I'm a senior in high school and my junior year I had very successful cross country and track seasons. Then, this past cross country I suffered from dead legs right around championship season (conference, regionals, sectionals, state). I went to the doctor to check for deficiencies and such things. I was only slightly iron deficient so I've been taking prescribed iron pills since mid-October. I then figure it was due to overtraining, so time off after the state meet was my best bet to get better. I took one month completely off of any training (no cross-training, lifting, etc.) , and then, slowly came back to running; I ran at conversational pace for a half hour about three times a week, and slowly built off that. It was a very gradual process to get back to running 5-6 days a week.
I thought I'd be okay for track season. I was wrong. My legs are still dead, especially when racing. The best way to describe it as that burn in your legs after going up a lot of stairs really fast. I get that pain when I run right from the start. Even during our slow warm up at the beginning of practice I feel the beginnings of the pain. I don't like running as much anymore because I know how much pain I'll be in, and to clarify, I have a pretty high pain tolerance. I haven't felt "good" on a run in months and I have no idea why. Time off didn't help, I don't have deficiencies and I don't know what to do from here. Please help. I want to have a great track season, but at this rate I'm going nowhere fast. Any of suggestions of what to do from here?