Energy availability and RED-S, the iron and carbohydrate link, bone health, the menstrual cycle and menopause. The female-specific things a generic plan misses.
Mostly the same principles hold, but a handful of female-specific things matter that a generic plan skips over. The main ones are energy availability and RED-S, the link between iron and carbohydrate, bone health, how to think about the menstrual cycle, and the menopause transition. Worth getting right rather than waving away.
Under-fuelling relative to your training, what is called low energy availability, is common in female endurance runners, and the consequences are serious: disrupted periods, a five to six times higher risk of bone stress fractures, and worse performance. Screen for it, the LEAF-Q is a free validated questionnaire, and keep an eye out for missed periods, repeat injuries, lingering fatigue and feeling cold all the time. The fix is to eat more, carbohydrate especially. Of all the female-specific issues, this is the one to get right first.
Run your carbohydrate too low, under roughly 6 g per kg a day, and a hormone called hepcidin climbs and blocks iron absorption. Add the iron lost through menstruation and deficiency is common. Keep carbohydrate up, around 7 to 10 g per kg a day in heavy training, and keep an eye on your iron levels.
Get enough calcium, around 1200 mg a day, and do two to three strength sessions a week through the hips, glutes and core. Both guard against bone stress injuries, which are one of the bigger risks for female runners.
It is marketed hard, but there is no group-level evidence that periodizing training around your menstrual cycle actually helps. Knowing how you tend to feel across your own cycle is useful for recovery and for telling your coach what is going on. Building set hard and easy phases around it is not worth it.
Perimenopause and menopause are a genuine transition, with disrupted sleep, fatigue, achy joints and shifting body composition, and going in fitter softens the ride. Keep the strength work, stay flexible with the periodization, and get medical support if you want it. You do not really train around it so much as stay aware of it and lean on the levers that always work, strength and sleep.
A couple worth putting to bed. The sex difference in heat tolerance is smaller than it is often made out to be, and women do not seem to have worse gut tolerance for fuelling, so there is no reason to under-fuel on that basis.
From your coach
“These are the same answers we give the runners we coach. They are grounded in the sports science and held against what works on the road, by an accredited coach. The marathon is simple, but it is not easy. Do the right things, consistently, and respect the distance.”
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