Advice Needed - End of Season

Generally, the suggestion is to drop all fast work longer than 50 m and just log some miles but it sounds like you have tried that.

Please state what you have tried.

Have you been to the doctor?

Mono, anemia?

Talk to your coach about how you are feeling with regard to your training, racing, and needing rest. You need to taper by cutting quantity and quality of running and aim to maintain fitness while getting sufficient rest and recovery for your remaining race(s).

I've tried a lot of different stuff in the past. Last season, during the last month of training, I reduced my mileage from about 70 to a progression towards 50ish, and did most of my workouts at 1600 pace. that did not work. this year, I've been at 60-70 for about a month now but I haven't really switched my workout regiment too much. I'm still doing threshold work, but also quick stuff. One thing I haven't tried is only doing distance runs and strides for the next week leading up to the state meet, but I'm not sure if my coach would be receptive to that idea. I haven't had any blood tests recently, so maybe I am anaemic, but at this point, if I tested positive for anaemia, it would probably just reduce my confidence.

I think easy distance and not-too-fast or too many strides every other day are your best bet at feeling better before state. Don't cut the mileage too much from your normal average run, just make sure the run is easy. The last couple days before state reduce your run distance by 25% 2 days out, and by 50% the day before state. I have done this with a couple of kids that are just feeling tanked at the end of the season. One was right before the state meet in cross. Had him just run very easy miles for 6 days before the state meet. Had his best race of the season.

HSCoach for the win, since you haven't tried it before.

As to getting your coach to go along with the idea, only you know your relationship with your coach and how your team handles missing practice. Does he know the pace of your mileage has slowed into the 8:XX range? If not, why not?

HSCoach wrote:

I think easy distance and not-too-fast or too many strides every other day are your best bet at feeling better before state. Don't cut the mileage too much from your normal average run, just make sure the run is easy. The last couple days before state reduce your run distance by 25% 2 days out, and by 50% the day before state. I have done this with a couple of kids that are just feeling tanked at the end of the season. One was right before the state meet in cross. Had him just run very easy miles for 6 days before the state meet. Had his best race of the season.

This, with emphasis on "easy". Grab the slowest guy on your team, and do your easy running with him at his easy pace.

Okay, I ran 8 today at a very relaxed pace. I decided to leave the Garmin at home, which I felt was probably a good idea so I could truly run an easy pace without freaking out about a slow pace. I'm confident about this plan. one question, though, should I do a long run this weekend? I always do one, but I don't know if it's a good idea or not with how I've been feeling. thoughts?

Check out the article below: my son used this method to overcome his overtrained "dead legs" last cross country season. His legs felt better after an easy (easy!) 90 minutes and was able to run a couple decent races at the end of the season. Not as good as he would have if his coach had been a little more careful, but worth a try. Good luck!Twenty years ago, I received a panicked call from Kevin, a high school athlete whom I'd coached to an 800m league championship the previous year. Now a senior, Kevin had been coached by Coach L-----since I'd moved out of state six months earlier."My legs are totally dead," said Kevin. "My 800 time has gone from 1:59 to 2:11. And Coach L-----has given up on me. He says I'm on my own. League finals are six weeks away, and I don't know what to do!"After calming Kevin down, I advised him to stop running entirely for 10 days. Complete rest was the only cure I knew for dead legs. "Then," I said, "we start over."Though Kevin rebounded to run 2:01, good for second place in league, the down time robbed him of months of precious base work. I kicked myself at the time, certain there was a better cure for dead legs. I just didn't know what it was.Turns out I was right. More than two decades earlier, Arthur Lydiard, the legendary New Zealand coach, had devised the perfect remedy for heavy-legged syndrome: Go long."While I was training, always in the Lydiard way," says Lorraine Moller, four-time Olympic marathoner and bronze medalist at the 1992 Barcelona Games, "if there was a training issue the remedy was always easy aerobic running until you 'came right.' Problems nearly always stemmed from overtraining, [and] the remedy was to oxygenate the body with long-ish runs."Lydiard's answer to dead legs was more running, not less--certainly not time off. It was just that the running had to be slow and aerobic."The long aerobic run is your home," says Dixon, one of a long line of New Zealand distance stars to embrace Lydiard's training methods. "Home is where you find comfort. It's where you go to sleep, to rest. Your long aerobic run is your home base. It's where you go to feel comfortable."Read more: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4557858#ixzz3baZTIVKV

helpplease wrote:

Okay, I ran 8 today at a very relaxed pace. I decided to leave the Garmin at home, which I felt was probably a good idea so I could truly run an easy pace without freaking out about a slow pace. I'm confident about this plan. one question, though, should I do a long run this weekend? I always do one, but I don't know if it's a good idea or not with how I've been feeling. thoughts?

Hey all, just thought I would update those who posted with advice. I followed many of your training plans, and I decided to keep my mileage the same, but reduce the pace to complete recovery. I took off my watch so I don't know the paces, but they were truly slow. Anyways, it worked, and I had the best race of my life, something that's never happened at a state meet. I just want to thank you guys so much, you're advice may have been simple but you have no idea how much it meant to me that you all wanted to help.

Great! So glad your race went well. Glad your high school coach allowed you to try it.