100+ a Week and SUCKING!

Some thoughts:

1. Make sure you are staying really well hydrated.

2. Take a week and just run low mileage (50 miles??) with no workouts or races. Do some strides just to stay quick.

3. Take another week at a comfortable mileage level (70??) don't do more than 1 tough workout. Race, and see where you're at.

High mileage doesn`t necessarily make you faster. Try to run less, lets say 85mls week. You are running only an 8K or 10K races, so there is no need for 110mls weeks.

good advice vaughn

Today's workout was fair, it could have been much worse. I also just felt sluggish and could have done it off 50mpw for the summer. So far high mileage has made me tired, faster later?

It takes a while for the mileage to really pay off and it isn't something that you should do leading into intense racing. When you are in a racing phase you are really supposed to maintain peak mileage as long as possible and then start cutting it out the last weeks before your peak. Since your peak during the summer was around 100...being between 90-100 would have been fine.

Since everyone has given so much advice I will be brief in mine:

-more sleep ( I try and get 9+ when over 80 mpw )

-work on increasing mileage out of season and more intensity during it

-make sure you recover on your easy days; a couple of good days running mileage that you feel is just too slow might help out a bit

-drop to 90-95 if you still have a month or so, but if you are getting ready to race important races 70-75% is more in order.

You should be fine in a couple of weeks. Hope you have some good races to come.

Mike

If I got BLOOD WORK done everytime I was overtrained, I would be on a monthly schedule.

If you are overtrained, you are going to have deficiencies or you wouldn't feel like crap on your runs. Your body is amazing in that with a little REST, it knows enough to replenish what you are deficient in. This just takes time.

It is very rare that a medical condition is involved that is causing the problem. Three or four weeks into a season and running 10 seconds slower per mile in a race after doing hard workouts doesn't present itself as a dire situation. If after rest your times keep going south, then you should get medical attention to find what the problem is.

ibprofin wrote:

OK guys I really appreciate the feedback, and I'll throw out a big FU to the dude who said "burnt out". I've been trying to get lots of antioxidants, (blueberries, prunes, other fruit). as far as Iron goes, red meat maybe 3 times a week along with a daily multiple. I've also been taking Endurox Excel for about 2.5 months, its the pills not powder.

Try skipping on endurox excell pills. From my experience (I've taken it for 3 months and 2 months on separate occassions) I have started to feel million times better 1-2 days after I stopped taking it. My wife experienced the same. I am not saying that it doesn't help, but to me, it seemed like training in heavy combat boots when on Endurox (pills) and then suddenly taking them off. In my opinion it has to do with the claimed effect on metabolism of fat and that it supposedly helps to save your glycogen... to me, it works just the opposite.

Follow the suggestions of other posters, most of them seem to be on spot, and drop the Endurox - you will feel amazingly better.

Your at it again trying to analyse the impossible. Think for a moment even 100mls a week is only 11/12hours work.

24 hrs in every day 168 hrs in a week ,10/12hrs work is a joke.You have to become more active try an hours walk every day on top of the 100mls for starters,you will never make it just running and being knackerd,forget pills and all that bull eat healthly,live clean,get really active all the time ,get a routine for 2/5/10years stop procrastinating

Ok...so you're at your mileage peak right now right? 100+ after 80-90 and up to 100 by the end of the summer? Drop it for a while and watch what happens. I "ran" a 28:00 5 mile race at the end of a 130 mile week, tapered and ran a 2;34:52 at Chicago. Don't let a few slow performances get you down when you're running high mileage. Drop it and you'll roll. Don't worry.

Alan

Alright, thats some damn good feeback guys, thanks. So far I've dropped my mornings from 6 to 3. Today's run was a recovery, and I treated it as such, very chill. I also completely stuffed myself at dinner tonight; a little bit more rib/hip bone showing than normal, so I figured a solid meal couldn't hurt, especially with recovery. Tomorrow is a workout....of the anerobic variety, so I'll see how I fair. 10 Days till conference

I am redshirting this season, however one of my teammates had a bit of overtraining in mid season. He ran 25:40 for the first race then ran as slow as 27:20. To help get better he slept a bit more, and the big thing was he did his recovery runs with the girls between workouts. So he would do the workouts at regular pace and have say 2 days at probably 7:10-7:30 pace. After a week, he ran 25:39 at pre nats. Main point try to get extra easy recovery runs for the next week or so.

This is a great thread. Lots of good training advice being offered.

To the author: Just curious, what school do you run for?

you definitely run at north central college. You know, the D3 guys that run 100+ miles/week, doing triples, at 8 min pace. You run too much too slowly. Competing isn't about just puting in the time. Its about effort.

No triples here. D1 program, doubles not triples. I don't think I'd get tired from running 8mn pace. A typical week consists of a 15miler, 2 workouts, 1 race, with "recovery" days in between. Thats not your d3 program at 8mn pace, not that there's anything wrong with that.

ibprofin, First,you only had one bad race. How did the race go as far as pacing? Did you take it hard and die or was it an even paced affair that you just ran slowr the second time around? Second, Do you have anything else stressing you out(ex. girlfriend issue,school work)? Stressors outside of running can be very hard on the body. Third, I think like everyone else has said slow down the easy runs. You may be fine doing the high mileage with less intesity. But now that you are doing harder workouts/races you need to run slower to recovery. Finally, you might want to add a little on to your cooldown after workouts. This has helped me recover faster in the past. Good luck

Well, school is certainly a pain in the ass, but thats nothing new. Its probably most of all just overtraining, so I'm cutting the miles down, low 90's, then 80's next week. I know it won't happen overnight but the legs should start to come back. My bad race was just slow all the way through, no real dying, it was just harder to run.

I really wish you guys would STOP calling it overtraining. It's not. You are SUPPOSED to run badly while putting in lots of miles. It's only when you rest that you run faster.

Alan

Why should you run badly? Maybe not your best or pr all the time, but not bad.

You're on the right track. Only thing I would add is while your mileage comes down also run several of your recovery runs at a stupid, stupid slow pace. Like almost walking. It will feel so good.