Chafing, losing weight, and being on varsity

Sweetheart, you are a normal weight. Please do not attempt to lose weight while you are running. Speaking as someone on a healthy, good D1 team, being underweight will make you faster for 1-3 races, and then you will get injured. Eat when you are hungry; as a female runner, you will need more food than your less active counterparts. As previous posters have said, eat healthier, not less. Not eating enough can contribute to a host of problems, from iron deficiency to weak bones.

I am all-region in cross country, and a regional qualifier in track, and my thighs rub together when I run. One of my teammates is around your height and weighs more than you, and she was also all-region. Trust me when I say you are fine, and trying to lose weight is a slippery slope when you are a female runner.

The best way to have steady improvement is to follow your training, get enough sleep, and not get injured. You will get far more improvement from consistently doing core, following your training, and sleeping enough than from attempting to lose weight.

+ infinity

I'm a fat runner wrote:

Thanks for your reply! My coach has a running plan for me and right now it's at 20 miles a week and builds back up to 35 throughout the summer by the time practices start. This is why I figured he had training down for all of us and I could do additional things to improve my training.

My freshman PR for 5k was 22 minutes which is NOT fast, but I improved so much over the winter and track, running a 12 minute 3200, 5:40 1600, and 2:38 800, which I know are not amazing times but I am only a freshman so I want to improve from here. Last year's XC varsity times ranged from 21:30-19:30 so I have to reduce my time if I want to be good.

You definitely do not need to lose weight. In fact, I think if you seriously attempt to lose weight, you'll get slower due to injury.

You will get significantly faster with increased mileage, which I presume your coach will have you increase your mileage as you adapt over the next year or two.

"Are you getting in enough red meat? Is your ferritin level at least 50-60? If you dont know what your ferritin level is get it checked NOW."

Numbers can freak people out so I feel I should at least offer a response to this. I'm not a coach, like the person who wrote this, but I've read a lot about ferritin because my daughter's performances were suffering and she was found to have very low ferritin levels.

From what I've read, ferritin is the important number to check when your iron is measured. The doctor has to specifically order that it be measured when a blood test is done. Iron helps in delivering oxygen to muscles--very important!

The range for a "normal" person (not a runner) is 15 to 77, or thereabouts. In what I've read, there are two camps. One says a runner's level should be 50 or above. The other says 30 or above. In either case, you see that it should be significantly higher than the minimum.

Iron levels are important and you can learn about them by talking with your doctor (although doctors who don't know about running might not be helpful) and your coach (who might or might not know about these things), and by reading and thinking about posts like the coach's, mine, and others that seem reputable.

This thread is WORTHLESS without pics.

Shame on you all.

Also clearly a troll. I'll award 5/10. Scoring breakdown:

1 pt for saying you're female (always sucks the suckers in)

1 pt for listing height and weight (suckers now have a visual)

1 pt for incorporating female eating disorders

2 pts for getting d1 girl to talk about her thighs

MOOSE wrote:

Also clearly a troll. I'll award 5/10. Scoring breakdown:

1 pt for saying you're female (always sucks the suckers in)

1 pt for listing height and weight (suckers now have a visual)

1 pt for incorporating female eating disorders

2 pts for getting d1 girl to talk about her thighs

What is your problem? I had a problem and questions so I came to a running forum to get experienced advice from real people. Stop being so horrible, do you have anything better to do with your life?

As many people have already said, my goodness, you are not overweight!

You didn't say where you are chafing. As others have said, almost everyone gets chafed sometimes. For me (5'5" and 117 pounds), it's always under the chest strap of my bra. I'm a huge believer in Body Glide for preventing this, though I can't attest to how it works on other parts of the body.

Train hard, eat and sleep well, and don't worry about your weight unless it changes a LOT.

Everyone here is saying "you're fine, don't worry." That's true to some extent, but if you aren't happy with how you look don't change it, it's not healthy. If you aren't performing well or are getting ill and injured, then you need to change something in your diet/weight/training etc. You are doing fine and are running good times, so I wouldn't be concerned. I am a male runner in high school too and when I was around 13 my height was around 5'7 and my weight at an unhealthy 105. I could run a mile in 5:20, but I couldn't train and I looked very thin. I went from 105 to 135 and I can now train as hard as I need to and have PR'd in every event by a substantial amount. Just do what will help you.

This. i am also a female runner, a bit older (In my 20s) with similar PRs. The last thing a developing body needs is restriction. Let me tell you that losing weight is not the way to improve, as a runner your body desperately needs nourishment.

I found myself going from a 22mid 5k to a 27+ 5k because I thought it'd be a good idea to drop more weight. I was very frail and had no weight on me (therefore, no strength) and got sick. At first I couldn't figure out why my times were suffering so much but then as soon as I decided it was a good idea to put weight back on and forget about my times because my friends said they were worried about how sick I looked, as soon as I started eating 2500 calories+ my times were almost instantly back to where they were before I got sick and I have recently PR'd all over the place.

I am convinced that by putting half a stone on (this is both fat and muscle) and eating quality foods high in calories such as nuts and avocado, is what will get me closer to my goals and I am sure you are no different. Being skinny doesn't equal being fast. Being healthy equals being fast.

Please look after yourself dear, you are not fat.

MOOSE wrote:

Also clearly a troll. I'll award 5/10. Scoring breakdown:

1 pt for saying you're female (always sucks the suckers in)

1 pt for listing height and weight (suckers now have a visual)

1 pt for incorporating female eating disorders

2 pts for getting d1 girl to talk about her thighs

Lol yes this is clearly a troll. Props to getting so many bites -- pun intended.

It seems like you are chomping at the bit to do something extra at the moment. Maybe talk to your coach about adding some upper body weightlifting, I found doing that helped me add strength/speed without any extra stress on the lower half. I wish I had done more of that in HS than I did. As for the chafing, I have always found it to be heavily weather dependent- ex. cool wet weather- and body glide has been good. Sometimes though the chafing was just from an odd piece of clothing or clothing being worn funny one day.