Eight year old girl runs a marathon schedule
A recent article in the San Francisco Examiner looked at the increase in overuse injuries in kids. Then this story comes along. From the Daily O'Collegian, by way of the Chicago Tribune is the story of an 8 year old girl who trains for marathons. She runs with her father - alot.
Second-grader Zhang Huimin, who weighs 42 pounds and likes the Little Mermaid, sat up and gave a groggy glance around the one-room home she shares with her father, an out-of-work fish farmer with a singular goal: grooming his daughter for the 2016 Olympics...
On this Saturday, as she does most weekends, the girl will run more than 26 miles before school — on top of dozens of miles she runs before school each week. Those statistics cry out for skepticism, but watching her run for more than four hours or interviewing marathon officials who recorded her recent races makes it hard to find suspect a hoax...Zhang said he started running with his daughter when she was 4, adding distance each morning. By age 6, she could run 8 miles; at 7, she completed the Haikou marathon in 3 hours, 28 minutes and 45 seconds.
Most recently, she finished China’s Xiamen International Marathon on March 31, with a time of 3 hours, 44 minutes and 51 seconds. Organizers waived the minimum age of 18 and allowed her father to bike beside her because “she is a special case,” said He Xi, vice director of the race.
The Examiner article says this:
One of the costs of the hypercompetitive sports life is physical injury, the subject of the following excerpt. Previously, kids played multiple sports seasonally and usually didn't specialize in one sport or get serious about team sports until middle school or high school. Now kids often play one sport all year long, which has caused a dramatic rise in overuse injuries.
Meanwhile our 8 year-old marathoner has a few familiar elements in her story:
Rather, her story is most revealing about the conditions that created her: a father whose dream of sporting glory never materialized, an impoverished town dazzled by attention and a nation where the power of fame can make anything seem worthwhile.
What happens when a youngster, who does not possess mature bones, cartilage, muscles, and joints...
Overtraining at such a young age can erode the cartilage in joints, delay menstruation, reduce bone density and cause a range of orthopedic problems, including stunted growth. At 42 pounds, Huimin is underweight, her father concedes, but she has never had a full check-up, so he does not know what toll her training has taken.
You thought your parents were hard on you...
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