Mike Dropped wrote:
Not trying to be disrespectful, but what parts of this specifically make it a must-read for female runners, coaches and parents and why is not a valid read for male runners?
Fair question, and I'll give my take on what I got from it and why I agreed with the OP.
Not sure if you read the whole thing and watched all the vids or not (it is long but also agree with the OP that it's worth it), but if you did, it's not just one thing but the whole picture that's different from how young females are often developed. We see some girls now running HS races as early as 7th grade, which is nuts. These three didn't do anything near that. Very low key through middle school in terms of comp, and most were still in multiple sports. Their training load was very light as freshman, and gradually increased. They bloomed a little later but were faster than those who bloomed earlier. They paid attention to the details (sleep, recovery, diet, etc.) but didn't get compulsive about it. All three seemed to really have their stuff together for the long haul.
Bottom line, they and their coaches/parents were patient and it paid off. Two of the three (Logue and Venters) took three of the four US team spots at World Juniors at 3000 and 5000 so yeah, worth paying attention to what they did.
I agreed that it was a must read for females because we see girls often developed faster/earlier and then either top out sooner or quit altogether. How many times have we seen that? These three were a great example, in my opinion, of doing it right. Guys could also benefit from a lot of it, but the OP was correct that it was particularly useful for girls.
It's also unusual to get three girls of that caliber to sit down and talk that long about everything related to the sport. Don't think I've ever seen that before and I thought it was pretty cool.
Just my 2 cents. Hope that helps.