By VINCENT LaFORET / New York Times, 2002

Julia Stamps runs through New York's Central Park last year.


BYLINE: By MARC BLOOM
NEW YORK TIMES

Julia Stamps was a running star from her first strides in seventh-grade
at Rincon Valley Junior High. She showed immense promise as a distance
runner in her early years at Santa Rosa High, but then endured years of
injury and illness before fracturing her left leg in two places in a
non-running accident two years ago. Doctors told her she would be lucky to
run again, much less race.
Stamps, now 24, became a symbol for a generation of high-achieving girls
who struggled in late adolescence, perhaps without having the chance to
completely fulfill their promise as runners. At a time of tender growth,
many of them trained at a high level, and that often led to injury,
impaired health, or physical and emotional scars.
Doctors and medical researchers say there are several reasons. While
adolescent boys generally grow stronger year by year, girls usually
experience more erratic growth.
Doctors say that before the onset of menstruation, girls tend to have
brittle bones and relatively weak muscles, making them prone to injury if
they are training intensely. In addition, doctors say, such training has
been shown to delay menstruation, and this, too, can increase the risk of
injury.
Girls' development can affect their athletic performance in a third way,
researchers say. Once menstruation begins, the body often undergoes a
series of changes that inhibit, at least temporarily, the ability of blood
to carry oxygen, producing a decline in physical fitness.
The path of Stamps' career is not uncommon, many coaches say. She made
headlines as a 14-year-old freshman at Santa Rosa, winning state
championships and setting records in track and cross country. With her
speed and lithe physique, Stamps was heralded as the next Mary Decker, the
high school phenomenon who went on to three Olympics.
Training 45 to 50 miles a week, Stamps lived up to her billing for a
time. Beginning with her freshman season in 1994, she won the first of
three straight national 3,000-meter titles for those age 19 and under,
defeating college women. As a sophomore, she won the national high school
cross-country title in the 5,000 meters.
But by her junior and senior years, Stamps was no longer dominant. She
collapsed twice in national meets. She was frustrated and confused and
often became sick. She won a track scholarship to Stanford but never
realized 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.

Serious physical risks

Doctors say running moderately is healthy for girls. But intense
training at a young age can carry serious physical risks, said Dr. Angela
Smith, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in pediatric sports medicine at
Children's Hospital in Philadelphia.
``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,'' Smith said.
``During this period, girls in running also don't have the muscle for
shock absorption. Girls are at maximum risk for injury and should back off
hard training.''
Smith said she had recently cared for a girl who was so fast as a high
school freshman that 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 developed three stress fractures in her
legs. The girl was unable to finish the season.
The risk of injury for girls can be increased by delayed menstruation, a
condition associated with heavy training.
Paradoxically, the beginning of the menstrual cycle can bring with it a
different burden for young runners: It often affects their fitness levels,
slowing their performance, at least for a while.
``Girls 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
Hamilton, Ontario, 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.''
Training intensely at a young age carries psychological as well as
physical burdens that can affect a girl's development. Stamps, who
graduated from Stanford last year 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 an 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. I had no time to rest.''
Stamps moved to New York after graduation and is working for a financial
services company. She is healthy for the first time in years and is running
again. As a test, she ran the New York City Marathon last November, her
first marathon. It was probably the easiest long run of her life. She is
training as much as 10 miles a day and hopes to contend for a spot on the
U.S. Olympic team next year in the marathon.
Concerns over burnout and injuries among young runners led Dick Brown, a
coach from Oregon who has worked with professionals including Mary Slaney
(the former Mary Decker), to recruit high school girls to attend a local
college in Oregon and train with him. But they will not compete for the
college; instead they will compete less often for a club. Brown has begun
raising money to pay for the runners' education and training.

Surprising backlash

And in a surprising backlash to the major-college system, two young
women who were high school stars last season, Ukiah High's Amber Trotter
and Natasha Roetter, decided not to run this season.
Trotter, who won the national high school cross-country title in 2001 by
40 seconds, attends Middlebury College in Vermont, which competes in
Division III.
``I don't want to be a piece of meat in the corporate sports world,''
Trotter said defiantly in an interview after winning the high school title.
``I run for the joy it brings me.''
Roetter is a freshman at Duke. She placed third in the high school
cross-country nationals in 2001 despite a succession of injuries. In
August, as her first semester was about to begin, Roetter told the Duke
coaches that she had decided to give up her athletic scholarship.
``I underestimated the intensity of Division I running,'' Roetter said.
``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.''
Some experts believe that burnout among young runners is made more
likely by rules in about a dozen states that permit middle school students
to compete on high school varsity teams.
Dr. William Roberts, a pediatric sports medicine specialist in the
Minneapolis area who is a vice president of the American College of Sports
Medicine, views that practice with concern.
``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, coach Patrick Shane of Brigham Young, the
reigning NCAA women's cross-country champion, said: ``In recruiting, I
don't look at stars in eighth, ninth or even 10th grade. Their success
means nothing. They haven't grown up yet and matured into young women.''
But a number of coaches and parents contend that it is appropriate to
enable some exceptionally talented young runners to take advantage of their
skills by training hard and competing at an early age.
Briana Jackucewicz, a 12-year-old from Farmingdale, N.J., competes
weekly while training up to 50 miles a week. Briana, who has been racing
since she was 6, set a national record for 11-year-old girls last fall,
17:42 for a 5,000-meter road race. Her older sister, Leisha, now a high
school junior, had followed a similar program. Last summer, Leisha had
surgery on both legs as a result of running injuries.
Roger Jackucewicz, the girls' father, said he was preparing Briana for
high school competition.
``I like to expose them to things at an early age,'' Jackucewicz said.
``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.''

Running again

In resurrecting her running career, Stamps may exemplify a development
in which female runners rise from a turbulent adolescence to regain their
zest for running. Stamps ran the New York City Marathon in two hours, 54
minutes, 47 seconds, outstanding for a first-timer. She placed 30th among
women.
``It felt easy,'' Stamps said. ``I ran an even pace all the way, about
6:30 per mile, and it took me only a week to recover.''
Stamps plans to run her next marathon in June at the Rock 'n' Roll
Marathon in San Diego. She hopes to achieve the qualifying standard for the
American women's Olympic marathon trials: 2:48.
Enduring repeated injuries, Stamps began to think that she had given up
too much for her running career. At Stanford, a torn hamstring muscle and a
stress fracture in her lower back sidelined her for two years. Then in
March 2001, when she was finally healthy and in her junior season, Stamps
blacked out while riding a skateboard.
``I totally shattered my left leg with two complete fractures from top
to bottom,'' she recalled. ``Doctors told me I'd never run again.''
Stamps underwent two operations and was on crutches for seven months. In
March 2002, while on vacation in Costa Rica, Stamps tried running again.
For the first time in years, she felt no pain.
By late June, Stamps was running as much as 20 miles and planning for
the New York City Marathon. Her recent training pace has increased to six
minutes a mile, encouraging her to think she has a chance to make the
Olympic team next year.
``I feel fabulous,'' she said. ``Running the marathon didn't hurt a bit.
It's a miracle, like I'm running with a halo.''