ideal race weight?

85 lbs?

Honestly it will vary from athlete to athelete based on body type. As long as what you're carrying is lean muscle and little fat you will be fine.

I'm at 6% bodyfat and 95lbs. Half of the people I have talked to about this have said I should lose a couple more pounds, but the other half accuse me of being anorexic.

yeah.. im a guy at 5'4" and i weigh about 115 and i can see my ribs... so yeah not good

95 is awfully small. 100-105 wouldnt be a bad idea. a little muscle probably wouldnt hurt. but definitely dont try to drop poundage

A girl with 6% body fat? That can't be too good for you...

6% bodyfat is already extremely low. Some female runners may be able to run well below 10% body fat, but there is a certain amount of critical mass needed to protect organs & body's overall functioning.

Female runners need to have a menstrual cycle. It sucks, but that's the truth. When you're cycle stops, that's a sign that your estrogen production is too low. Estrogen is essential for building strong bones. You might do well for a brief period before you start having problems with stress fractures and other injuries.

I don't know who suggested you lose more weight but they are pretty uninformed. Losing weight is only helpful to a point and then it becomes COUNTERPRODUCTIVE.

I know when I was 5'2" and 88 lbs people were concerned for my health. and, honestly, i was way too small, (but didn't think so at the time). most of us can't see ourselves for what we really are.

here is an idea. take your weight an put it into a BMI calculator.

Go to the USATF athlete bios (http://www.usatf.org/athletes/bios). Look at some of the best female distance runners in the United States and plug their heights and weights into a BMI calculator.

Now, see how you compare to elite American runners.

(Goucher, Flanagan, Rowbury, Barringer, Kastor, Donohue, Worth-Thomas, Rhines, Yoder-Begley, McGregor, Anderson, Willard)

Are there ANY on the site with a lower BMI than you?

There is a lot of variation in the weights of top middle-distance to long-distance runners. Ultimately, the weight you need to be at is where you can race well, stay healthy, and be able to train as hard as you need to without getting injured all the time.

So, I say, focus on your training and healthy eating and don't fixate on the weight thing.

anything under 100 at your height and your anorexic; since you talk about losing weight you've already told us your anno get help

At one point in high school when I had eating issues I was 5ft3 85lbs and I looked skeletal and my body always ached and I didn't have much energy. At this point I am 98-101 lbs and I am able to train harder than ever with out breaking down. I am still considered borderline too thin I would say a good weight for you would probably be 104-112 if you are also small framed.

Also when I was 85lbs I only had 4% body fat and my hair was falling out and you could see every bone in my body.

Thankfully after that period in my life I was still able to run and compete with out damaging my body because I only stayed in the 85-92lb range for about a year and then I was sent to a nutritionist.

The usual BMI classification for anorexia is 17.5%. I'm not saying that you're anorexic (as anorexia is a mental illness, not just a physical state), but definitely you don't need to lose any more weight.

A normal, healthy person at your weight would not even contemplate losing anymore weight. If you don't see a very skinny person in the mirror, you are probably a little out of touch with reality and might want to seek counseling for an eating disorder.

In college and high school I had eating disorders on and off. I'm 5'3". My 5k PRs came at 97 lbs (early into the eating disorder), and then I set a new PR at 110 lbs (when I was marginally healthy about my eating).

I'm 33 now, and looking back, I see that if i had spent half as much time focused on healthy eating & training as I did on weight loss (pounds that I really didn't need to lose in the first place), I could have acheived so much more as a runner.

I ended my running with a lot of regrets, disappointment, frustration. It has taken me several years to accept that I can't re-write the past and that I can not undo my choices. If I could undo things, though, I would never have started dieting...

Looking at the BMI's of other runners, especially the elite, I notice that I am below theirs. Generally, well below. I don't think i "need" to lose any more weight, but was just trying to figure it out. It is true that I also don't see a very skinny person in the mirror, but I do not believe I have any sort of eating disorder. Thank you everyone on the insight though. I will not attempt losing more weight, but I just figured I would see if it was crazy for me not to want to. Though, I also will not gain any.

'i will not gain any'

you need some serious help.

Okay whoever said compare your BMI to other elites is a dumb idea. There should be NO comparisons. You are who you are. Honestly just eat till your full and run hard. No big deal. Just make sure your eating the right things and the PRs will come. I personally think that 6 percent maybe a little too low. Try to be around 10 percent.

I don't think I need help for not wanting to gain weight unnecessarily. This is the first season I've had without an injury so I think I'm doing alright considering I run 80mp, with the slowest of the miles being around 7:15-7:20.

You are just probably a fat f***, either go for a jog, or go and have another doughnut fat ass

6% for a chick will be detrimental to both your health and running. Chances are that your measurement is considerably off. As a guy, I can't drop below about 4.5%. Below that point, I get sick a lot more frequently and don't seem to have the same day to day turnover as I do at 5 to 6%.

I don't know. I suppose they could be off but the measurements have been done by the sports med institute, team physician, and my ortho. I have actually been fairly ill off and on but I'm pretty sure it's due to a recurring illness that I already know I have.

The comparisons don't seem idiotic to me. Sure, everyone has a different build and shouldn't focus so much on the weight thing. But, clearly this woman is focused on her weight, as too many women are.

The comparison is for demonstrative purposes, and I think demonstrates well how hmmmm's thinking about losing weight is not rational. A lot of women have this idea that skinnier is necessarily better, so it is helpful to see that the very best in our nation come in a variety of sizes.

Also it might help a 95 lb woman who is questioning whether she needs to lose MORE weight to improve her performance (not a rational question) to know that being excessively skinny is not a requisite for running fast.

I think we can safely say that Hmmm has a distorted body image given that, at her extremely small stature, she is questioning losing more weight and also is adamant about not gaining weight.

Someone with a distorted body image might look at herself at 95 lbs and see herself as "not thin" (distorted), while she is likely to see another "thin but healthy" elite runner as "thin but healthy" (accurate). Comparisons using numbers can help to gain insight into some of the distortions. It can help her to see that others she might think of as "thin" are actually heavier than her.... Hopefully, this can help her to understand that her self-concept is innaccurate.