One of my beefs is the hypocrisy of college coaches saying they care about evaluating the upside, but yet don't seem to do that in reality. When my daughter did unofficial visits to colleges in sophomore year, she talked with about 12 different Div. 1 coaches about their running program. She also asked what they are looking for in a distance runner as far as high school training (since she was concerned about her average high school team's training). They all said they don't like to see a lot of mileage in their female recruits. Some even specified numbers, like no more than 55 or 60 miles per week. The high school coaches also love to talk about wanting their kids' best running years to be in college, so they don't want to over-train them, and they claim college coaches avoid kids with too high mileage.
So that's what they SAID, but come recruiting time, we noticed what they DID. They absolutely took the super high mileage girls from our region, and of the ones I've been keeping an eye on, their performance has been poor. Most have barely competed or haven't competed at all due to stress fractures and compartment syndrome and the like, and the ones that have raced haven't touched their high school 5K times. Sure, this is anecdotal, and a small sample, and you can believe me or not. But at least one other poster on here has seen the same thing and I guarantee there are more of us out there.
You have to be fast to win, and you have to be fast to be recruited. We can all agree that's a fact. But no young girl who's still growing and developing should have to jeopardize her general or reproductive health in order to be fast enough to be recruited. And you can say all you want that it's possible to run fast and still be healthy, and I'd agree it is. But at the same time, the number of eating disorders on college teams is APPALLING. My daughter has seen it up close. So clearly, while it's possible to do it right, too many girls are doing it wrong.