Over training? Under recovery? Experiences please!

In the summer of 2015, I was running 120+ mpw with three weight training sessions per week. After a while I was chronically drained. I felt tired ALL OF THE TIME, developed kind of a mental fog, had reduced appetite. As you described, paces that were once doable started to feel impossible. It's hard to describe, but even touching faster paces felt mentally daunting and physically painful. It's like my legs just couldn't move fast. I tried to push through and eventually even easy running felt difficult. It got to the point that I could only slog through a few miles at a time.

I ran my last race in fall of 2015. It did not go well.

In the time since then, I still have not really recovered. I am back up to around 45 miles per week with only easy running. Even touching my PR marathon pace feels nearly impossible.

My advice- take some time off NOW. DO NOT try to push through. What you are describing is basically the beginning of the end of my running career.

Best of luck to you.

Thanks for you response! I am sorry to hear you've had a tough time with it.

I really hope I can come out the other side okay. I don't feel tired during the day... I feel pretty normal otherwise. It's quite specifically just those harder workouts or running fast - obviously after this kind of work I am then exhausted as I've tried so hard to push through it.

Surely there would be something in the blood that presented some kind chronic problem?

If you overtrained, it means that you didn't train hard enough to handle that level of training, so you weren't overtrained; you were actually undertrained to begin with. So here's the rule: The guy who trains the hardest, the most, wins.

It seems that you're mentally drained. A little burnout, maybe the start of overtraining syndrome but i'm not a doctor...

Stick to easy runs if they feel enjoyable, you will lose very little fitness if you keep an honest mileage and moderate effort.

Take a day off when you need it without feeling guilty. Return to speed very gradually and in unstructured way (like fartlek) only when your body calls for it. Good luck.

This sounds like some good advice, thank you. Thi past weekend was the final straw for me to realise somethings not quite right, a workout which ended miserably and felt super hard after 2 intervals. Since then i've been resting in terms of running but have been doing the elliptical or bike for an easy 45 minutes so stop be from feeling to lazy!

apologies for the spelling mistakes !

Just some easy jogging until you feel recovered.

The guy who trains most intelligently usually wins.

True story... but we are always learning.