Hmmm..... wrote:
My daughter is a freshman runner on her highschool cross country team. She has some talent and finished her first two races as the second runner on her team in both races.
A lot of the upperclassmen are telling her to enjoy it while it lasts because they all got slower as they got older and it will happen to her too. Is this just the blabbering of jealous upperclassmen getting beat by a freshman, or do girls generally get slower as they mature?
Dear Dad
Those senior girls are correct
It's called puberty many girls do get slower due to body changes. That's why you all should never get excited bout kids like Grace Ping et al as they rarely keep improving.
In fact a study was done recently looking at the NXN participants over the years. Interesting to note that more freshmen finish in the Top 100 than seniors. It then went on to measure those freshmen in the Top 100 again as seniors and see where they placed.
Result.....the majority of those still running placed lower (aka worse) than they did as freshmen and the largest percentage were no longer competing as seniors.
So Dad just relax and prepare your daughter for the likelihood that she will suffer setbacks as she ages. At the end of the day a woman can not fight genetics and she may eventually end up having a body type that is not suited for longer distance running.