Overtrained (Read 846 times)

Also to give a little more info, a typical week leading up to my last marathon included easy runs on Sunday and Monday (3-6 miles), a track workout on Tuesday (6-9 miles), easy run or off on Wednesday, parking garage repeats (~6 miles) on Thursdays, off Friday, and long runs on Saturday. I had two eighteen's and two twenty's for my longest runs, the rest averaged between 14 and 16.

I can see why you're overtrained. That's three hard workouts a week with very little easy mileage to back them up. My recommendation is to take a break for a couple weeks, then take a season (2 or 3 months) and just run an easy 6 miles or so 5-6 or even 7 days a week. After that, you might want to think about replacing one of those workouts with an easier, but a little longer distance run.

10 Reasons Not to Skimp on Sleep Too busy to go to bed? Having trouble getting quality sleep once you do? Your health may be at risk. By Sarah Baldauf, U.S. News & World ReportMore on Diabetes in Health & Fitness You may literally have to add it to your to-do list, but scheduling a good night's sleep could be one of the smartest health priorities you set. It's not just daytime drowsiness you risk when shortchanging yourself on your seven to eight hours. Possible health consequences of getting too little or poor sleep can involve the cardiovascular, endocrine, immune and nervous systems.

Not to be arrogant or anything but... I believe that it is absolutely possible for pretty much anybody (providing they don't have any apparent ailment) to run sub-4 marathon on jogging alone. And, to be honest with you, anybody who's running a marathon at 4:30~5:00 range to talk about "speed training" and do 2 or 3 quality workouts a week....there's something wrong with that picture. I'm sort of amazed in a way to see so many threads here talking about slowing down your training. But this is exactly it. When you get out and go for a run for the very first time, you'll start to puff. Anything you do, it requires oxygen. The harder the intensity of the activity, the more oxygen your body needs. But, for various reasons, your body initially doesn't get enough oxygen to operate. In most cases, from years of inactivity, your heart is not strong enough to pump blodd through the body to pick up oxygen in lungs and carry them to the working muscles. So muscles are not getting enough oxygen to burn fuel to "work"--puffing is actually the feedback from the working muscles not getting enough oxygen. So your body are sending message; "We've got to retain more oxygen!" As you run more, your heart becomes stronger, all the clogged up blood vessels open up, blood volume increases, red blood cell count improves... All these changes occur when you work within your limitations. If you start out working out "anaerobically", in other words, you're constantly puffing and huffing, gasping for air; then you are actually damaging your system instead of growing. Your body creates certain waste products in your body which brings your blood pH lower (acidic) which affect enzyme function adversely; you'll be edgy and nervous, you lose appetite, you get too twichy to sleep... Human adaptatin is quite amazing; you can go on doing things like this for quite some time... But next thing you know, you're in "chronic fatigue" state. By then, simply "not running" may not clear it quickly. The actual fact is; nece easy jogging and/or brisk walking would help the situation so much better simply because you're pumping more oxygen by doing it. Anyways, once your over-all body's function improves, then you can run faster AND further aerobically; meaning, you won't puff any more even though you're running further and faster. This is because your body's ability to retain oxygen is now so much better that, the speed at which you used to get into oxygen debt is now aerobic; you can operate within your capacity to assimilate, transport and utilize oxygen. This is why those elite runners can run sub-5 minute per mile pace and joking and chatting and not evern breathing hard. Their oxygen carrying capacity is so great and they are totally aerobic running at sub-5 pace. From my observation, FAR too many people today just jump into some cookie-cutter schedule and do 2 or 3 quiality workouts a week when their body is not ready; following some schedule written by some former elite runner who simply watered down their training schedule when they ran 2:15 marathon. Well, it ain't work out that way. Kenyans do some damn hard workouts like 10X1000m at 2:45 pace. So, as a 4:30 runner, instead of 2:10, you might try to do 10X1000m at 5:45 pace instead of 2:45... Well, sorry, it won't really work out that way either. Most Kenyans, as we all hear as a story, run to and from school, about 12 miles both ways, 5 times a week since they were 12 years old... Nothing pressing, they just run nice and easily and whatever the pace they feel happy about because they don't know any better; no stop watch, no garmin to check the distance... So they run like this from 12 years old till they are 21 or 22; then come to the US and some coach or agent give them some tough workout and; bang! They set some world beating times. So some physiologists look at what they do and said, "Well, why waste time doing slow 20-miler when you can do hard 10X1000m instead? Look at those Kenyans..." They have NO concept of how to develop athletes. So I don't give a damn about what idiot might suggest others to do 3 high intensity workouts a week and say, "But look, they all improved their performance..." I'd say, do the follow-up study of how they'll be performing 3 years from now. From the sound of your training pattern and racing schedule, coupled with your frustrating tone, I honestly think you'll need to take it easy and forget chasing times, paces, races and any idiot proof training schedule. Along with so many other "beginners" out there, you need to step back and re-build your body and over-haul your mind. And, as someone else suggested, you'll need to have a clearer objective of what you're doing and for what event. If you've been training for a 50k race and jump in a 5k race and didn't perform well, you shouldn't feel devastated about it. It's like having been training for volleyball for months and get mad for not performing well in soccer. I don't know if you practice this or not but you should sit down, beginning of the season, and decide which races you'd like to run, if they make sense along the way, and lastly, what kind of training pattern you would follow in order to best achieve your goals in the scheme of those racing plan. Good luck and happy running! ;o)

I am not a doctor, nor can I give you perfect advice here, but three years ago I decided to take a martial arts class. I was still just getting back into running, it was my first six months back in so not so good. I had just been diagnosed with asthma and I was on all sorts of inhalers. I forgot to take my inhaler 30 - 40 minutes before and took it about 5 minutes before the start. I ended up on the floor and nearly called an ambulance my heart was racing so fast. I've done very hard stuff in my younger years and never felt this before. Here: (not saying that there is not another reason for your high heart rate, but you should know this stuff. Just seems very high for your amount of training and pace.) http://74.125.113.104/search?q=cache:MIHZ7ANRMX4J:www.lungusa.org/site/c.dvLUK9O0E/b.263990/+asthma+medications+heart+rate&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a Symbicort is a broncodilator if you follow the cached google link you will see a table where it's listed. Next to symbicort you will formoterol fumarate. Searching for formoterol fumarate on the table you will see the following side effects: *increased heart rate *palpitations *nervousness *sleeplessness *headache *nausea *vomiting *tremor, shaking feeling Good luck and I hope this helps. -Boomer

Thanks for that info. I'm so torn on this because not controlling the asthma could bring a whole new world of problems, but the medicine could be causing problems. I've been on it 2 months and was only instructed to be on it one month and then as needed, so I'm going to lay off for a while and see what happens.