By Sheridan Wilbur
Women’s distance running is dubbed as an individual sport, but every athlete’s performance and wellbeing depends on the relationship with their coaches. We must come together through empathy and education to prevent physical and mental injuries.
—
As a recent graduate, I sensed a sting of disappointment for my former college teammates. N.C.A.A. President Mark Emmert announced the cancellation of 2020 cross country championships. His decision was sad but not unexpected, given an ever-lasting coronavirus season.
Almost everyone, postgrads included, adjusted to support each other’s summer training through a distant-yet-close connection. Thanks to the app, Strava, I continued to give ‘kudos’ to Duke distance runners from the Northeast. I repeated the same core stability routine they’d complete post-run and felt motivated when they woke up at 5AM to train. We are no longer in-person teammates, but Emmert’s call to cancel the championships made my heart break for these hard working men and women. This disappointment felt unfamiliar. Back in March, President Emmert cancelled my thirty-second season. Beneath public facing grief and under my mask, I let out a sigh of relief. I never had to see my coaches again.
—
A change in momentum: mass, direction of movement and speed, of a body in motion is directly proportional to the force affecting the body in motion and takes place in the direction that the force is acting.
—second law of motion—
—
December 2019— We raced the first indoor track meet of the season. Our assistant coach drove a van full of sweaty long-distance runners back to Durham. I left the 3,000m with a neutral feeling of grey— no sunshine and rainbows that come after a personal best nor any internal criticism chatter and blues. I did leave the Wake Forest track with an intention to train with better habits over winter break.
On the drive, my assistant coach and I talked about a circulating op-ed, “I Changed My Body for My Sport. No Girl Should.” Lauren Fleshman, a former pro runner, shared what her younger self thought it took to be successful. Like any successful athlete, Fleshman examined her weak points. She increased her training, restricted her eating and committed to overcoming what held her back. She admits “I made my 21-year-old body look like the leaner 28-year-old women I saw making Olympic teams.” The weight fell off and she got faster. Until she didn’t.
The night before this meet, I ate half of a Half-Baked pint of Ben & Jerry’s. I watched Pulp Fiction with a teammate and went to sleep after midnight. Contrary to this less-than-perfect pre-meet routine, my night was intentional; in the sake of balance. Our conversation about an elite runner’s experience with weight and performance still hit hard.
My assistant coach disagreed with Fleshman. “You have to change your body for your sport.” Fleshman changed her body. She lost her period. She wrote, then “injuries set in, derailing the first half of my professional running career.” His response came as a shock as someone who shapes women’s collegiate running careers. Still, I made an effort to engage in this uncomfortable conversation about women’s bodies with my male coach. Weight and performance are stigmatized in distance running. This pervasive problem does not end with silence.
In 2019, Mary Cain, another former pro runner, admitted to the Oregon Project’s coaching abuse and negligence in the sake of performance. The notorious long distance running coach, Alberto Salazar, coach of the Beaverton-based Nike Oregon Project, along with his support staff, were finally brought into the spotlight. I brought up this more severe instance to my assistant coach.
Cain’s coaching staff encouraged her to lose weight to “run faster.” She broke five bones. They responded to her energy deficiency by providing birth control pills to infuse estrogen in her body. Cain was “emotionally and physically abused by a system… designed by Alberto… endorsed by Nike.” Her biggest battles came from depression and self-harm rather than from any race. When she opened up about her mental health under his “thinner-means-faster” coaching style, Salazar’s staff reacted with recommendations to unlicensed psychologists.
As a fifteen year old, I stood in awe when Cain broke the American high school record in the Women’s 2 Mile. At that meet, I did not even break 5 minutes in the 1 mile. But I ran 5:01 for the first time and Mary Cain proved breaking any record was possible. She didn’t need an unlicensed psychologist to improve her race times. She needed educated coaches on women’s health and something anyone can give. Empathy. To this, my assistant coach replied, “Cain was not a good fit for the intensity Salazar brings.”
He pushed me towards an anatomical perspective. He never recognized his gender bias or stepped down from the authority he holds in the coach-player power dynamic. Instead, he relied on the science of the cellular makeup of the body. “It naturally changes the harder you train.” He did not mention how running on fumes alters the chemistry of your brain. His unidimensional perspective of Cain, bypassed the range of every athlete’s experience in the van. To him, I was made of fast switch and slow twitch muscles, tibias and hip flexors. To him, what my body did was its core value, not the human within it.
Roughly 50-60% of female distance runners have Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) or the female-athlete-triad. RED-S is a symptom. This disorder is not the cause of a broken system in women’s distance running. It occurs when an athlete, intentionally or unintentionally, operates in a short- or long-term energy deficit. RED-S happens when an athlete does not eat enough calories to support their energy needs for vital functions, daily living and training; or their energy expended through exercise is too high. Her lack of fuel leads to debilitating injuries or illness, a loss of a period or missed periods and low bone density. Women are put on the sidelines and at risk to develop early onset osteoporosis. This phenomenon is a syndrome, but really, RED-S is a blaring sign that an athlete is in poor health.
Based on the laws of physics, lighter body mass is easier to carry. However, there are a slew of health and performance consequences outlined in the RED-S model that demonstrate “lighter” is not always better. Lightness often comes at the cost of energy deficiencies. You cannot get better, faster, and stronger in a consistent, sustainable, and long-term way if you become “lighter” through a debt of energy. People may try to universally apply anatomical science about men to women. The research on female athlete physiology greatly lacks. This is no excuse.
Due to our menstrual cycle, research on men cannot be applied to women who have several different key regulatory hormones that change in cyclical patterns. Women’s bodies do not always naturally change (as in slim down) as a result of ‘intense’ training. What does naturally change, is the improvement trajectory for women. As women develop from puberty, we often experience a performance dip or plateau and weight fluctuations. This is normal. Grown women, not young girls, in their 20s and 30s are the ones who break American long distance records. Unlike men, women improve on a nonlinear path. This varies from the improvement curve that sports were built on. When coaches suggest otherwise, it becomes natural to place the blame on ourselves, that we are not intense enough.
Staring out of the window, I took advantage of the only form of distance in the car. Bon Iver streamed in my headphones. Ugly tears streamed down my face. I melodramatically masked what felt like invisibility for my well-being. My assistant coach and I went our separate ways for winter break and did not talk until a month and a half later at practice.
—
March 2020— The outdoor track season was about to begin. I went to my coaches office for the usual pre-season conversation. She asked what goals I wanted to set. The pain from a fractured relationship with my assistant coach disfigured my bull-headed motivation. The only goal I could think of was to train in a supportive environment. I brought up the conversation in the van and no mileage plans.
With frankness, I repeated my past experience with RED-S to my coaches. I expressed my deliberate recovery that requires active, daily maintenance and why his response to Fleshman’s story disempowers athletes. My intention to resurface the shame I felt going through puberty and regimens I thought my body needed to be successful was to confront his blind spots before he coaches future women. I tried my best to keep my back straight and hold eye contact. I re-lived when I “changed my body for my sport” in their office, so they heard “why no girl should.”
I’m not blaming my coaches for my behaviors. Athletes are intrinsically motivated and willing to hold themselves to extreme standards. I certainly was aware when I controlled what I could to perform at my best at certain points in my career. I wanted PRs like a form of worship. I’d go to bed at 9PM, eat cleanly, take cold showers, check off double runs and not bat an eye. “Sacrifice is what it takes to be ‘great,’” I told myself. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy for a while. I chased peak fitness and that pinnacle was when I was just as extremely alone. Eventually, those ‘great’ behaviors crumbled. My eyes stayed open all night because of iron deficiencies. My mind ran when my legs didn’t. I lost my period and pushed away close relationships. I’d dream about food I didn’t eat, when I did fall asleep.
Over the years with different coaches, I was supported to perform beyond my potential. It took years before I was supported to live my life that way. A stress reaction in my femur became a reason to step away from sport and gradually uncover self-awareness to the injury in my mind. Through conversations with sports psychologists and regular meditation, I healed. I understood my role and responsibility to my greater well-being.
My head coach admitted she received a phone call from my assistant coach following the van ride. Neither of them said much more. They are not bad people— they were not there to provide empathy or information in the way that I personally needed. It is fair to say I lost more than my final season after our goal-setting meeting.
—
So what now?
Coaches make a convenient target. The pandemic pauses most cross country and track races. Athletes have a responsibility to discern between coach and coachable points. No runner, no matter how ambitious, should suffer in silence for any length of time, under the authority and influence of their coaches. Those in authority have a responsibility to protect.
While we wait, I ask coaches to think critically. Coaches do not have to know it all or personally educate us. They do need to support and protect athletes in the face of RED-S. This requires self-education on the signs, symptoms and consequences of disordered functioning to recognize and prevent it. They should know enough to tell their athletes that proper fueling is important, but a registered dietitian is a qualified and certified resource of nutrition information. No coach will likely be that. Yet as people who continue to work with their athletes nearly everyday, coaches have a unique look into our lives. Their job, unlike the doctor or parent, is to coach athletes towards health and performance success. Those goals are not mutually exclusive.
Coaches have a responsibility to cultivate a supportive environment with team policies, routine psychological screenings and refer athletes to a proper treatment team that supports their well-being (registered dieticians, mental health specialists, physicians). We need to guide each other through changes, understand our bodies better and acknowledge the struggle of performance dips, before coaches wield unhinged power from the athletes they coach. Before the N.C.A.A. gives coaches the clearance to compete.
I hope the headlined coaching scandals over the past year remind the global running community that to recognize the problem of coaching styles focused on weight does not fix it. Unhealthy emphasis on weight is a systemic problem that affects athletes at all times. As we prioritize health and safety of student-athletes from coronavirus by foregoing most 2020 races, we can use this space from competitions to let go of old values too. To heal from unsupportive training environments. To embrace change.
—
Recognize, let go and embrace change: Some observed patterns of motion to guide relationships in women’s distance running.
—that coaches can take or leave—
—
- Recognize. Mismanagement, miseducation and interrupted menstruation.
Over the years, well-respected coaches shared their observations about my body in athletic wear and offered unsolicited nutrition advice. “You shouldn’t eat that” before I’d bite into pancakes, my pre-race carbs. Despite standing at 5’8” with an athletic build, I “looked a lot bigger” from high school, when I had not finished going through puberty or had a period.
But because it is easy to conflate performance or wellbeing benefits from running with coaches themselves, men and women in authority have the chance to benefit from an aura of ethical conduct or even holiness— in the notion of respecting the coach-athlete relationship that protects those who abuse their power. If the system of women’s distance running is broken, it is because our flaws rather than our virtues bring life to it. Confronting why so many coaches and athletes believe lightness is required to run faster may force us to admit that we have no adequate response to some cases.
—
- Let go. Relinquish old values.
All training written for young women by coaches should be communicated through a sex lens to support the developmental needs by women. A study from 2018 found that less than half clinicians, physiotherapists, and coaches can correctly identify the components of the Female Athlete Triad. In a 2006 study, Division I collegiate coaches were asked to describe their knowledge, perceptions and behaviors about the Triad. Out of the 91 coaches who answered, only 64% of coaches reported they had heard of it. 43% correctly identified the three components.
“Many strong female athletes fall through the cracks because of injuries and unsupportive training environments,” Fleshman writes in a more recent op-ed. When coaches remain uninformed about the health and performance consequences surrounding RED-S and lack empathy towards its accompanying struggles, athletes suffer in the short and long term. We need to collectively understand the complexity of this women-specific disorder. Then, coaches can do what they do best. Engage with proper support as authority figures. Our support staff needs to let go of training where one size or gender fits all. So do athletes.
Women’s distance running has begun to relinquish old ways of coaching. The University of Arizona and Wesleyan’s cross country head coaches, riddled with abuse allegations, both ended their reign earlier this year. A self-described “recovering professional athlete,” Fleshman switched her role too. Now, she serves as the coach to the “Littlewing” team. Fleshman begins practice by checking in with each athlete and makes adjustments accordingly. A member of her team said, “we state our own needs and they’re accepted and heard.” That kind of relationship between athletes and coaches shouldn’t be radical.
—
2.Embrace change. Create a code of ethics.
While remaining hopeful these changes ignite intuitive and educated coaching with the N.C.A.A and elsewhere, coaches are not heroes or villains. Our attention moves beyond the changing cast of characters. Plot cannot be overlooked. The pandemic pauses most races and the trajectory for better, more compassionate coaching moves forward.
We can not turn the page alone. This renewal in women’s distance running starts with coaches and extends to the N.C.A.A. The N.C.A.A. publishes an annual ‘Track & Field and Cross Country Rulebook. “Coaches are expected to do the utmost within the rules to help athletes perform their best, placing honor and team welfare above victory.” If universities and the N.C.A.A. follow these rules and do not fire coaches when they do not win championships, then coaches will not have as much pressure to build a “win at all costs in 4 years” culture. Support systems between athletes and coaches are a long term investment.
Whether it is a Division 1 N.C.A.A. or club team, professional running team or community club, every program should write their own code of ethics. They should have a formalized, safe place to report body shaming abuse and listen to claims of eating disorders seriously and anonymously to hold everyone accountable.
—
A body in motion, stays in motion.
—pandemic or not—
—
I let go of “leaner means faster.” Running exists off the narrative.
“What am I training for?” There are not any races on the calendar or mileage plans or scales or authority figures who tell me what to do.
People ask “why do you run?”
I tell them whatever feels alive.
Sheridan Wilbur is a writer and editor from Rhode Island based in Boston. A former Division 1 runner, Sheridan’s work explores the fringes and intersections of humanity behind athletics, fashion, politics and the labor industry. She is currently the Managing Editor of The Los Angeles Free Press and copywriter for the Inheritance Project. Sheridan holds a BA in Political Science and a Masters in Liberal Studies from Duke University.