I am awake after 5 hrs of sleep for the 3rd or 4th night in a row. Same thing was happening 2 weeks ago so I took one week at 2/3 mileage last week and felt better.
I am coming back from an injury that has had me sidelined for the last 6 months--except that I cross-trained as much as I could--except maybe 2 months I couldn't do anything due to my hip.
I have been trying to ramp back up mileage since given permission by PT to run as much as I want (about 3 or 4 weeks ago). The main reason is that I want to stop paying $190 a week for PT and she has me ramping up mileage to wherever I want to be--with her helping me deal with whatever pain comes to see if we can get rid of it. That part has been working--the pain is down despite the increase in mileage (which is AWESOME needless to say, but I digress).
Anyway it's just pathetic because I have only run 30 miles so far this week (with another 5 or so planned Sun). I used to be able to run 40 with no problem. I'm really trying to get up to 40 again as quickly as I can so that again I can determine if the PT will truly allow me to run my previous mileage--and I'm in a hurry due to the cost of PT. And that is a bump down from previous highest mileage of 50-70--always felt at 40 mpw like increasing again wouldn't have been a big issue.
So now 30 is overtraining??! By the time I started logging my miles (remember PT had me running very little slowly), this was what I was doing:
24 mpw (felt okay)
29 mpw (felt tired but I had been training in other forms also (elliptical, swim) for a few weeks at that point--just not logging anything--so I took 1 week recovery)
20 mpw (recovery, felt better in terms of sleep)
This week--30 mpw so far but again 5 more planned--two longer runs given my current condition early in week trying to load up before PT to test myself--so my week looked like this:
Mon--7 easy
Tues--5 easy
Wed--8 easy
Thurs--4 easy
Fri--5 easy + 3 walking
Sat--planned off going to event
Sun--planned 5 but WTF!!
I have also added 3 days per week of leg weight training per PT (also in last 4 weeks), and core. In the last 6 months I have been doing some weights, but not as much. When I was running before 6 months ago, I didn't lift weights at the same time. So now I'm lifting about 50 min to 1 hr of weights--3 dats per week. Would this have an effect on the amount that I can expect to run?
The main issue is that I'm not sleeping well. Do you think that I am overtraining? Or just adjusting?? Would sleep alone tell you this?
Also, could the heavy loading of mileage early in the week been part of the problem? I was trying to run the bulk of my mileage for the week in the first part of the week b/c I wanted to get the runs in before my final PT session for the week on Thurs (and I was going out of town Sat so couldn't run).
If I am overtraining, what should I run Sunday and next week? Then how fast can I build?
Also, big question: If I have to reduce my mileage, can I supplement with elliptical to reach my mileage "goals" and not run into the same problem? Basically if you aren't running but you are doing some other kind of training to reach the equivalent, do you still have the same problem with overtraining?
Besides the PT I don't want to be too conservative because I also don't want to gain weight and would like to run and/or train as much as my body can handle without going overboard.
I'm a 41 y.o. female.
Thanks for any input. I'm going out of town today so please don't take lack of immediate reply as lack of interest. Thanks again!!