Forums >Health and Nutrition>Overtrained?
I've been consistently putting in between 35 and 40 miles a week for a while now,
No kidding on the consistency, man. That's a solid admirable stretch of weeks/months you've strung together there.
Bummer if you need to take a race off, especially if you've been looking fwd to it. I can't give any advice on overtraining symptoms, but if it's only been a couple of days, it could be a million things - stress at work, diet, etc. Give it a few days and reassess.
Come all you no-hopers, you jokers and roguesWe're on the road to nowhere, let's find out where it goes
MoBramExam
You ran a very good HM in mid-March with little to no taper. The following week, you were right back to your normal training routine. Have had your foot on the gas since. Yes, think there is a possibility you need to ease a bit and get back to "neutral". Something we have to be aware of at our age.
Feeling the growl again
Overtaining is typically marked by elevated resting (first thing in morning) HR, sleep problems, "dead legs", lack of motivation or even atypical dislike of running, and actually losing fitness the more you do...especially as related to real workouts.
Take a significant cutback week, take a day or two off you normally wouldn't, no workouts, maybe half your typical mileage. If you are just tired, you should immediately feel better after this and be able to resume your normal routine. If you are overtained, this won't cut it and within 3-4 days you will be right back in the crappy spot you were.
True overtaining takes at least a month of recovery time to shake.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
Overtaining is typically marked by elevated resting (first thing in morning) HR, sleep problems, "dead legs", lack of motivation or even atypical dislike of running, and actually losing fitness the more you do...especially as related to real workouts. Take a significant cutback week, take a day or two off you normally wouldn't, no workouts, maybe half your typical mileage. If you are just tired, you should immediately feel better after this and be able to resume your normal routine. If you are overtained, this won't cut it and within 3-4 days you will be right back in the crappy spot you were. True overtaining takes at least a month of recovery time to shake.
When I overtrained at the end of last summer, I had every one of these symptoms except for HR, which actually seemed to do the reverse -- HR was extremely low both at rest and while running, and I sometimes had difficulty getting it up to the point I wanted in workouts. Unfortunately, that was one of the major reasons I kept going until it was too late, since HR seemed to indicate I was getting fitter (I wasn't). When I finally shut things down to actually recover, it took multiple months of very, very low mileage before I stopped feeling like crap every time I went out the door. Lost a ton more fitness from that than I would've if I'd just taken adequate rest last year.
Basically, just listen to your body. Chronic dead legs is probably a good reason to take a little break, then see how you feel.