pop_pop!_v2.2.1
hs girls coach wrote:
A few things we've observed on our team:
- A period of stagnation is fairly normal when girls hit a growth spurt. It usually lasts 6-9 months (which ends up impacting 1-2 seasons).
- A lot of girls are more injury prone during that growth spurt. We try to do strength work 4x a week and we've had significantly less injuries than when we were only doing strength 2x a week.
- Many of the girls struggle with the mental side of stalling for a season. We do get a number of girls that are not willing to continue working when they don't see immediate results and decide to spend their time doing other things (especially in the summe and winter). Those are typically the girls that don't improve. I don't think I've ever had someone that has maintained their level of commitment and not ended up faster as a senior than as a freshmen (even if there was a slow SO or JR year in there). My biggest challenge as a coach is keeping girls mentally engaged when they don't make progress one season.
- We talk very openly about the fact that your running will not show always show linear progress, that bumps in training are normal and that this sport requires delayed gratification.
Coaches that just concede that most girls get slower are doing a disservice to their athletes.
Excellent answer.
It can be really, really hard to work through the rapid body changes, and plateau/slow, and school pressures, and cohort "drama" and.... when before getting faster was mostly a matter of "just working out."
It requires an enormous amount of support in terms of time and energy talking a kid through it all. However, the life skills acquired are worth it regardless of whatever happens with running.
I speak from personal experience.