Daughter Struggling in XC iron issues

I am a female that has struggled with low iron on ocassion and my running suffered too. I highly recommend the brand Floradix. They have both a phenomal liquid iron, as well as pill form. It's all food based so it doesn't constipated like regular iron pills. You could probably find them at a co-op but they most likely will be cheaper online (Amazon, etc) best of luck to her!

Also, does she have heavy periods? You mentioned her iron being lower with a regular period. If her periods are too heavy perhaps something like PCOS or endometriosis could be an issue, which would def suck up your iron (cysts)

Yessss. This is EXACTLY what she described JoJo. She said it felt like she had so much in her but her legs couldn't respond. That's it 1000%. I have Floradix; I will get her back on it. I stopped it when the doc said to take the ferrous sulfate pills, but I don't think tossing a dose in OJ in addition would hurt anything. It's hard to get all these doses in when she's in school.

Thank you for understanding that I'm involved because I care, not because I'm pressuring her into anything. I want her to have the best chance to reach her potential, even if it's slower than last year. When she runs past me at the 1.5 mile saying she feels light-headed and is about to pass out, it raised a huge red flag.

Her periods aren't abnormally heavy, I just think that in combo with the mileage increase depleted her iron stores... and she wasn't religious about taking her supplements.

No, MOM has never had body issues in any form (other than wanting a little more curves, lol). We emphasize healthy caloric intake. From the start, I told my daughters if they lose their periods for more than two cycles due to training, I'll pull them and get their calories back up. I don't buy into the whole "skinnier is better"'philosophy. I want my daughters to run as long as they enjoy it (big picture, long-term, etc.)

runner dad with advice wrote:

One thing that (surprisingly) hasn't been mentioned is that most girls slow down in HS as they mature. This happened to my daughter. She grew 2+ inches and gained weight. It seemed to spill over into shin problems, so she couldn't train like she should.

She's just now starting to recover and gain back some of her past fitness and speed.

This mindset is a pet peeve of mine. While it may be normal for girls to go through a period of growth that requires them to slow down, this should not be a permanent change if managed appropriately. I fully expect the girls I coach to hit a growth spurt and have a 3-6 month period where we reduce their running and increase their injury prehab work to allow their bodies to adjust to the changes. If you are proactive about that stuff, they will almost always end up faster over the course of their career. That being said - it often requires that coaches and athletes are willing to "sacrifice" one season in order to ensure long term growth. That can be extremely mentally challenging for a teen to deal with.

It sounds like you are doing well as a parent and on the right path.

Good work on working out the gluten issue. We don't have much gluten in the house for similar reasons and it's actually been the best thing for me even though I have no problem with gluten.

Take the training volume down a bit until her legs come back. It's okay to keep the intensity up, just less of it.

Thanks for all the detailed information. It's rare for a parent to have as much running/health knowledge as you, so she is lucky there.

Her numbers went up pretty fast actually. When I started having my blood tested 3 years ago, my ferritin was 11. Now it's only like 35 despite taking liquid iron every day.

After reading your additional posts, I really think the issue is that she isn't recovering because of her "easy" run pace. She needs to save her legs for when it matters to run fast - workouts and races.

Thank you. It's also a pet peeve of mine. Many times, girls resolve themselves to being slower because they don't allow the time or put in the easy miles to get through the growth spurt. Also, many times, it's actually the low ferritin issue in the background that's causing the slowdown, and sadly, it's often mid-season before that's discovered, so the girl either decides she's slower or quits altogether. Most of the time, it's a temporary setback. American Olympic women aren't 85-pounds and 5'1".

Lauren Fleshman has some great articles about girls, their growth, and how it affects them short and long term.

pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

It sounds like you are doing well as a parent and on the right path.

Good work on working out the gluten issue. We don't have much gluten in the house for similar reasons and it's actually been the best thing for me even though I have no problem with gluten.

Take the training volume down a bit until her legs come back. It's okay to keep the intensity up, just less of it.

Thank you, too. Taking gluten out was not an easy decision, and my daughter wasn't thrilled, but when she realized how much better her stomach felt when she didn't eat gluten, it was a no-brainer.

I like the idea of lowering the volume and the speed of her easier runs. I assume her body will let her know when she can pick things up again. I hope?

OP,

Looks like you are doing all you can and then some. Perhaps waiting is all that you can do now. The body is a complicated system and sometimes is not necessarily causal. I mean, you may not see immediate results despite your ministrations. Just a perspective based on experience.

Justamom wrote:

I like the idea of lowering the volume and the speed of her easier runs. I assume her body will let her know when she can pick things up again. I hope?

Yes, she'll get good sensations again. Be aware that it could take a while.

Also be aware, she should not run high intensity workouts slower when she runs. Run fewer hours each week. Depending on where she is in her season, that could be tempo work, but less of it, or intervals, but fewer. Running high intensity workouts slower just practices running slower.

How are the sleep habits and school work? Cutting down the training hours should make it easier to stick to a sleep schedule.

We had to take a couple of steps backwards in our house to resolve some injuries for a couple of months and it turned out to be the best because we worked on basic strength/injury prevention type strength. Be patient and treat it like an opportunity to work on other things.

Sound advice. I actually pretty much told her to push herself on workout days but do fewer intervals, etc. she is able to nail those fast workouts with ease, it's her recovery that's taking longer (they did a speed workout on Monday and her meet suffered on Wednesday).

She has a personal trainer who works on strengthening 1-2 sessions per week. That has helped her prevent any niggling pains from becoming full-blown injuries. I'm tempted to have her do some pool running on some days just to get the cardio in without the pounding. I just need her coach to agree.

Schoolwork is going ok; she's a Type A (imagine that), so she pushed herself there too. She sleeps an average of 7-8 hours during the week and 8-10 on weekends. Their school starts ridiculously early (7 am), so getting 8-9 hours during the week is darn near impossible.