competition are annoying and reek of sexism. However, I'm not sure this thread counts. It was an interesting comparison at the time, and they weren't saying that someone was "better" than Tuohy because of one race (which has happened in the past).

Let's not knock down every runner who has come close to competing with Tuohy. I felt sorry for Natalie last night. She's an incredible talent and I hope she is able to get better and run well.

You can all disagree with how Lauren Fleshman handled her "coming out party" and her divorce (I know I do), but in her book she talked about this precise phenomenon:

Elite teenage girls enter a system largely suited to bodies that are getting stronger year-by-year (male bodies) but they need to keep their weight low (fact) which causes bone density and injury issues.

Fleshman didn't have any new or miraculous solutions to this except for being patient and building up a huge base (don't rush stardom), but she wasn't wrong.

Look how many great teenage girls (and women in the NCAA) are injured. That sucks.

Exactly- rushing it by trying to stay / or get super thin will give big time results for a very short time. We’ve all seen that teenage girl that suddenly gets super fast at the same time is all lungs and legs. Keeping that physique and staying healthy is not easy or necessarily a good thing long term. Building a base as you said, is the long term way. Be patient- allow the body to develop. Get strong. And the times will come for those that have that talent. I don’t want this is turn into a commentary on Cooks physique. But it’s not hard to see a pattern.
I would advise her to be patient and not try and make huge changes
Too many fractures and injuries happen when you rush it.
I know a HS girl that was super fast and crushing it- but was running 100 mile weeks. Now hasn’t run in almost a year due to fractures.. worth it??
Known girls who show up to fall practice and look significantly different- fast for a season then hurt… can’t reclaim that brief magic

Honestly this is an incredibly important conversation to have with young runners. You can drop weight and be fast for a season, but the success doesn't last or is at least turbulent between injury cycles.

You saw that with Allie Ostrander and Molly Siedel, and now with incredible talents like Natalie Cook and Parker Valby. Nobody knows what is going on with their relationship with food, but it is clear that they are thin and it is clear that in distance running the pressure to be thin is overwhelming. For the VAST majority of women in high school and college that level of leanness is not natural, and can get dangerous quickly.

Honestly, I think one of the reasons why Katelyn Touhy has been so successful is she doesn't appear to have ever cut corners by dropping weight. Compared to a regular person she is obviously incredibly lean, but she looks stronger than many of her competitors at the top of the NCAA who seem to cycle out season to season due to injury.

This isn't to criticize one runner vs another but rather a very sad reality of what happens in women's running.

the only way is through

to be durable you have to be immnune to high mileage

they kept on dodging "running" as a form of training as a runner... so yep there goes that, i always said that they were just carried by their fitness through cross training thats why they were able to run fast just for a period of time

running is the best training for running bottomline

I dont know about natalie cook or valby but indeed they are very thin..

katelyn said that she has been taking care of herself and evident from how she looks, shes very healthy and strong, and theres one thing she always eats that she said on interviews and was seen on a vlog, its brocolli and vegetables, she said her mom eats it every mean and it got her into eating it every meal since she was a kid so that hints that she has a healthy diet

not only that, katelyn tuohy grew up with the mentality that to be able to run fast you have to be strong, thats why at such a young age she was in the gym after a run or after class, it also helps that HER HS COACH made them go to the gym and lift weight and strengthen their bodies and muscle

She doesn't look like any sub 14:30 5k runner.

I have a good friend who went on to medical school and did her residency and fellowship work in endocrinology and has practiced medicine in some of the top teaching and research hospitals in the country in the area of eating disorders and bone health -- particularly among teenage and young adult females. Based on a number of conversations with her about the relationships between diet and bone health at this critical time in young adult development it can be easy to see how some runners -- in a desire to be thin (all lungs and legs) are also very vulnerable to bone related injury.

A big part of the problem is that people act ignorant and "hope for the best". I remember hearing about these two girls when they burst onto the scene.

When I googled them there was a brief moment of confusion, "Wait, are there two runners with that name? That's not the same person."

And when I said as much, it was OF COURSE almost immediately deleted, but not before 90% of posters told me I'm a hater and ignorant (the irony).

As a coach, I feel most disappointed in these young ladies' coaches who 100% knew what was going on and figured they'd just race them until their bodies gave up and then move on to the next recruit.

When you know someone is abusing their body, whether the runner is conscious of it or not (how could they be at that age?), and you as a coach turn a blind eye that's being complicit.

Even the brojos are complicit with this happening considering how quickly discussions on this topic get deleted.

Obesity is the number one health problem in the US but somehow being thin has become the supposed unhealthy lifestyle. 99% of thin people are very healthy. 1% go too far. 95% of obese people are unhealthy but we now celebrate fat as healthy.