A free Practical guide for coaches working with teenage girls in track and cross-country

youth running guide for coaches

Most girls who leave endurance sport don't leave because they lack talent. They leave because training, growth, health, and life stopped fitting together, and nobody caught it early enough.

This free guide from Nordic Performance Lab gives you a practical, evidence-informed framework to keep your athletes healthy, develop them sustainably, and know exactly what to do when something feels off.

What's Inside

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  • The five most common injury and health risks in girls' endurance running, and how to manage each one.
  • A five-part prevention framework you can apply to your programme right now
  • A sample weekly training structure built around sustainable load
  • A print-ready warm-up handout your athletes can run independently
  • A framework for the difficult conversations: suspected injury, stress fracture, RED-S, disordered eating, and burnout
  • A quick-reference coaching checklist by session, week, month, and season

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WHO IS IT FOR?

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  • Coaches of girls aged 13–16 in track and cross-country
  • Club coaches who want a healthier, more sustainable development culture
  • School Coaches and PE teachers who work with these athletes
  • New coaches working with female endurance athletes for the first time
  • Experienced coaches who want an evidence base behind what they already do intuitively

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You are often the first adult outside the family to notice that something is wrong. How you handle that moment matters — for her health, for her trust in you, and for whether she stays in the sport.

At Nordic Performance Lab, I care about more than performance on paper. I care about helping coaches build programmes where young athletes can develop, and stay, for the long term.

I'm a sports scientist, coach, lifelong athlete, and mom to three young athletes. I've seen what happens when girls are supported well in this sport, and what happens when the warning signs are missed. My work is grounded in helping coaches and parents create healthier, more sustainable paths in sport, especially for young people learning how to train hard without losing joy.

Marjaana Rakai, MSc

Sport Scientist, Coach, Athlete, Mom

Want to share a parent version of this guide? Share this link to the parents in your club.

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