Injuries because of no period?

There might be a connection between your lack of period and your injuries but it is NOT cause and effect. Whatever leads to no period could be related to injuries but the lack of period and the injury could be symptoms of overtraining, low body fat, nutritional deficiencies etc.

There is tons of info out about this. Emma Abramson spoke about it a lot. I’d wonder if she be willing to give you advice if you hit her on social media. Anyway, I’ve been reading articles about this for over 20 years. LRC might be a good place to start, but there’s plenty of info out there. Good luck.

First off, I’ve you’re doing 20+ mile long runs for womens cross you’re over training. There’s no reason you need to run that far for a 6k.

Second, if you don’t have your period you are underfueling, overtraining, or both.

I’m not a woman but not having your period is big red flag. You need to prioritize your overall bodily health before running or within a pretty short period of time you’re going to pay for it.

How is your sleep quality? Do you feel like you have much energy? Do you feel stressed or anxious? Have you been getting sick more often than usual?

Speak to your team doctor and nutritionist. There is a high a chance you have RED-S, which you DO NOT want to mess around with. Get on this ASAP

You lost 25 pounds as a D1 runner? It sounds like you probably have an eating disorder, which caused you to lose your period.

If you don’t have an eating disorder you at least have some form of REDS.

Please be honest with your doctors because this is something that will destroy your life if you don’t catch it early and get support for. (And this is not the place to get that support.)

Sounds like classic RED-S symptoms.

Please ask your doctor to recommend an MRI as X-rays don’t detect stress fractures.

From the information you provided, you appear to be overtraining for your goals, and your other symptoms suggest likely underwhelming, but your coach, doctor and nutritionist need to work with you to determine next steps.

All of this. I would tell you don’t panic - but your body is giving you SEVERAL signs things are out of balance hormonally, bone density wise, nutritionally, stress, over load on training wise, etc.

It is time to listen to those signs and seek professional help to help get those things in balance. You are taking the rights steps already in taking a minute to think through all these things and being willing to ask for help.
Keeping the bigger picture of running long term is the way to think. The here is now is so temporary.

*underfueling

My thoughts are also on the MRI.

Not having a period will wreck you. I went almost two years without one. Had success at first for about a year then crashed and burned. Can't do tempos, workouts, or long runs at a fraction of what I used to. Now I slog along on easy runs at 8:40 pace or higher with heart rate 165-170.

Got too caught up in the trap of "thin to win" and disguised an ED as "hard training"

What is your current and previous weight with your height? Unless you were previously carrying a lot of excess body fat, 25 lbs is an unhealthy amount of weight to lose. What diatary habits were you employing? Being underweight and in a excessive caloric and nutrient deficit is likely the factor that is triggering ammenohrea.

Your injuries are at least indirectly related to your absence of menstrual periods. When you don't eat enough to support your health and physical activity, the body's ability to recover and successfully absorb the training stimulus as well as endocrine and metabolic function become compromised. Thereby, you are likely to experience ammenohrea and injuries as a result of insufficient caloric/nutrient intake. However, bone related injuries are more directly correlated to absent menstrual cycles due to the effect of estrogen on bone health (Insufficient caloric/nutrient intake 》energy deficiency 》Ammenohrea 》Reduced estrogen levels 》reduced bone mass and density 》stress fractures). Even if the injury issues you are experiencing are all soft tissue, they are likely still caused by underfueling and being underweight. When you are underweight, underlying muscle weakness is likely, thereby increasing the risk of injury. I personally had frequent bouts of ITBS when I was underweight due to lack of muscular strength. Once I started a lifting program and got my BMI in the healthy range, this issue went away.

To fix this problem, you need to evaluate your diet and physical activity levels to see if you are taking in sufficient calories and nutrients. If you are underweight, you should be eating in a caloric surplus and focusing on resistance training to strengthen your body. You can still exercise, but you must eat a lot more to bring your body back in energy balance.

it's hard to be this vulnerable on this site, but I applaud you for bringing this up because it is an important issue :)

When you don't get your period your body IS telling you something, and that can manifest itself in different ways. Whether or not your current injuries are correlated might not be relevant in the long run, as not getting your period is already an issue with or without other symptoms.

It's not just about stopping exercising. The most important thing is that you are fueling properly too! Talk to a dietician, and see if you can speak to a therapist--it can help! Usually campuses have therapists available. And speak to a doctor about the steps you can take to get your period back.

This is probably really really hard now, but ten years from now you will be SO thankful you did the healing and the work on yourself.

I definitely don't have much info on this topic, but I know that Emma Abrahamson has talked about this topic at length. If I remember correctly, when she started going all in on elite running, she stopped having her period for a few years. She did struggle with injuries during that time as well, but her injuries were consistent with what a lot of runners at that mileage face. Perhaps you could look into what Emma has said on the topic.

I hope that's helpful to you and I wish you the best of luck figuring everything out and continuing to progress your running.

Think about it: you were already running at a decent D1 school which means there is no chance you were overweight to begin with. None. And THEN you proceeded to lose 25 lbs in a year.

You aren't feeling the way you do because you are no longer having your period, that's just the natural result of a severe calorie deficit for an extended amount of time, which of course is your actual problem here.

You burnt the candle from both ends; severe calorie deficit AND intense training/volume. And you did it until you broke. Doesn't mean you can't rebuild yourself, but don't think for a second it's going to happen overnight. If you can get back to feeling normal in the same amount of time it took you to get to this point, that would be considered a huge success.

People here want to be nice about this and sugarcoat things (which in fact isn't nice at all!), but a few key thoughts come to mind:

1. Your coach has shown extremely negligent behavior. It is disheartening that this sort of behavior continues to go on with zero repercussions. That doesn't mean your coach is a bad person or was fully aware you were sacrificing your health for a few good performances. But it's still negligence, willful or not.

2. If you're serious about getting better sooner rather than later, sure a dietician might help, but talking to a professional therapist would be the best move as you already know the issue causing this is the fact you lost weight, otherwise it wouldn't have been the first concrete statement you told us about yourself.

3. You can get healthy again, truly! But not if you put a timeline on your body to be at X level of performance by Y date. That's the road most continue going down in your position and odds are you will too. Let me tell you though, that trail of tears is plentiful enough already. You don't need to add to it.

4. In the meantime impact exercises and cardio as you know it are your enemy, but so is not exercising at all otherwise you're gonna end up even more depressed than you likely already will be or currently are. Your best bet is to focus on lifting weights, but not strenuously, more in a manner where you focus on posture and slowly build up your weight-bearing capacity.

5. Losing weight and gaining weight rapidly are both exhausting, so the answer isn't to start eating massive amounts suddenly, but instead methodically increase your caloric intake. Consider thinking of yourself as a currently-underweight bodybuilder that just so happens to love running and wants to be able to do it again someday when the conditions are right.

A lot of good advice/info from previous posters, so I'll leave that to them. But I just wanted to add that 20+ long runs are completely unnecessary for any woman running at the college level. You're training for 5k-6k in XC and 10k max in track. 20+ mile long runs aren't needed for those distances. It's just putting an unnecessary strain on your body for little to no extra benefit at the distances you're trying to compete at.

You should be having this discussion with a doctor not let’s run. Loss of your period over time reduces your bone density and can lead to fractures.

Thank you so much for the super kind responses, everyone. I seriously can’t tell you all how much I appreciate it. I’ve been nervous to reach out to people I know/talk to others in person and so that’s why I came here first. And, honestly, I was not expecting so many thoughtful and supportive responses for something that I know is sometimes weird to talk about. I do have an appointment with a doctor and nutritionist scheduled. I’ve met with my team nutritionist before (we’re all required to every season), and she is not helpful at all. My coach essentially looks the other way in regards to periods and a healthy weight. Our team has a history of things like this.

I really don’t have an eating disorder. I eat a lot (if I had to guess, I’d say 3,000-3,500 calories depending on the day). In high school, I ran maybe 30 mpw and have just increased my mileage to 90ish over the last few years and really thought I had been eating enough. I don’t purposely restrict anything. I just eat when I’m hungry. I think a big part of it is I no longer live on campus and now live in an apartment so I cook my own meals. This sounds hard to believe and silly I know, but I didn’t even really realize that I had lost a lot of weight until we had our physicals done before cross. I’ve been putting a lot of effort into eating a lot more and exercising a lot less (mostly light strength stuff, a little running, and a few walks).

To answer some questions, my sleep quality was horrible when I was running 90. I was always waking up several times a night and was probably averaging 5 hours a night. I’ve actually noticed in the last week or two that I’m able to sleep better and closer to 7-8 hours a night. I was definitely moody and anxious and had low energy for other parts of my life. I really don’t know how I missed all of this. I think I had forgotten what it felt like to feel good if that makes sense haha. I was also heavier for a distance runner. I’m now 5’6 and 112ish pounds (maybe a bit more as I haven’t really been running) and was 135ish before.

I do want to add (and I know this can be hard to believe) that this was not intentional. I don’t know how I missed all of the signs. I’ve always had a good relationship with food. I’ve just never trained this hard before and been this busy with school so I think it was easy for me to not really see what was happening. But, again, I appreciate everything posted here and I’m listening to all of it and will be much more careful in the future.

Thank you!!

My wife was in a similar position as you...

1. no period is likely a symptom to an underlying issue (overtraining, anemia etc.)

2. No one on this thread will be more helpful than an OBGYN