Girls High School Cross Country - Slower as you age

Oh I agree for sure. And some young talented runners don't get better. But some definitely do. I just think there's more at play than blaming it on puberty and moving on. To say these girls just aren't physically able to get better seems like a cop-out and an easy way to give up on people who are going through a struggle.

If i'm a 15 year old girl who is running a bit slower than I did as a 14-year-old, and I have everyone telling me that's just how it works and I'm always going to get slower as I get older, I'd probably quit and find something else to do. But if I was supported and talked to about how it may be tough, but it can get better, there's a good chance I'd stick with it and (hopefully) improve.

I am the mom of a junior and a senior. The younger runs in the 19s and older in the 17s. They have improved approx 30 seconds each year since 7th grade. We thought the improvement would taper off but they are brilliantly coached. Mileage has been gradually increased each year and once they hit puberty weights were added to help them build strength to carry their new bodies. They run year round with 2 weeks off in between seasons. When one daughter started to plateau the coach recommended an iron test and within one month of taking iron her times dropped dramatically. Yes, you will get slow if you just keep the same regime and take long breaks off running. But it you build your strength, watch your iron, increase your mileage and maintain your passion you will only get better. EG Work... a lot.

momofgirls wrote:

Yes, you will get slow if you just keep the same regime and take long breaks off running. But it you build your strength, watch your iron, increase your mileage and maintain your passion you will only get better. EG Work... a lot.

This 100%

Granted, you can't always expect progression to be linear, but training consistently with appropriate progressions of additional stress will keep teenagers, male and female, improving.

Where I have seen teenage girls regress is when they take long periods off or switch sports. A girl's body can adjust to changes and physical stresses of puberty if they are running consistently; their bodies can slowly adapt to he changes. But if there are 3 or 6 months off from consistent mileage, the next time they run, it is a whole new body and running is a complete shock to the body.

FWIW, I have also seen similar regressions in male runners that switch between sports and take time off.

momofgirls wrote:

I am the mom of a junior and a senior. The younger runs in the 19s and older in the 17s. They have improved approx 30 seconds each year since 7th grade. We thought the improvement would taper off but they are brilliantly coached. Mileage has been gradually increased each year and once they hit puberty weights were added to help them build strength to carry their new bodies. They run year round with 2 weeks off in between seasons. When one daughter started to plateau the coach recommended an iron test and within one month of taking iron her times dropped dramatically. Yes, you will get slow if you just keep the same regime and take long breaks off running. But it you build your strength, watch your iron, increase your mileage and maintain your passion you will only get better. EG Work... a lot.

19's and 17's? That's awesome.

As a high school cross country coach who coaches girls and boys, I would say that in general you will get a lot more improvement out of boys than girls over their four year high school career. The better a girl is as a 13 or 14 year old, the better she'll be as a senior (in general), but the real good ones often don't improve much over those 4 years.

It's a joke among the coaches. Oh, no, my 10th grader showed up with HIPS this year. Drats!

This is true. I do not tell my girls any statistics on this stuff. I just tell them that their body has to get used to it's new shape. I don't think that's a lie. I have noticed a lot of these girls start improving greatly in college (some sooner), but as a coach I almost expect my girls to have that one season where they just don't get faster. It is frustrating as all get out, though.

It's not about sample size in this case it's about sample bias.

If your population of interest is all girls in general and your sample is only elite girls, then we have bias due to undercoverage in our sample. That's a problem.

However, I tend to think this problem is more about elite runners, in that case, this is an okay sample.

My observation: many girls plateau/get slower through hs while going through physical changes. It seems to me that girls who don't and improve despite undergoing these changes, are the ones who stay active year around and have healthy lifestyles.

Eat bad and stop running for a few months=>weight gain...tough to come back from

There was a senior girl running 5k’s 9 minutes faster than previous years

Basically as Runners boys will improve straightforwardly from the age of five through 25

There might be some plateaus along the way but more or less boys will have straight shot improvements

However girls will have some declines as their body changes

So if you graphed it the boys trajectory would go straight up while the girl would have some varying degrees of decline

I now a lot Just depends on the individual girl, how her body changes, how dedicated she is to running and training,

But a girl can still improve during High School it's just that often times they'll be some decline for part of that ride. So it's certainly possible for a lot of girls to be faster their senior year than their freshman year. But it's just not guaranteed and it's not a straight shot progression

For example often times 7th and 8th grade girls will be top 20 at nxn

You would never have this for a boy it's almost physically impossible

With that said though so far 7th and 8th grade girls have never been among the very elite. They haven't won or been top five

So for the most part it is usually Juniors and seniors who are the very fastest girls

It's just that there's more competition from girls in grade 7 through 10

Anyway the best advice is just four Girls 2 strive for health, not overdo things, take supplements especially iron and vitamin D, calcium, to really eat healthy, listen to their bodies,

And to just hang in there and be okay with some dips in their performance. And to know that if they stick with training women can certainly get faster as obviously all the top women distance Runners are well into their 20s and 30s

Don't say never. There have been sub 9 minute freshmen boys and there have been two 4 time Footlocker qualifiers. So if any of those boys had been held back slightly, it is possible but unlikely.

Someone brought this thread back after a few years and I thought I'd update on some of the girls I had mentioned at the beginning.

Our best girl has now graduated and really improved throughout HS despite a slight sophomore plateau.

This is her freshman to senior progression

400 - 65 to 57.8

800 - 2:17 to 2:09

1600 - 5:08 to 4:49

3200 - 10:52 to 10:31

5K XC - 17:52 to 17:27

We are still have other girls solidly improving. My views on the matter haven't changed much other than I firmly believe now you just need to get the girls to mentally and physically ride out the rough part(when their body is changing the most).

So things to do during that time period:

Put them in good racing situations(maybe shorter distance)

Be consistent but rest as needed

Lighten up the workload and intensity

Talk to them and encourage them, use examples of past girls who have gone through it

Keep an eye out for restricting or disordered eating

Encourage them to get iron levels checked and eat a lot(protein)

Things not to do:

Compare them to their past selves or others

Ever mention weight

Try to add more miles or harder workouts

Do anything that makes them think it's their fault or not completely natural to be going through

You sir, are a good coach. Kudos!

momofgirls wrote:

But it you build your strength, watch your iron, increase your mileage and maintain your passion you will only get better. EG Work... a lot.

SO true. After my junior HS xc season I started taking iron, started training more seriously, and despite the fact that from my freshman year to my senior year i gained about 20-30 lbs, my times progressed as follows:

FR: 19:52

SO: 19:34

JR: 19:30

SR: 18:11

I hear what you're saying but at some point you have to kind of say if something is almost completely impossible that it's not going to happen

I think it's safe to say There will never be a 7th grade boy who's top 20 at nxn

It's for all practical purposes physically impossible

If he's held back he's no longer a legitimate seventh grade boy

Just look at the amount of 7th 8th and 9th grade girls who our top 20 at nxn and then look at the number of boys. 4 girls like 5 year. Maybe one or two 9th graders in the history of boys running big difference. And again never a 7th grader for boys

Be very careful of supplementing with iron (actually do not!) without having a serum ferritin test first to confirm that your absorption levels are low.

It happens although rarely that some athletes are unusually proficient at absorbing iron into their blood. I had a friend with a serum ferritin of 800+. This can do severe damage to your liver.

I also had a female athlete I coached who overly absorbed iron. If you coach enough athletes you will have a few like this. It’s true that most can use it but as a coach I can’t recommend it until they are tested.

On the contrary, if you are low and have issues with your iron levels don’t give up on supplementing once your levels go up. or it will be a problem again.

To the subject of the thread it depends on the athlete. There are some that go through minor changes in puberty and others that face way greater challenges. Most of my athletes have been able to fight through it but Sophomore and Junior year can be incredibly rough for some of these kids. Individual examples of female athletes that are seemingly not effected by this are great to hear but it’s hard for the female athletes that have undergone greater physical changes to relate to them.

Hmmm..... wrote:

My daughter is a freshman runner on her highschool cross country team. She has some talent and finished her first two races as the second runner on her team in both races.

A lot of the upperclassmen are telling her to enjoy it while it lasts because they all got slower as they got older and it will happen to her too. Is this just the blabbering of jealous upperclassmen getting beat by a freshman, or do girls generally get slower as they mature?

depends on a lot of stuff

For sure get a test, but sometimes you actually have to fight the doctor to do the test. We had 9 girls out of 9 get tested this season and all be below 15. It's incredibly rare that a distance running teen girl is going to be high.

If a teen girl is feeling tired, doesn't each much meat and has recently started her period I'd say 95% chance her ferritin is low. Get it checked and then start supplementing.

What I meant for examples was examples of girls who have struggled and had body changes for a period of time but came out the other side. I believe it is very rare that the physical changes make it so they can't be better after puberty than before. Sure sometimes maybe it works out that way but any girl who has worked hard for our program despite their setbacks or plateaus has improved by the end or when they get into college.

Examples I use:

A girl who ran 18:25 as a sophomore in XC and had ran 11:41 freshman Track, but then sophomore track struggled and couldn't break 11:50 and Junior XC regressed a little as well. Then rebounded and finished her career with PRs of 4:58 and 11:00.

A girl who was a phenom in MS who ran 5:14 in 8th grade, as well as 2:22 and then 18:55 as freshman, then by sophomore track couldn't break 5:30 or 2:26 and struggled to break 20 in XC. Ended career back at 19:22, 5:14, 2:19 and is having a solid college career.

Every girl is different but sharing success stories of girls who have also struggled can really help them believe that they can get through it. When they are going through that phase belief is the hardest part. The mindset most of them are in is that when they first started running before puberty everything was easy and they've likely all had that time period where they set PRs almost every time out. Now during their body changing period things are not easy, running slower for an easy run likely feels harder. They just need someone to tell them it isn't going to last forever.

That seems like a good plan.