Where did I go wrong this summer

overtraining

classic'

if i run x miles i will overcome my genetic/physical limit

not.

train for ur skill level

ur not a professional

You had the mileage base, but there was not enough of the right speedwork to support racing faster.

Your example above is 77 miles with a cutdown with a few miles between 6 and 5:36.

Overtraining is the first thing that comes to mind. Since I was training for the mile and 5k earlier in the season, a lot of my 80 mile weeks were achieved in 3-4 doubles which made it more manageable.

As the fall approached and I had the 10K and half coming up, I was hitting 80 mpw on a lot more singles to prepare to race a longer distance - and this is when things started going downhill.

But the first rule of overtraining properly, is not acknowledging that you are overtrained.

fred wrote:

You had the mileage base, but there was not enough of the right speedwork to support racing faster.

Your example above is 77 miles with a cutdown with a few miles between 6 and 5:36.

This was from earlier in the summer when I was improving. If I pull a sample week from September, this one from a 78 mile week:

Tuesday - 10x1k with 2:00 jogging rest starting at 331 and finishing at 315. Average 324.

Thursday - 11 mile continous run first 5 miles at 7'avg next 5 @ 554, 1m CD.

Saturday: 14 miler @ 645 avg.

The rest was EASY/RECOVERY.

80 miles a week in singles is nothing.

When you run 150 miles a week with speedwork, and you start

to bog, you back off, and your body will come back.

It's a normal process. If your body is not recovering from the overload, you back off. It's not a big deal. You don't

have to label it as overtraining.

What Happened? wrote:

fred wrote:

You had the mileage base, but there was not enough of the right speedwork to support racing faster.

Your example above is 77 miles with a cutdown with a few miles between 6 and 5:36.

This was from earlier in the summer when I was improving. If I pull a sample week from September, this one from a 78 mile week:

Tuesday - 10x1k with 2:00 jogging rest starting at 331 and finishing at 315. Average 324.

Thursday - 11 mile continous run first 5 miles at 7'avg next 5 @ 554, 1m CD.

Saturday: 14 miler @ 645 avg.

The rest was EASY/RECOVERY.

If 3.1 @ 5:30 pace is racing what is 10 k race pace and what

is 5@5:54?

My guess is that you raced some of your workouts, induced a

peak, and then kept pushing when you should have rested then

begun another buildup phase.

20 miles at tempo or VO2. If you doing tempo runs at VO2 than you are either running your tempos to short or are running way to fast for to long.

No wonder you crashed and burned.

Take a week of low mileage or even take the week off. Let your body recuperate from all that training for a bit and reap the benefits from your hard work! No doubt you overtrained but with some needed rest I'm sure you'll be back at it better than ever

Thanks everyone. I'm still relatively new to running, running a year and a half, and it's not as easy for me to figure some of these fundamental things out.

I've taken 9 days off and plan on just running easy the next couple weeks to get the base back.

You're racing the clock instead of the competition.

Throw the watch away and try to beat as many people as possible and stop worrying about your times. They will come.

@ fred: I hate posts like this, 80 miles a week in singles is a heck of a lot for someone who has previously only ran 25 miles a week max as an example.

Same as it's not much for soemone who regularly runs 120.

It's completely specific to the individual runner.

fred wrote:

What Happened? wrote:

This was from earlier in the summer when I was improving. If I pull a sample week from September, this one from a 78 mile week:

Tuesday - 10x1k with 2:00 jogging rest starting at 331 and finishing at 315. Average 324.

Thursday - 11 mile continous run first 5 miles at 7'avg next 5 @ 554, 1m CD.

Saturday: 14 miler @ 645 avg.

The rest was EASY/RECOVERY.

If 3.1 @ 5:30 pace is racing what is 10 k race pace and what

is 5@5:54?

My guess is that you raced some of your workouts, induced a

peak, and then kept pushing when you should have rested then

begun another buildup phase.

I did feel that I peaked at the 17:02 5k. Following this race, I did feel that I was forcing workouts, in particular threshold runs...that probably weren't threshold at this point of the year.

Surprise! wrote:

You're racing the clock instead of the competition.

Throw the watch away and try to beat as many people as possible and stop worrying about your times. They will come.

I threw away the garmin at the beginning of the year and replaced it with a stopwatch. I'm trying to focus on competeting.