Ping...Ping...They go 1 and 2 at Minnesota 3200m

Thucydides wrote:

Now a question for Indoor? and other actual experienced coaches -- how much is too much? I am especially interested in the management of freshman/sophomore girls who are 14/15 and have started the early stages of puberty (irregular periods, some development etc) but clearly have more to go. The truth is that many coaches want to do the right thing, but just don't have the experience (e.g., they coach small teams where many of the girls are not very serious, have a few good runners and mixed success developing them).

If a girl in that age range is doing 20 / 30 miles per week, running CC/indoor/outdoor (with intensity changing within each season and a taking a week off periodically) and not getting injured or overly tired, is that fine? Might they be delaying development, setting themselves up for injury in the future? Should they be running low intensity stuff all summer, or taking more time off? Every girl is different, but since the impacts of over-training at this age are manifested later as opposed to simultaneously, you can't only rely on the old "listen to your body" as a guide. One needs some kind of overall ceiling.

Indoor? wrote:

You asked about that early stage of puberty and I'm not sure but I think the early stage isn't as bad as the middle or the end. The early stage girls might have grown some and gotten the energy boost and that might be where you see that sharp peak for some of these girls and then the quick crash. What we have found is that usually for about an 8-12 month span somewhat centered around sophomore year things just suck for a while. Runs that were easy are now hard, races, especially longer distance ones get slower. This was true for our girl above and several others we have had. It usually ends up hitting 2 seasons, so could be a freshman track to sophomore xc or just both seasons sophomore year or could stretch into junior year even. It seems to be their energy systems just get way out of whack and they get tired super easy. In my opinion the worse thing you can do is to keep doing what's normal and piling on the mileage. It takes a good relationship with the kid and parents but being honest and talking about and having a plan has seemed to help. This is 100% a physical thing but if you don't handle it correctly it can easily become just as much of a mental thing. It's important for the kids to believe they can come out better. So we really highlight our kids who have done well as freshman, maybe not done so well as sophomores but then rebounded junior or senior year. Certainly puberty can happen to some girls in a way that they don't have much chance, but we've found if you work hard, stay positive and believe in yourself things normally work out. Training wise during this period we back off, work in a lot of bike and racing go lower, race 400s/800s, work on speed (sprints) as these things are as effected so way easier to stay close to normal level or still improve even.

If you ask me the problem with a lot of these high profile kids is that when they get to that point the backslide is such a shock they(parents, coaches, kids) react to it in the only way that makes sense which is to work harder, or drastically improve diet(which sometimes leads to calorie restriction). This most often leads to injuries or at the very best just frustration that this harder work isn't helping. That's when you might hear things like "Oh we just treated that race as a workout" or "There's some minor sickness going on" trying to mask or have a reason for the kid who had PRd for 3 straight years to be running 20 seconds slower. Can they overcome it? Certainly and hopefully but you may have to deal with injuries and mental struggles to do that.