Overtrained Runners with 2 weeks left in the season

Give them both 2-3 days completely off. Then work them back in at a little less mileage/intensity than originally planned.

Get their serum ferratin checked and put them on liquid iron.

Fe wrote:

Get their serum ferratin checked and put them on liquid iron.

With 2 weeks left in the season it is too late for blood tests and too little time to raise level much, if any. We waited about a week for ferritin and other blood test results. The athlete may feel some improvement after taking iron for a week or two but it could take a few months to get level up to normal, healthy level for an athlete. An iron infusion is the only quick way to improve ferritin level and I would not advice it but I know of high school coaches who had an athlete get an infusion. If hemochromatosis is not a concern then take iron immediately and stop later once tests come back if it is not needed. Some swear only liquid iron worked for them for most I don't think it is required. Some athletes may hate the taste and try to avoid taking it. I would just take two tablets each containing 325 mg ferrous sulfate. Much cheaper than liquid iron without the back taste.

Rest may be the only quick fix. I would still have them do easy mile or two and/or maybe stride-outs. I myself don't like take off more than a day without some running.

Just go have the team jog a couple easy 3 mile days. The ONLY thing you can do in the last 2 weeks is make sure your runners are rested and ready to go.

Not that tough... wrote:

Just go have the team jog a couple easy 3 mile days. The ONLY thing you can do in the last 2 weeks is make sure your runners are rested and ready to go.

I agree. And if you have been doing any kind of longish run, cut it out for those runners. Watch them closely in in workouts an if they don't look good pull them 80 percent of the way through. If they feel bad about it just have them watch any of the flotrack workouts from colleges where the coaches always have the athletes doing different lengths/reps and speeds than one another.

With two weeks left, I don't think you can get them "back" physically. Mentally however... A pat on the back goes a long way.

This described me in college. I was 4-5th runner and burned myself out trying to keep up with the faster guys.

A big cutback in training did not seem to help me much. I would get to conference feeling ok on the start line. I was mentally ready, fully expecting a great day. I'd go out at goal pace (fast, but a pace I had done before). Then i'd crash at halfway and end up with a poor performance. This happened twice.

I think with two weeks left there wasn't enough time to bounce back and try to will myself into a good race. The "lay it all on the line" approach doesn't work when overtrained. A more conservative race would have ended with a better result for the team. But at the time I was in denial that I was overtrained.

For the guys that will be scoring, I'd try to convince them to go out a bit slower, but frame it in a way that doesn't hurt their confidence.

I've had a few kids like this over the years. Do NOT cut back too much on the runs. Have the kids run VERY easy, 40-45 minute runs for the next 4 days till the 1st race, either together if they won't push hard, or by themselves. Run slowly, but not lumbering. Quick, light, short steps. This can be as slow as they need, 8:00 to 9:00 pace is fine if they are 16 minute guys. After a couple of days of this, you can put in some very light 20 second pickups in the run on Thursday, maybe 5K effort or a little quicker, but not fast. 40 second jogs in between. Try 6-8 reps of this just to remind them of the mechanics of running race pace and to get a little race rhythm going. Friday, just the easy running again. See how Saturday goes. I'd probably continue something like this next week, MAYBE doing a little bit of a workout on Wednesday if they raced OK and are feeling better. Otherwise, I'd just stick with the easy running and pickups every other day till the last race. Good luck!

They won't get back to normal, but they should still get checked and start the therapy if they're low. And the raised level--even if it's still low--will help their performance. You can get results back faster than a week. I've also heard good things about desiccated cow liver, but make sure you only buy the organic stuff.

Tinman addressed a situation just like this once and I think it would work well here. Don't cut the mileage, just cut the workouts. Give those guys distance runs and striders. The pace of the distance runs should be whatever allows the runners to feel "good", but it should start easier and end a little faster. No part of this run should be "pushed"

If it were me, I would rotate 50 and 70 min runs but scale it to your runner's ability levels. FYI - I typically run 45 - 50 mpw.

At the end of the shorter distance runs have the guys run 8 x 100 on grass with 100 jogs back - untimed and progressive starting at 10k effort and finishing at 1 mile effort.

Do something similar after the longer distance runs but make it 4 x 200 and cut down the efforts - start at 10k, then 5k, then 1-mile, then a little slower than 800m.

This is so simple and it will work. There might even be a chance that these guys move up from 5 and 7, respectfully, and take down some of their teammates.

Try it and report back.

Give them some icy hot or bengay for their legs. Also, ice baths do wonders

Iron.

Liquid Iron.

Pool bottom running w/shoes, at xiphoid process depth, forwards & backwards. Wear a waterproof heart rate monitor, tracking what intensity they can maintain for 1-2 hours. 500 cal/hour is low, 800 cal/hour is hight. Have them bounding through the water like a space Man on the Moon. Also have them do light steps at high speed without moving forward or backward. After every 30 minutes in the cold pool, happened to A1 jacuzzi and bicycle your legs for 5 minutes. I won't go into all the details but I can tell you it works.

Joe, the advantage of the pool is it allows the leg muscles to get fresh, against their hearts they break because the water pressure around the body will allow the heart to pump more easily. If you check their heart rate out of the water and standing in life or death water he will find it drops 10 Beats. Anyway you can really give their bodies a break actually developed their cardio more with minimal stress running in a pool. Make sure they do about 3 miles of light running also on grass to maintain their feel for the ground.

Sorry I'm doing this on my phone with voice to text and I we don't have a lot of time how to edit.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Unfortunately the guys haven't been able to get their ferritin checked and probably will not be able to until after the season. I told them to at least try to be getting enough heme iron by eating red meat almost everyday.

Fogrnr, your idea about getting in the pool makes sense, but unfortunately we don't readily have access to a pool right now. That is something we could be trying to coordinate for guys that are not recovering well in the future though.

So far what we have done is cut their mileage a bit to 30-35mpw and made sure they are running their easy mileage very comfortably. Our head coach wanted them doing a tempo run yesterday with the rest of the team but instead of going the full 20min they only went 15min (which I still felt might have been too long) and we made sure they were feeling controlled the whole way.

From now until Saturday it will just be easy running and strides. The cut down 100/200m reps after an easy run and 6-8 20 second pickups over the last mile or two of an easy run both seem like good ideas. I think I'll have them do 6x100 cutting down from 10k to mile effort this afternoon and see how things go.

I'll let you guys know how Saturday goes.

Thanks,

joe

Just jogging, strides and wind sprints.

Tell them to enjoy themselves.

Don't push iron (fe) into them, there is evidence that too much iron can trigger cancer among certain DNA codes.

Since these guys are 'hard workers' I would suggest stopping any fartlek, they probably equate a certain effort with what they should be doing and I bet they are pushing the fartlek harder than they should be. Instead, give them some controlled intervals where you want them to only run the prescribed times, and enforce not exceeding the times. They should be finishing these intervals feeling good, like they could do more, but don't let them, save it for the race.

bump,

race is tomorrow, right? What approach did you take, how are they looking?

be sure and tell us how it goes after the race.