Forums >Health and Nutrition>Body not responding to training, should I just stop?
I first want to say thank you for everyone who has responded. I've always found this to be a very knowledgeable and supportive group! There were numerous comments about my health and following up with my doctor. As I mentioned, I had an appointment with my doctor a few months ago and we did complete bloodwork. There were a few numbers that were slightly elevated (cholesterol and liver enzymes) and we came up with a plan to address this (monitor diet, no meds) and will follow up with more bloodwork early this fall. The follow up bloodwork is also going to be more comprehensive (I may look into the Lyme disease thing sooner than later). I do feel pretty well overall outside of running. My legs are sore, but I think it's from trying to push through this issue and just being older.
I think I've been breaking one of my own cardinal rules to running which is train where I am now (current fitness) and not where I want to be. I have always run and was decently fast when I was younger (sub 16 min. 5ks). Due to commitments and some laziness, I gain some weight in my late 30s and early 40s. At 43 I decided to get serious again and lost over 30 lbs. and started running some decent times (17:14 5k). The injuries started on and off and after a few year I think I'm starting to finally get on top of that. But I think I've been trying to force it in hopes of seeing some glimmer of my early 40s self.
I tend to be competitive and a few member's hear had hinted at backing off a little and go by feel and not worry so much about time and distance. I did run a comfortable 4 miles last night with no watch and it did feel more in control of the run instead of the other way around. Didn't feel as spent as I usually have lately and probably could have done a few more. Thinking I need to do a lot more of this and reassess my goals at this point of my career. I think I have the knowledge and understanding to run smarter, I just need to accept where I am at this point and build a plan around that.
I was asked about how much mileage I do a week and currently it's about 30 miles, give or take a few. I found I ran better when I was around 40+ and would like to work up to that.
Again, I wanted to thank everyone who responded. There's a lot of great information to take in and I'm going to try to incorporate what I can (addressing health issues, effort training, weight training, etc.) and see what happens. I'm not quite ready yet to stop.
Thanks,
Chris
Chris, let me throw out two things to you, try them and maybe they'll work.
First, i haven't read every post but have you looked into your nutritional program before, and after the workout? If you are lacking there, you might be building up a general lack of ability to fully recover, which frankly sounds like what you are describing. This is so easy to do, you might as well try it. Foremost is hydration, which can really drain you if not done right, Then think about fueling your run and especially about a timely post-run replenishment strategy. There's lots written about this and i have my favorites, so check it out.
Next, are you doing a hard/easy strategy to your training plan? You know, alternating easy days with hard days? Many of us prescribe to the 3 target workouts each week: tempo, intervals, long run, which are interspersed between easier recovery days. And don't forego that one or two rest days each week.
I had a similar thing happen when i started training for my recent marathon and starting dropping the speed work and faster tempos. I discovered my runs were getting a bit slower and seemed unusually hard for as moderate as i was running. Consequently, i am trying to get back into the intervals in particular, with the full expectation that i will be trashed afterwards and really dragging for a couple of days, but also with the hope that after that, my moderate runs feel easier.I think that might be preferable to moderate runs being difficult all the time and with less progress towards increasing my speed.
A lot of this is trial and error in order to find out what works at any given time.