THE HARRIER'S HIGH SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY REPORT

Marc Bloom's NY Times story on the problems of elite,
young female distance runners.
The following article by award-winning writer Marc
Bloom, in a slightly different form, appeared in The
New York Times on April 20, 2003. See subscription
information about Bloom's vital publication, The
Harrier's High School Cross Country Report, at the end
of the article.

AMONG RUNNERS, ELITE GIRLS FACE BURNOUT AND INJURY
By Marc Bloom
Julia Stamps, 24, a former child prodigy in running,
ran her first marathon, New York City, in November
2002. It was probably the easiest 26.2 miles of her
life. 
Stamps, who grew up in California and moved to
Manhattan in June 2002 to work in the financial
services field, was a running star from her first
strides in seventh-grade. At Santa Rosa High School,
she made headlines as a 14-year-old freshman, winning
state championships and setting records in track and
cross-country. For her speed and lithe physique,
Stamps was heralded as the next Mary Slaney, an
American Olympic runner.
Training 45 to 50 miles a week, Stamps lived up to her
billing for a time. As a freshman in 1994, she won the
first of three consecutive national junior (age 19 and
under) 3,000-meter titles, defeating college women. As
a sophomore, she won the national high school
5,000-meter cross-country title.
But in her junior and senior years, Stamps lost her
dominance, collapsing twice like a ragdoll in national
meets. She was frustrated and confused and often got
sick. She won a track scholarship to Stanford but did
not realize her extraordinary potential as a runner.
She was injured, lost her passion for competing, took
up other sports and at one point nearly gave up
running for good.
Stamps became a symbol for a generation of
high-achieving, young female runners who wither in
adolescence before having a chance to fulfill their
promise. At a time of tender growth, many of these
girls train at a high level, which often leads to
injury, impaired health and physical and emotional
scars that can last for years.
"At age 13 or 14 when girls experience rapid
growth-what we call 'peak height velocity'-their bones
grow long but have not yet solidly mineralized into
good, strong structures," said Dr. Angela Smith,
orthopedic surgeon specializing in pediatric sports
medicine at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia.
"During this period, girls in running also don't have
the muscle for shock absorption," Smith said. "Girls
are at maximum risk for injury and should back off
hard training."
Smith and other doctors said running moderately is
healthy for young girls. However, training intensively
at a young age also carries psychological as well as
physical risks. Stamps, who graduated from Stanford
last spring without winning any major titles, said she
felt "tremendous pressure" as a young runner in high
school.
"I tried to compete against myself," Stamps said in a
recent interview. "But you can't do that every day. I
needed a break. I had other interests outside of
running that I wanted to pursue but was not able to. I
was cursed."  
"I wore myself thin," she said. "I had no time to
rest."
Dr. Smith said that she had recently cared for a
patient who, as a high school freshman, was so fast
she made the varsity cross-country team. She became
the team's best runner and the coach gave her extra
workouts. But she also grew very quickly, Smith said,
and sustained three stress fractures in her legs. The
girl was unable to finish the season.
Girls who excel in running at a young age often
experience a temporary slowing of performance once
their menstrual cycle starts. "They gain fat and in
some cases there is a decrease in iron stores and
hemoglobin level of the blood," said Dr. Oded Bar-Or,
director of the Children's Exercise and Nutrition
Center at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and
a leading researcher in the field. "Less hemoglobin
reduces the capacity of the blood to carry oxygen.
Fitness level in girls, their maximal oxygen uptake,
decreases after age 12 or 13." 
Many girls who confront these natural changes after
early success, like Erin Davis, a former star at
Saratoga Springs High School in upstate New York,
ultimately drop out of competitive running. In 1993,
Davis became the first and only freshman to capture
the national high school cross-country title. 
That freshman season was her best in high school and
in an interview at the time Davis said, "If you do a
hard workout, it might hurt, but if you hit all your
times, it's a great feeling." 
Davis received a track scholarship to Penn State and
was graduated in 2002 without living up to her high
school records. "Erin had significant injuries that
prevented her from training at a high level," said
Beth Alford-Sullivan, women's track and cross-country
coach at Penn State who coached Davis in her last two
years. "Her motivation was down. By the time I
inherited her, she did not have the drive or passion
to compete or train."
In resurrecting herself, Stamps may exemplify a new
development in which female runners rise from a
turbulent adolescence to regain their zest for
running. Stamps, who is now injury-free, ran the 2002
New York City Marathon in 2 hours 54 minutes 47
seconds, outstanding for a first-timer. She placed
30th among the women.
"It felt easy," said Stamps, who trained 40 to 50
miles a week on a busy work schedule. "I ran even pace
all the way, about 6:30 per mile, and it took me only
a week to recover."  
Stamps, running daily in Central Park, has since
increased her training to 65 miles a week. She had
other marathons in her plans and hoped to achieve the
2004 women's Olympic trials qualifying standard of
2:48 and perhaps contend for a berth on the American
team for Athens.
Two U.S. Olympic marathon hopefuls, Deena Drossin,
30, and Milena Glusac, 27, both of California, also
were teenage prodigies who had faltering college
careers and were assumed to be lost for good. Both
made patient comebacks and in 2001, Drossin and Glusac
placed first and second among American women in the
New York City Marathon. 
  The only American women to win Olympic track and
field medals in distance racing--Joan Samuelson in the
marathon in 1984 (gold) and Lynn Jennings in the
10,000 meters in 1992 (bronze)--both chose to
de-emphasize their college running careers. Samuelson
attended Bowdoin, an NCAA Division III school in her
native Maine. Jennings went to Princeton where she
competed intermittently.
Of course, not every top American woman runner has
endured a downward spiral in performance after showing
early promise. Suzy Favor-Hamilton, who starred as a
schoolgirl, has been a consistent performer as an
older runner, winning nine N.C.A.A. titles at
Wisconsin; now 34, she has been a world-class miler
for a decade.
High school and college meets in cross-country and
track can add up to as many as 300 to 400 races for a
distance runner by the time he or she is 21. Some
experts find this amount of racing too much for boys
as well as girls. But boys have more muscle mass and a
greater ability than girls of the same age to
transport oxygen to the muscles during strenuous
running. Boys also do not have to confront the complex
adolescent growth issues of girls.
In many cases, doctors say, girls' risk of injury is
exacerbated by delayed menstruation, which has been
associated with heavy training. 
"A number of studies indicate that if a girl burns a
lot more energy than she takes in, she will not start
a new function like reproduction," said Dr. Smith.
"Every day in my practice, I see at least one girl
with menstrual disturbance." 
Absence of a menstrual period results in low estrogen
levels and thin bones. "When girls finally get their
periods, we see quantum improvements in their healing
from injury," said Dr. Smith. "Whether that's from
eating more or the additional impetus of estrogen,
nobody knows."
Concerns over injuries and burnout led Dick Brown, a
nationally-known coach from Oregon who has worked with
Slaney and other professionals, to launch a radical
program this year aimed at improving American success
in Olympic and world events. Brown intends to recruit
female high school runners to train with him in Oregon
while they attend a local college. But the women will
not compete for the college; they will compete instead
on a less frequent basis for a club. Brown has begun
fund-raising to pay for the runners' education and
training expenses.
An American man has not won the New York City
Marathon since Alberto Salazar in 1982; an American
woman has not triumphed since Miki Gorman in 1977. The
last American man to win the Boston Marathon was Greg
Meyer in 1983. Brown said that this drought, which
extends worldwide, is caused in part by runners having
over-raced in college. "After college," he said,
"athletes' bodies need to heal."
In a surprising backlash to the major-college system,
two young women who were high school stars in 2001-02,
Amber Trotter of California and Natasha Roetter of
Massachusetts, decided not to join Division I programs
when she entered college in the fall of 2002. 
Trotter, who won the national high school
cross-country title in the fall of 2001 by 40 seconds,
attends Middlebury College in Vermont, a Division III
school. "I don't want to be a piece of meat in the
corporate sports world," Trotter said defiantly in an
interview then. "I run for the joy it brings me."
Trotter's joy has been suspended by a year-long
sciatic nerve injury. She's being treated at
Middlebury and did not compete her freshman year.
Trotter also is battling a long-term eating disorder
about which she has spoken publicly. 
Roetter is a sophomore at Duke. She placed third in
the high school cross-country nationals despite a
succession of injuries. In August '02, when her first
semester was about to begin, Roetter told the Blue
Devils' coaches that she did not want to run for the
team as a freshman and would give up her
$37,000-a-year athletic scholarship. 
"I underestimated the intensity of Division I
running," Roetter said in an interview. "I'm enjoying
my classes and like having some time for myself. I
still run, but at my own pace. If I ran on the team, I
would probably end up running myself into the ground."
(After a year off, Roetter has reconsidered her
running, and according to Duke coaches may compete on
the team starting in the fall of 2003.)
Some experts believe that burnout among young runners
is made more likely by rules in about a dozen states
that permit middle-school athletes to compete on
varsity teams. In New York, seventh- and
eighth-graders who pass a fitness test and emotional
screening can run high school track and cross-country.
Nina VanErk, executive director of the New York State
Public High Schools Athletic Association, said the
program "permits student-athletes who are exceptional
to compete at a level that best suits them." 
At Saratoga Springs High, Erin Davis used this
program to win her first state championship in
eighth-grade. The current Saratoga star is a
sophomore, Nicole Blood, who has led the team since
eighth-grade and won many state and invitational
titles. 
"I don't feel pressure and I'm getting experience for
when I'm older," Blood said in an interview as a
freshman after she won a national high school
cross-country event in Charlotte, North Carolina, in
the fall of 2002.
Saratoga coach Linda Kranick, whose squad was the
number-1 ranked girls cross-country team in the nation
last fall, said each athlete is considered
individually. "You have to know which athlete can move
up to the varsity and which ones should be kept back
at the J.V. or freshman level."
California is among the states that does not permit
such advancement for middle school students. Don
Chadez, athletic director at Corona High School in
Riverside, Calif.,  and a former track and
cross-country coach for 26 years, sees potential harm
in the New York policy. 
"It's counterproductive in the long range," said
Chadez. "Girls that young are not ready to handle the
pressures of older girls. You have only so many years
to excel in distance running and if you start at 12 or
13 you're going to burn out early."
Dr. William Roberts, a pediatric sports medicine
specialist in the Minneapolis area and a
vice-president of the American College of Sports
Medicine, views with concern the practice of
permitting middle-school athletes on the high school
varsity. 
"When I look at a couple of these eighth-grade girls
in cross-country, they're too skinny and look awful,"
Roberts said. "They are potentially malnourished." 
Aware of the burnout pattern, Patrick Shane, women's
coach at Brigham Young, the reigning N.C.A.A. women's
cross-country champion, said, "In recruiting, I don't
look at stars in eighth, ninth or even tenth grade.
Their success means nothing. They haven't grown up yet
and matured into young women." 
Some parents are unconcerned about frequent
competition and intensive training at a young age.
Roger Jackucewicz is a father from Howell, N.J., whose
12-year-old daughter, Briana, competes weekly while
training up to 50 miles a week. Briana, a 62-pound
seventh-grader, has been racing since age 6 and last
fall set a national record for 11-year-old girls, 17
minutes 42 seconds for a 5-kilometer road race. Her
older sister, Leisha, now a high school senior, had
followed a similar program. In the summer of 2002,
Leisha had surgery on both legs for running injuries. 
Jackucewicz, who rides his bike pacing Briana in
pre-dawn training before school, said in an interview
that he was preparing his daughter for high school
competition. He said he was careful to have her train
mostly on soft park trails as opposed to concrete
roads. He also said Briana takes breaks every few
miles and runs at a comfortable pace. 
"I like to expose them to things at an early age,"
said Jackucewicz. "Both girls are expert skiers and do
extreme skiing in Canada. Running is just one thing.
They're avid readers and at the top of their class in
school." 
The New York Road Runners prohibits children under 12
from participating in its races. The minimum age for
the New York City Marathon is 18.
When she was 18 and struggling in high school races,
Julia Stamps never dreamed she would one day run a
marathon. At Stanford, a torn hamstring muscle and a
stress fracture in her sacrum sidelined her for two
years. Then, in March of 2001, when she was finally
healed in her senior season, Stamps blacked out while
riding a skateboard and fell. 
"I totally shattered my left leg with two complete
fractures from top to bottom," Stamps recalled.
"Doctors told me I'd never run again."
Stamps had two operations and was on crutches for
seven months. In March 2002, while on vacation in
Costa Rica, Stamps tried running. For the first time
in years, she felt no pain. By late June, Stamps was
doing 20-mile runs with plans for New York. Her 
recent training pace has quickened to six minutes per
mile and Stamps feels she has a chance to live up to
her early promise.
"I feel fabulous," said Stamps. "Running the marathon
didn't hurt a bit.  It's a miracle, like I'm running
with a halo." #
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