Sledge_hammer wrote:
She did pretty great in 2013 and 2014, by that time she should have been well past her puberty already.
Almost sure it was mostly puberty, it is not uncommon for puberty to be delayed in young endurance athletes, especially when a teen age girls trains hard and has low body fat. Body fat is what signals the hypothalamus to start puberty. As soon as a young female athlete takes some time off, their body fat goes up and instead of puberty onset being gradual, they can get hit with everything in a matter of weeks. I seen female athletes come back from the summer off and you barely recognize them.
With that said, a young female's body needs what puberty provides and although puberty can cause a rough patch for year or 2, a post puberty body is stronger than a delayed puberty body. America losses a lot female athletes to puberty. Over half of elementary and middle school girls are involved in sports, by high school, it's less than one-forth and after high school, it's less than 10%. Sad, but true! Personally, I think female H.S. coaches are much better at nursing female athletes through this stage.
I hope Mary Cain doesn't completely give up running even if that means she never reaches the level she once thought.