Is High School Running in Need of a Reckoning?

As more young athletes train like professionals, female runners report problems with restrictive eating, irregular menstrual cycles, and long-term bone damage.

- MARGIE CULLEN AND ANNE MARSHALL-CHALMERS

DESIREE STINGER RAN her first race in hot-pink Crocs. She was 10 years old, and when she got dressed that morning, she had forgotten that the fourth-grade fun run that looped around her elementary school was that day. She wanted to win, even in those awkward shoes, and burst ahead, ignoring the pleas of a friend "Desi, wait for me!" Classmates were left huffing in her wake as she claimed first place.

Stinger's parents and her physical education teacher saw the win as a glimmer of big things to come. She continued to run, off and on, with her middle school team. After clocking a 6:32 mile in eighth grade, she caught the eye of Doug Soles, the cross-country and track coach who had taken Great Oak High School in her hometown of Temecula, California, from not qualifying for the state championship to winning it. Over the next few months, Soles emailed Stinger and her family repeatedly, and girls from the high school team crashed her middle school graduation party to drop off a T-shirt and a list of 10 reasons she should join the team. Stinger was overwhelmed. She had a vision of herself playing volleyball in high school, or doing theater. But the persistent requests from Soles eventually wore her down, and she plunged into the life of a distance runner on one of the country's top-performing high school teams.

At the time, Stinger was 14. By the end of her freshman year, her weekly training would begin with a 13-mile run on Monday morning before school. In the afternoons, she and her teammates would usually return for another six miles. Experienced runners on the team averaged 60 to 80 miles a week. Some parents didn't think twice-to be the best, the thinking went, you need to do more than the others.