Elements of Cross Country – Part Two: Growing Athletes

Lauren Fleshman wears many hats in our sport. She was a 2 x US Champion in the 5000 meter run; 5 x NCAA Champion; 15 X All-American; she is a former coach; was a World Cross Country medalist; and wrote Dear Younger Me which received high reviews! 

I have to note that of course sociology and biology are both involved in these topics. My degree was in Human Biology with an area of concentration in Women's health and athletic performance. It is a silly question to pose as and either or.

We do not need to feel bad for girls for going through a totally natural biological process that is 100% necessary for them to reach their ultimate potential athletically and as human beings. We need to change the way we are telling this story. A woman runner's athletic peak is in her late 20's to early 30's, and she simply cannot get there unless she goes through puberty, which often involves a temporary plateau or slowing down.

Biology is not the problem. The problem is in how we handle this socially. The mistake we make is in comparing the female athlete development experience against a male "norm." We need to put our effort into understanding the female norm, and celebrating it. We need to educate coaches and parents and athletes, male and female, of the female experience with no sad faces attached to it.

We need to stop scaring girls about a totally natural process that is not only necessary for them to be their ultimate best athlete but to be a healthy human being, regardless of whether or not they choose to use their woman body to make babies. The woman body is framed as beneficial for childbearing that unfortunately gets in the way of sports. This is absolute garbage. The women dominating our sport are grown women. In women's bodies.

This is not gymnastics where the world's best are teenagers. If a girl sticks with sports through development and continues to maintain an athletic mindset, the best is yet to come. It is important to develop female athletes in a holistic way. Even when an athlete is experiencing a period of decreased performance, they can be improving in other ways that will serve them now and later. They can learn about sports nutrition, and strength and conditioning, and finely tune race tactics, become better at pacing themselves, and to continue as a student of the sport. All of these skills will serve them regardless of PR's.

When they adjust to their changing body, these will be skills that will contribute to the return of PR's. The woman body is a body that is strong as hell, powerful, and capable of far more than their girl body. They just have to get there, through some challenges, and anyone at the top of their game in any industry will tell you that the challenges are what develops the champion. 

My high school had a healthy environment where it was safe to go through puberty, and there was very little angst between the older girls and younger girls. The reason is because of the coaching staff. What does a coach reward? If everything is about being the fastest, if the fastest get all the recognition and reward, angst is bound to happen.

If you are going to coach young women at a time of their life when they will go through puberty, it is your responsibility to create a culture of positivity that celebrates more than the fastest girls. It is imperative. My coach, Dave DeLong at Canyon High School, did a brilliant job of defining success in a way congruent with female biology.

He created a social environment where leadership was valued as much as speed. Where the "athlete of the week" was more often someone who had a great attitude at practice than someone who got a PR. Coaches teach us what is valued. When you leave space in your program to celebrate the complete athlete through development, a girl can still be honored for her contributions if she slows down. She can be respected and looked up to by the younger athletes, even if they are faster. And this shows the young girls that puberty is safe. That they will still be valued. Coaches can provide the big picture perspective, and they must. If you aren't willing to do this, you should get out of coaching girls. 

As a female coach, most of the time I feel respected. Times are changing. It's a great time to be getting into coaching as a woman. And that is mostly due to increased representation. We need to see it to be it, and that goes for men and women both. When I saw Jenny Simpson win gold in the 1500 at Worlds and saw that she was coached by a woman, Julie Henner, it shifted my view of what was possible for women coaches.

When Wayde van Niekerk broke the world record in the 400, his coach Ans Botha, a 74 year old woman, was given visibility to viewers. This again opened my eyes to the possibilities for women, but also of how late in life one can continue to coach at a world class level, male or female. When she was denied access to the athlete area like other coaches because she didn't look "like a coach" that showed how far we still have to go. Basically, visibility is important for whatever group is underrepresented. 

I think that while it is great to talk about the things that female athletes face, I think there are issues boys face that get overlooked when we set the men's version of sport as the example, the norm, to which we compare the girls side. Men have three-times the rate of suicide as women. Men are more likely to isolate themselves when struggling, and suffer from the effects of toxic masculinity. Being a man often involves a narrow set of behaviors that are "acceptable," and sensitivity and talking about feelings is often discouraged.

How many male runners end up injured because they feel like they need to tough through pain? How many boys over train because they are scared of being perceived as weak? How many boys make dumb decisions because they don't want to hear the ultimate put down, which is a word for female anatomy, which certainly doesn't help with any of this equality business.

There is plenty of research that shows how important community, talking about feelings, and deep relationships are to good health. Also, the latest research on RED-S shows that boys and girls are both effected, and that boys have been silent victims thanks to our insistence on making eating disorders a women's issue for so long. Equality isn't just about girls getting the things boys have. It is also about removing the restraints we've put on men's social and emotional development for the sake of a limited view of "being men."

Which by the way, I must point out that a lot of what defines being a man is described as not being "like a woman." Both men and women deserve the opportunity to be strong and sensitive in the ways that are natural for them without having things socialized out of them. They would be more likely to reach their potential as athletes and humans. The bigger the picture, the better are world would be. We need to work together to help people.

From Scott Christensen of Stillwater Area High School who has had five state cross country team championships and five state track & field championships:

You are right about 7th, 8th and 9th grade girls typically being much more competitive than males of the same age. There are well documented growth and development issues that account for this phenomenon. On the other hand, I have never seen young girls run distance races in the Olympics either. Women, not kids, run in the Olympics, so many, many girls must get progressively better at distance running as they pass through puberty and grow into women. The problem is only sociological because all involved make it the way it should not be. They use it as an excuse for stagnant development.

Some young girls have well-developed VO2 max systems for their body size - large hearts, greater blood volume, prolific capillarization, huge oxygen carrying capacity. Small bodies, large engines. Most of them train the same way by just going out and running mileage. They are good at it, and most athletes, if allowed to, will train at what they are already good at. These young small bodies win races with very simple aerobic training, and they believe it will always be that way.

However, biologically things change. A body matures. The VO2 max value stays the same because the training stimulus never changes, but the body changes and adds 20 pounds. Same size engine, bigger car, so running economy starts to be less efficient. Often times, they continue to train the only way they ever have, that is with almost all simple steady state aerobic stimuli that they have always used. With worsened running economy, their performance slips and people (themselves, their coaches, their parents) panic.

The wise coach will prescribe a different form of aerobic stimulus like frequent hard lactate threshold running and dump the general miles that have always worked. The wise coach will bring in lots of anaerobic stimulus to develop that underdeveloped energy system and let that energy system take more of the race energy producing chore. The wise coach will add lots of plyometrics, max speed work like 30 meter flys, and resistance work like deadlifts to stiffen the ligementous joint tissues and increase the cross sectional diameter of the muscle fibers in the parts off the body that are responsible for running.

Instead, coaches usually simply blame the girl "going through changes." But look at the 22 teams at Nike Cross Nationals every year - most of the girls that run there are juniors and seniors. Many of the same schools like Wayzata, Fayetteville-Manilus, and Saratoga Springs all return to NXN often with juniors and seniors. Those wise coaches have figured it out, while other average coaches have abandoned their younger and now older good female runners simply for getting bigger and then make excuses with no validation like "she got bigger, we all know what happens." Ridiculous. 

Boys can go through the very same issues, they are just two years behind the girls. The wise coach will train boys with stagnant development by using the same strategy outlined above. It is not a gender issue and never has been. It is a growth and development issue. I always put few performance expectations on our 9th and 10th grade boys in meets and in very hard practices. We want them to learn how to practice correctly and with passion, and not just try to accomplish monster workouts. Their day will come, and they need to be ready for it emotionally. Over-racing both young boys and girls is a big problem in track and cross country. It resembles AAU basketball or youth soccer. Coaches struggle for creative practice ideas that give athletes happiness so they schedule lots of races or games so they do not have to think about sensational, sequential practice periodization.

Carrie Tollefson, ran and played basketball for Lac Qui Parle Valley and Dawson-Boyd High Schools and won a national record five state cross country titles and a state record 13 individual titles. She also won five NCAA championships, and ran in the 2004 Olympic games in the 1500 meters. She won the 2006 4K USA cross country title and USA Indoor 3000 meter run. She directs the Summer Distance Camp at St. Catherine's College and does a Weekly Online Show called C Tolle Run. She has three children and is a sports announcer for world class athletic events.

Boys tend to improve every year they run in high school, whereas girls are often perceived to have their best years before they are in tenth grade? Why is that, and what can we do about it?

I am not sure that I am the best person to talk to about that because my career was a continual climb upwards from 7th grade to my professional career. In fact I grew seven inches and gained 20 pounds from 7th grade to 10th grade and I still continued to win. I never lost a race in Minnesota during my high school career. There were people that said, "She is getting bigger and will not do as well." Those comments actually just made me fight harder. I sometimes joke at workshops that it became easier for me to run as I grew older and gained weight because I grew into my feet, which were quite an obstacle - the thing I was most worried about in junior high school was tripping over them because they were so big.

When I was at the Olympics, I sat and watched thousands of athletes walk by me. It struck me that there were so many varieties of athlete bodies. You do not have to be 5'8" and 120' pounds to star. I really don't like that there is all this talk that a young girl can't get better every year, or doing well at a young age and not at an older age. It really isn't talked about much with the boys, so therefore it is not an issue. Women's bodies are different than men's and we do have challenges that are different. However none of those things have to stop us.

Growing up with my family in Dawson, MN, there were four women and one man. My dad has taught us girls to stand strong and believe in ourselves...so I do. I also have one powerful mother that has been my forever role model. If I am in a situation where I am not valued, I simply move on or prove them wrong.

Sport has given me so much and confidence is one of the biggest life lessons. My parents told me from the minute I could understand them that, you can do whatever you put your mind to and don't let anyone tell you different. I believed and still believe them!

What can coaches do to foster continual improvement in their young athletes?

Children are maturing faster than ever before. We need to give them the positive side of things as much as we possibly can. There is almost always something positive in a race we can comment on. If we don't do that they will focus on the negative. Younger athletes tend to just go out and run, they do not think that much. When they get a bit older they start to think more on race day. I think that brings pressure and maybe added nerves. Some of the best advice I was given as an athlete was to stop thinking and just run. Try to stick to the plan but be able to adjust as the race plays out.

In training, I would work hard on finding the purpose of the workout and try to compare to the past times or splits. Athletes may not always improve their times in workouts but if they can get consistently good times and year after year of building, they will be able to hold a peak longer. They will become a stronger athlete. Think how you can get the positive out of things. Train kids to do that for themselves. In every sport we have to have to take the approach, "What can we do to be better then we were the day before or year before. Give them something to chase and go after!"

Jane Reimer-Morgan grew up in Pillager with an athletic family. Her father, Hall of Fame Coach John Reimer was the coach of football, basketball, and track & field. Her sisters Trish Reimer-Kealy is the head cross country and track & field coach at Becker, and Karla Reimer-Jensen is 42 year veteran track and field coach at Pierz. Jane is in the midst of a 42-year coaching career where she started out as a coed coach at Brainerd, MN. She is a member of five hall of fames:  Bemidji State University; Pillager High School; Minnesota Cross Country Coaches; Minnesota Track & Field Coaches; and the Minnesota State High School Coaches Association (MSHSCA). She coached two state champion teams in track and one in cross country (along with two runner-up finishes), and since 2003 her Minnetonka girls 4x800 teams have won nine state championships (she is now retired from track & field, but her niece Kristine Gehrmann led the Skippers to yet another 4x800 win in 2018). 

It seems as though girls are better distance runners when they are very young, but when they get older they often do not get better. Boys on the other hand, generally tend to improve every year they run. How can we avoid this?

I don't necessarily agree that girls are better distance runners when they are younger. I think that is something that is talked about a lot in our society, so the girls unfortunately start to believe it. We work on gradual, steady improvement over the course of their careers. I tell our girls that you might have a year where your center of gravity changes because you are growing into your body. During this time you might need to change your eating patterns. Athletes do need to eat. We do not want you to starve yourself so that you do not gain weight. You are supposed to gain weight but it can be a healthy if you eat 3 times a day and try to have a snack every 3 hours or when you need it. Keep in mind that boys also need to re-learn how to eat but it comes later in life because girls mature faster than boys (not that eating junk food is best for anyone!).

It is easy to skip breakfast and lunch and then run at practice but it's counter-productive. Yes, you might maintain your weight but you are not as strong. Then again we might have a girl who eats protein for breakfast then skips lunch. That is also bad. At least have a snack in your locker so you will have energy for practice.

Three meals a day should be balanced. You do not want to eat 70 grams of protein for breakfast, 0 for lunch, and 70 again for supper, which is typical but not productive. What you want to do is eat about 32 grams of protein for each meal plus some vegetables and carbohydrates at each meal. As an athlete you want more calories, and might need a snack or two to get the right balance of carbs and proteins.

Checking ferritin levels is important. Have a ferritin level check at the clinic/hospital to not only check iron needs but specific ferritin problems. Boys may also need to do this, but it is more common in girls.

How about workouts?

My expectations are the same for girls as they are for the boys. I coach only the girls' program at Minnetonka, but my expectations are no different based on their gender. At Minnetonka, we have separate middle school sports programs. I will only move a girl up to the varsity program when she is ready to do so. This includes her social maturity as well as her scholastic ability, not only her physical ability. This has worked very well and those girls usually improve every year afterwards.

So then what is different about coaching girls?

You do have to build in social things or you will probably lose girls. But while they are more social, girls are just as competitive as boys. There are individual differences. No matter which gender you coach you will have talented kids who do not put forth a full effort. You will have kids who are not as talented who work very hard. There are different personalities and you cannot coach them all the same, or talk to them the same way.

The main difference after having said all of that is girls may take things more personally. I might critique a race or a person's running form and a girl might think I am being critical of them as a person. I tell them, "It has nothing to do with you as a person, it's only about your running."  They need to know you care about them as a person first, and that what you are telling them is to help their running only.

What do you expect and want from parents?

Parents are very important to us as a support system. Our best parents are always supportive of their child's performance whether they performed great, mediocre, or poorly. They can always praise their effort or stay silent. Where we run into the most problems is when kids are being coached by parents outside of practice and then they come in over-trained, or unrealistic expectations of their ability. A woman coach may have problems with a father who believes that he knows more. It's a social norm that we have, that is gradually changing, but still has a ways to go. The bottom line is that parents need to be a support system and allow the coaches to do the coaching.

What can we do to make things better for girls in our sport?

I assign names of athletes for my girls to look up and study. It is important for them to know about their sport, and to have role models for them to look up to. We are blessed in MN to have a role model like Carrie Tollefson--not only a great athlete, but a well-rounded, respected woman!

A lot of further improvement will start at the top. We need professional athletes to be good role models. One thing you can do as a coach is have your kids follow a certain athlete on You Tube.com or another source. I often tell a girl to study up about a certain athlete. We have Wikipedia to study the past and present greats in athletics.