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Young Endurance
Runners Draw
Cheers and Concerns
By BARRY BEARAK
HUNTSVILLE, Utah — The national championship trail run was held on a course both grueling and beautiful, more than 13 miles through the mountains near the Great Salt Lake. Most of it was an
unrelenting up-and-down, the path often hugging ridges along a steep plunge, curling through a forest of scrub oak, white pine and red maple. The elevation hit a lung-busting 7,300 feet.
The race began in the parking lot of a ski lodge, and there was reason to do a double take as hundreds of men and women gathered near the starting line. In the front row, among some of America‟s best
endurance runners, were two scrawny girls barely tall enough to reach the elbows of the others. From afar, they looked like twin pixies, Tinker Bell One and Tinker Bell Two, though the sisters were actually two years apart. Kaytlynn, 12, and Heather, 10, had long blond hair tied back with elastic, and the younger girl had a tiny stuffed animal — a raccoon — pinned to the front of her sports bra. Each of them weighed about 60 pounds. Their thighs were not much bigger than saucers, and the full loop of their hips was only 21 inches.
These children sweetened the scene with a dollop of cuteness, but curious onlookers were unsure whether to be intrigued or appalled. The trail‟s ascent was an exhausting slog, and the precarious downhill
required careful balance as swift feet inevitably slid on the loose and stony ground. The dry, thin air could suck the strength out of even the fittest runners.
Were these girls really capable of competing with elite athletes? And even if they were, was it a good idea for children this young to be in a race this tough?
The announcer certainly made a fuss over them. Kaytlynn and Heather Welsch were from Alvin, Tex., he said, happily promising, “These girls aren‟t just here to run; they‟re here to win.”
Kaytlynn maneuvered herself into a spot at the starting line next to Max King, 32, who had won the race four years in a row and placed sixth in the steeplechase at this year‟s United States Olympic trials. The girl‟s father had told her she needed to start out fast with the best of the men. “Don‟t you get caught way in the back,” he admonished her. “Run out front, run smart.”
King was astonished to be standing beside someone so tiny. Kaytlynn was only 4 feet 5 inches. Towering above her to the left was the broad-shouldered B. J. Christenson, a champion triathlete from Utah. He stood 6-7.
The race traditionally begins with an explosion from a small cannon. “Cover your ears,” King advised the girl. But Kaytlynn simply stared straight ahead, her angular jaw locked tight. She leaned forward with her left hand cupped around her left knee, ready for a quick first step with the right.
The announcer yet again delighted in the sight of the blond sprites at the front. “Good gosh, look out for the Welsch sisters,” he called out cheerfully.
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Then the cannon blasted with an enormous boom.
Uncommon Endurance
During the previous two years, Kaytlynn had competed in more than 90 endurance events, about a dozen more than her little sister. Some were children‟s races of modest distances, but most often they covered mileage meant to challenge adults. Kaytlynn had finished two marathons. Both girls competed in triathlons, an amalgam of limb-exhausting skills where they typically swam 500 meters, cycled 13 miles and ended with a 3.1-mile run.
The sisters were better on their feet than in the water or on bikes. And they preferred trail runs to road races, bored with long jaunts on city streets. “All you see is house, house, lamppost, lamppost,” Kaytlynn complained.
For them, running trails along rivers and ravines was the most fun, though they sometimes fretted they would be lost in the woods or attacked by a bear. The fear was like something out of a children‟s story, half imaginary and half real.
“Kaytlynn thinks there‟s a giant sea monster at the bottom of every lake,” her younger sister said, and both girls giggled.
The championship race in Utah was organized by Xterra, a company that puts on a popular series of trail runs and triathlons. A month before, in late August, Kaytlynn won the women‟s division of a major 13-mile Xterra race through Cameron Park in Waco, Tex. Heather finished third.
Will Ross, an event co-director, said he had never seen the girls before, and he recalled chuckling as they darted out in front. Soon they would come to Jacob‟s Ladder, a 100-foot ascent on steep and uneven steps. Some of those stairs were thigh-high on these girls, and Ross was used to watching foolhardy runners jack-rabbit to the top only to use themselves up and pay for it later.
But the girls ran with the steady motion of metronomes. Some of the men passed them later, but the favorite among the women, Claudia Spooner, caught up to Heather only at Mile 5 and finished two minutes behind Kaytlynn.
“I was astounded they could run like that,” Spooner said.
A 13-mile trail run is much harder than a half-marathon, its road race equivalent. The course in Waco swoops and twists through cedar groves and bamboo forests, passing along limestone cliffs above the Brazos River. Although loose dirt is easier on the legs than pavement, the trail presents the ankle-twisting hazards of rocks and bulging roots and fallen branches.
Runners needed to be wary and spry, and this favors seasoned athletes. Women often peak in their 30s or even 40s. Spooner, 42, had won the Cameron Park race in 2010 and placed second in 2011. A triathlete and a coach, she said she felt conflicted about these “beautiful but teeny girls.” They were smaller than her 8-year-old son, and she would never put him in such a race. It was too hard on young bodies, she said. It could harm their growth.
League dad. “He told me he‟d been very hard on the older girl” for finishing only sixth in Ohio, Spooner recalled. “I said, „Really, is it that big a deal? She‟s 12.‟ ”
Kaytlynn‟s win in Waco was celebrated on Outside magazine‟s Web site. The headline called her a “12-year-old trail running phenom,” and the story provoked a long string of comments on Twitter. Many readers found the girls awesome and inspiring, but others predicted trouble for their developing bodies and an early burnout of their competitive fire. Wayward parenting was mentioned.
The Welsches were familiar with such rebukes. Kaytlynn said, “Sometimes in a race, people will say „good job,‟ but a lot tell me I shouldn‟t be running and I‟m going to hurt myself.”
Heather added, “They don‟t like it when we pass them up, and some of them say the „s‟ word.”
Niki Welsch, the girls‟ mother, said the online carping made her feel sick. She wondered why some folks were so sure of the best way to raise other people‟s children. “I thought about answering them,” she said. “But I decided: these people don‟t know us. They‟re on the outside and can‟t see the inside.”
In 2010, Rodney began entering his daughters in road races: 1K, 5K, even 10K. They usually beat anyone their age and outran most women in their 20s and 30s. He wondered if his daughters were “some kind of endurance freak kids,” and late that year, he entered them in a half-marathon.
The girls handled the 13 miles well enough, but the more memorable part of the day came afterward. A woman introduced herself as a pediatrician and gave Rodney a scolding. Your daughters shouldn‟t be running in events this difficult, she told him. Don‟t you know you‟re hurting your kids?
Unsettled by that berating, the Welsches began researching the risks of running and took the girls to a series of doctors. A podiatrist and an orthopedist checked their bones and joints. An endocrinologist said that although the girls were small, their growth patterns were perfectly normal.
The Welsches nevertheless remained cautious. Kaytlynn and Heather were taken to a doctor whenever they complained of pain. Dr. Daniel O‟Neill, a Houston orthopedist specializing in sports medicine, has seen them repeatedly for aches common in young athletes. He has treated them with anti-inflammatories and has recommended strengthening exercises.
O‟Neill, like Dr. Mark Sands, the girls‟ podiatrist, said there was no medical reason to keep the sisters from running as they did.
“You have to evaluate every case one by one, but these girls are monitored for injuries, and their parents watch their nutrition,” Sands said. “Running has no more risks for them than for anyone else.”
He added: “And the girls really love it. You can tell by how they talk.”
Triumphs and Sacrifices
There are drawbacks, she realizes: “Kids at school tell me: „Man, Kaytlynn, you‟re no fun. You never come over on the weekend; you can‟t spend the night.‟ And I say, „I have races on the weekend, so of course I can‟t spend the night.‟ I don‟t have that many friends at school because of that reason.” In January, after Kaytlynn completed the Houston Marathon, there was an announcement at school congratulating her. She had covered the distance in 3 hours 45 minutes 15 seconds, the second-best time that day for female runners younger than 19.
A few days later, some kids discovered that her name was not listed in the marathon‟s official results. “They called me a liar,” Kaytlynn said.
Actually, her name had been expunged because she was later disqualified. Rodney had finessed her registration. The minimum age was 12, and Kaytlynn was only 11. “I guess a lot of people complained I was too young and I was going to break my bones,” she said.
Age minimums at endurance races vary. Runners must be at least 18 to enter the New York City Marathon, but more than 500 runners younger than that finished this year‟s Los Angeles Marathon. The youngest was 9.
In triathlons and trail runs, age requirements are often set by the race director. However, many of them leave the decision to parents as long as the mother or the father signs a waiver of responsibility. Dr. Mininder S. Kocher, an expert on sports medicine at Boston Children‟s Hospital, said there was not enough solid research to make across-the-board judgments about children and endurance events. Certainly, there are risks when children put stress on their growth plates, he said. This can lead to long-term consequences. Distance running can also delay the onset of puberty in girls.
“But there are cases when kids compete at a high level in endurance sports and come through it just fine,” Kocher said.
Dr. W. Douglas B. Hiller, an orthopedic surgeon at North Hawaii Community Hospital, expressed
reservations. “In general, kids should stick to kids distances and then race at adult distances when they are adults,” said Hiller, who has been the chief medical officer for the triathlon at the Olympics.
But he, too, said there were exceptions. The distances run by the Welsch girls sounded “excessive” to him. “But if these kids feel it‟s a mission to do this and they aren‟t having adverse effects, I guess it‟s O.K.,” he said. “Bottom line: I wouldn‟t recommend it, but I wouldn‟t forbid it, either.”
Medical issues are not the only concerns. “I always ask: What is this doing to the child psychologically and socially?” said the psychologist Daniel Gould, the director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State University. “Parents can get kids to do most anything at young ages.” So there is this: Who wants it more, the grown-ups or the children?
But that‟s not so easy to tell.
‘Too Much Talent to Quit’
Rodney did not seem so sure. “Kaytlynn has too much talent to quit,” he said. Besides, the girls say one thing one day and another thing the next.
“Kaytlynn said she wanted to quit the triathlon, and I said, „You‟re not quitting, you need to stay with it,‟ ” Rodney recalled. “Two months later, after she gets a new bike, she says, „I love the triathlon now.‟ ” Niki agreed: children go through phases. “We know the girls well enough,” she said. “We can tell when they‟re just having a bad day.”
The girls do not train much on weekdays but usually compete in one endurance event, and often two, on the weekends. They may run a 10K on Saturday and follow that with a triathlon on Sunday.
Because Niki works weekends, Rodney takes the girls to their races. Events occur all over Texas, and sometimes, that means a middle-of-the-night departure, with Rodney at the wheel of the family pickup and the girls, in pajamas, asleep in the back seat, buried beneath blankets.
So much needs to be remembered: socks, shirts, sweat pants, fresh fruit, rapid-power energy gels, glutamine-fortified recovery drinks. Heather needs her stuffed animals — Raccoon, Skunk, Beaver, Owl and Squirrel. She carries them in a knit casing that looks like a knotty tree trunk. These are her furry amulets. She pins one to her shirt in each race, and that animal, she says, cheers her on as she runs and sticks out its tongue at other competitors.
Heather sometimes cries during races. She looks miserable. “People assume I don‟t want to run and my parents are forcing me,” she said. “That‟s not it at all. Sometimes, when people pass me, I get frustrated and start crying.” Rodney suggests she repeat the words “go go go” whenever she feels tearful. “If you‟re crying, you can‟t breathe right,” he tells her.
The girls are natural rivals. Kaytlynn will never let Heather beat her, and Rodney wishes the older girl felt as competitive against everyone else. He says she never pushes herself to the limit, never finishes a race with a strong kick. His assessment: “Kaytlynn is 100 percent talent and Heather is 100 percent hard work.”
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