Here is my quick story:
I am a junior and track season is approaching. Over the summer in preparation for cross country, I built up to eighty miles, and I was able to handle it. Once the season started, I began to get very fit as we were doing workouts. Eventually, we were doing two workouts a week, a race, and a long run, and I was beginning to feel fatigued. I had a great race, running a PR of 16:11 for the 5k, and being second on the team before crashing in a race two weeks later, running a minute and a half slower and barely being on varsity.
I started feeling tired all the time, needing to take my easy days at 8:30-9:00 pace, and my heart rate was averaging 160’s-170’s for normal runs (max around 215). In workouts, I was the slowest on varsity. However, I still managed to fight and race my heart out every race and made the state team. My state race was hell, feeling devoid of energy from the 800m mark, and I disappointed in myself.
So, I started researching what went wrong, and it came to either an iron deficiency or overtraining. I got a blood test and had normal iron levels. However, I noticed that my white blood cell count was low. I deduced that since overtraining weakens your immune system and since white blood cells are the fighters for the immune system, I was clearly over trained.
Now, I have taken off about nine weeks, although I have gone on a run once every two weeks to see how I feel. When I used to get back from a week break and run sub 7:00 miles, I am now struggling through 7:45’s for a mere three miles.
I have been holding on and waiting until I have that “great feeling” again when I am completely recovered, but now I am doubting that will ever come. So, my question is should I just struggle through, hoping my fitness will come back, or should I just shut down for another month or two and then start running again?
I do not think I have the natural talent to run in DI, but, nonetheless, I really want to run good times this track season to look appealing to colleges. I have learned from my training mistakes and know what to do better. So, what course of action will make me most prepared for track (starting mid April and I am a 2-miler)?