My college coach told me it's OK to lose my period

dont think there are any PNW athletes on NC State nor do the women have a male head coach.

No but Geiger was head until this season.

dont know where you got the impression in this thread that this conversation took place over 9 months ago when the OP said they were running well "right now".

If she’s running well what’s the problem? Girls take birth control and lose their periods. Nobody is crying about that. Let her run. Coach is a coach…. Not some health expert, stop putting extra job titles in a coach. If you care TALK TO AN ADMIN AND STOP BLAMING THE PERSON WHO MAKES UP TRACK WORKOUTS!

All the men in here need to shut up for once and for all. From a woman to a woman, you should not be losing your period. I was a high school coach and a Division I athlete for years, and I always grew very concerned when girls and women started missing periods.

Once you lose your period, a bunch of other health issues arise that can severely damage your bone health. I knew girls in college that lost their periods for almost two years and they ended up with two different stress fractures in that second year of not having a period. It’s very unhealthy, and there are a hell of a lot of uneducated men on this thread like usual.

Girls and women in this sport need to understand that you can eat healthy, run fast, and still get a period. This issue has plagued competitive running for years, and it’s so concerning. In no other sport is a screwed up menstrual cycle and/or missing periods a badge of honor. This behavior stems from a massive lack of education and regard for women’s health until recently, and I’m so over it.

Why is this the coach’s fault? Stop blaming a coach. These are adults who don’t have to run. They can vote- fight in wars- have families- yet somehow this is the coach fault. Get the F outta here. The coach gets paid 36k a year to make fast runners…. He isn’t MAKING them lose a period, he is giving them workouts….. which is HIS JOB. If you want to blame someone, blame the parents…. Why aren’t they involved???????????????????? STOP BLAMING COACHES!!!!!!!!!!!

Um, this is an important subject. Why should it be deleted even if someone is a TROLL. By the way do YOU know what a troll is?

I first learned about this subject when I was in college (Power Five) from the coach of our women's team. He had multiple conference team Champs and even more national top ten finishes. He told his team that if they missed their period more than once in a row, they had to go get checked by a doctor to make sure everything was OK and would make adjustments as needed to make sure his athletes stayed healthy in multiple ways.

When I later coached high school girls, I told them (and their parents) that it wasn't unusual for their menstrual cycles to reset when they started training, especially for newer athletes. They knew there was a possibility they could muss a period as their body got adjusted to the training. I also told the parents that if their daughter missed two periods in a row, they should get checked out. I had one girl who had a period only once every three months. Her mom took her to the OB/GYN to get checked out and she was healthy (this girl is now a healthy 40 year old with two young kids).

Going back to the OP,, you need to take that comment with context. If the coach said it was normal to miss A period because of the hard training (because the body was readjusting), that is very normal. However, if the coach is OK with their athletes never having periods, that is a problem.

Good coaches don't just assign workouts. They are attuned to nutrition and lifestyle factors that impact performance, and they certainly should be educated about some of the huge red flags that indicate a person's body is breaking down. Losing one's menstrual cycle is a huge red flag. If a coach isn't comfortable educating or talking to female athletes about menstruation, they should bring in somebody who can do this. This can be a parent (for high school teams), female assistant coach, or a health professional.

All of the studies show that 70% of female distance runners lose their period. There would be no college runners if they followed your advice.

Sorry for the bad cut & paste formatting, but this abstract from a 2021 article is worth reading. Note that only athletes who maintained a menstrual cycle improved their performance over the course of a year.

Purpose: To determine body composition, energy availability, training load, and menstrual status in young elite endurance running athletes (ATH) over 1 year, and in a secondary analysis, to investigate how these factors differ between nonrunning controls (CON), and amenorrheic (AME) and eumenorrheic (EUM) ATH. Correlations to injury, illness, and performance were also examined. Methods: Altogether 13 ATH and 8 CON completed the Low Energy Availability in Females Questionnaire. Anthropometric, energy intake, and peak oxygen uptake assessments were made at 4 time points throughout
the year: at baseline post competition season, post general preparation, post specific preparation, and post competition season the following year. Logs of physical activity, menstrual cycle, illness, and injury were kept by all participants. Performance
was defined using the highest International Association of Athletics Federations points prior to and after the study. Results: ATH had significantly lower body mass (P = .008), fat percentage (P < .001), and body mass index (P = .027) compared with
CON, while energy availability did not differ between ATH and CON. The Low Energy Availability in Females Questionnaire score was higher in ATH than in CON (P = .028), and 8 ATH (vs zero CON) were AME. The AME had significantly more injury days (P = .041) and ran less (P = .046) than EUM, while total annual running distance was positively related to changes in performance in ATH (r = .62, P = .043, n = 11). Conclusions: More than half of this group of runners was AME, and they were injured more and ran less than their EUM counterparts. Furthermore, only the EUM runners increased their performance over the course of the year.

I won’t name specific athletes for privacy reasons but I know for a fact and want to say strongly that it is normal for olympic medalists to NEVER lose their period at any time in training. It is not normal, it is a sign of nutritional problems. Admittedly this is sometimes harder to avoid if you have limited budget. No offense to that coach but they should be fired

pray tell, what percentage of college athletes have adequate nutrition? This is only proof of the abuse state of NCAA track & field athletes. There are zero studies claiming this is healthy or sustainable.

on the anthropology side, the theory is this evolved in humans to prevent babies being bored in periods of starvation and inadequate nutrition to support a healthy baby

You are crazy if you think top professionals don't have the best nutritionists available. Yet, none of those women get their period. The body knows that a woman can't be pregnant while continuing to run 90MPW. It doesn't matter if she is 200 pounds and ingesting 10,000 calories per day. She can't run that much while pregnant.

Link to "studies"?

I don't know why I'm responding to this misogynistic garbage, but here we are. The facts very clearly show that amenorrhea is destructive to the body and is an impediment to optimal performance. If you know so many top female runners who don't get a period, show us the evidence. Point us to studies that link world class athletic performance with consistently missed periods and/or link to multiple quotes from high-performing women indicating that they don't get a period. Better yet, show us that elite women without menstrual cycles outperform those who do get them.

From where I'm sitting, I can post countless links to peer-reviewed journal articles showing a relationship between missed periods, poor bone health, and the inability to train at a high level for long periods of time.