how long did it take for u to recovery from over training?

Marco Brolo wrote:

Part of recovery is diet. the "classic overtraining symptoms" you talk about is really a lack of adequate recovery. He can't sleep and often times those 2 things come back to diet.

I am not a hobbyjogger.

Bro, if he is waking up every hour and can't sleep due to intense calf pain, this has NOTHING to do with nutrition. He is WAY past that. Poor nutrition can delay or prolong recovery, sure. But that's not what's happening.

The guy is in pain and probably very close to having a serious medical issue. No amount of eating right is going to make him healthy at this stage.

Bro, seriously, stop running. Take as long as you need until you feel like you actually want to run again. That may take a couple months. Stop reading Letsrun.com, stop running, stop thinking about running. Get running out of your mind.

If you come back too soon, or force a comeback, you will have the same exact issue and you could enter a cycle of overtraining/not enough recovery for years if you're not careful. Better to stop the problem now before you waste even more time.

I agree he needs to stop running and stop thinking about it. But every symptom he has described CAN be brought back to nutrition. Not saying it necessarily is but I am saying this is something he needs to focus on in addition to taking a few weeks off.

His sleep is most concerning right now. I wonder if he is having panic attacks or a nervous breakdown from the calf pain and not being able to sleep.

I think you need to go to a doctor and talk about how you can't sleep. Getting something that will get you to sleep for a week may be crucial to you beginning to recover. I agree give up on running for a month. Try to get yourself right and enjoy life again without running first. Then introduce running again. Could be 6 months from now.

My doc gave me sleeping pills which ive taken twice but made me too far drowsy during the day so i stoppped taking them. Also i still woke up in the middle of the night anyway.

Yes i have a fear of getting fat putting on weighr as i wasna chubby kid u got picked on for being fat.

I can take mabey two days off then get the itch and go for a small jog which leads on to 10_15kms . Then another 5-10 at night

Am i just having a mid life crises? Im serious here im not a troll btw.

Once upon a time the answer to all ailments was bed rest. We have come a long way since!

Stop running, now. The most important thing is to learn to listen to what your body is telling you and get a rest day whenever its needed.

I'm just a hobby jogger and I even got something similar once. Started training too much for my unaccustomed body and broke up in a similar fashion. Calf pains in the middle of the night, tired all day, hard to raise HR, etc. Though your case sounds even worse.

Mind you, I was not even close to your mileage, only on 60MPW (but should be roughly equivalent since I was out of shape all my life not long ago). I kept running for another week as a moron and caused myself plantar, peroneal tendon issues, knee problems, etc. It took me out for about 4 months because I didn't listen to my body.

I stopped everything for a whole month, then started with a stationary bike for about 2 months, training according to my HR, started running every other day very easily. I still had some injuries but slowly recovered from them, 4 months later I was back and feeling good, slowly increased my mileage and made sure to get quality recovery days and rest days when needed. I feel okay now.

formerD1 wrote:

Marco Brolo wrote:

Well there ya go.

SO GET OUT OF THIS THREAD YOU WORTHLESS HOBBY JOGGER.

Takes one to know one.

I trained through overtraining symptoms for about 2 months this summer: could not sleep well, I woke up often. I never felt really recovered even after lowering mileage and workouts time.

I'm used to run about 85-90mpw, I went down to 70.

I ran my worse marathon and race ever in October. I was completely drained. The taper did nothing. All I could manage was easy pace. It didn't feel hard but going faster was impossible.

I took time off and was never able to restart training after. Resting heart rate was +20-30 over normal. Any kind of basic physical effort would bring it to near max. I would have intense brain fog. I struggled for 2 months trying to barely run/jog on and off before stopping completely.

Every medical tests I did came back ok: thyroid, iron, cardiac stress test, HIV, etc.

I stopped running completely for 4 months now. I feel a little better, I noticed some basic progress. I can walk fast to work without feeling completely empty mentally and physically for days. Mental fog is less present. RHR is less higher than it was. I'm not ready to start running but I'm confident I will by the end of the year.

I expect to require about 1 year without running and to take 1 year to ramp back up. All and all, 2 years "lost", a costly lesson. I think I didn't see it coming because I never lost my drive to run even when I was dead tired. Performances plateaued but did not regress before the marathon. I was sure I would feel great again after the taper.

My only advice is to stop running now and find another hobby to fill all that free time. It's gonna take a while.

Gaining some weight to be more in your middle BMI range can help too. It's not like it's gonna be hard to lose weight once you start running 100mpw again.

Good luck. The hardest part is the first month off.

Honestly you have an addiction. I would go see a therapist.

That's sad man. What were you doing to yourself to get in that state, in terms of a typical week. Good luck for the recovery.

Thank u for ur guys imput. I have come to the state where i cant run at all. As i find it pointless shuffling at 6min km pace while my legs hurt.

And after last night 1hour sleep max i ate a ton of food and feel bad now weight gain ext. Yes im scared of weight gain. And i hate resting. Someone said dont even cross train? Walking?;light biking? Should i focus on diet and more sleep? Getting a massage today to hopefully help me relax. Fuxk i hate my life atm.

Training for me was big. Some days looked like this.

5km warm up 12km tempo 3km warm down.

Arvo 10-12kms easy

15km am

15km pm

20km am 10km midday 10km at night

Ive even done

30km am

8km midday

12km at night

Then run another 30 the next day

Now looking back i thought it was just normal training for a marathon. And people say its all about miliage. But now its beyond a joke where i cant sleep at all. Im tired 24/7"but just cant sleep.

Seriously dude get to your doctor. Get a therapist. Talk this out with someone.

You aren't healthy but you can get better.

I can relate. This fall low iron, testosterone, scared shitless of getting fat. Went on weekly food binges with intermittent fasting before realizing I had some disordered eating habits, anxiety, and depression (had gotten out of an abusive marriage and single dad in grad school). I sleep quite well now though and gained 10 pounds of mostly muscle, and I got a girlfriend which helps with the formerly nonexistent sex drive. Enjoy training hard and still am training pretty damn hard because I enjoy it so much, but I am racing like $hit. Am planning on not doing marathons for awhile after this cycle and reduce mileage go back to 5ks. Good luck.

Although you say that you are taking a magnesium supplement, I would suggest getting a RBC (red blood cell) magnesium test. I had many of your symptoms and started taking a large dose of magnesium (3 grams in divided doses) and within 10 way back to normal.

Ditto what a lot of the others have said. For me, it was a few days off, just running based on "feel" and time, (rather than pace and mileage) until I felt like I wasn't forcing the issue anymore. Good luck

I specialize in brining runners back from injury and overtraining. It's an incredibly unappreciated coaching niche.

Plain and simple, you're running too much and too fast ( guessing here ). 100 mpw is overtraining for most people. Unless you're an elite runner you have to ask yourself what the heck you're doing.

Did I miss it or did you ever tell us your racing times?

Anyway, there is a way back. If you cut way back and slow down right now you could be back in 3-6 months. If you don't, it won't be an issue.

Breakdown and burnout is in your future.

Wow that is a massive training load. Following up a 42km day with a 30km!!!! Kudos for being so dedicated but dam!

Nobody in the thread so far has mentioned something that is staring at you in the face and probably also in the mirror. If I got your height correct at 177cm, that means that you are about 6 ft 1.75 inches height and you said you had a weight of 132 lbs. If you are not a troll you sound seriously underweight with a probable eating disorder. Are you serious with this height and weight?

You have literally run yourself right into the ground, similar to Ryan Hall. The symptoms of severe overtraining are almost identical to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. There is a balance between training (catabolic) and recovery (anabolic). You have gone so catabolic that you are literally breaking down your body. Adrenal gland function becomes impaired from the chronic stress of overtraining without enough recovery. This will usually in the beginning lead to an elevated cortisol/DHEA ratio in serum or salivary hormone lab tests. Amino acid analysis can also show abnormalities such as low glutamine and other amino acids. There can also be lots of other problems with things like mitochondrial function, testosterone, thyroid, Mg, iron,etc.

As cortisol levels stay chronically elevated due to chronic stress, especially at night when cortisol levels should be low, this leads to insomnia, loss of deep sleep and poor sleep quality. Then you can't recover at all because you need good sleep to recover. This becomes a vicious cycle and downward spiral into chronic fatigue. High cortisol levels are also very catabolic and increase the breakdown of the body.

Usually the first signs of overtraining are very subtle signs like trouble sleeping and feeling on edge or irritable. That is your body telling you to back off.

This is why I was worried about poor sleep for Kenenisa Bekele at the London marathon because of the extra stress from the creepy man on the bike that was stalking him.

All stressors in your life add up and everyone varies in how much they can handle. Very few runners can handle 120 to 150 mpw. Even top tier runners will usually find that somewhere between 60 and 110 mpw is optimal. After that you reach a point of diminishing returns from more mileage with a large increase of risk of injury or illness for a small increase of additional benefit. More is not always better. Good luck.

Sincerely,

Joe Rogan

Program was 70-90mpw.

Intervals 2x per week. 10x400m, 8x300m etc ~800/1500m race pace)

Hills 1-2x per week. (10-20x400m)

Sprints 1x per week (10x150m)

Most runs starting around 6min miles working down to low 5s.

Most days ran 2x per day.

Gym work 2x week.

After 5-6months of that I could barely walk. Sacrum totally twisted, labral tears, joint pain, either constant hunger or thirst or not hungry at all. Woke up literally every 90minutes for 3-4 months after that. I did not sleep more than 90minutes for probably 6months total. To me it became normal. Wake up, check the clock, 12:00, check again, 1::30, check again, 3....4:30, 6:oo,, so tired...7:300 Start the day. Feet hurt walking around. I should take the day off....maybe just a 3mi rec run....12 miles with the last 10 in 53 later.....next day....oohhhh my feet and knees hurt....maybe just some light gym work and intervals....12x400m in 56-60 later....I was obsessed. Absolutely obsessed.

Took longer and longer to warm up...sometimes 5-6 miles or more. I knew I was overtrained when my friends (non-runners) ran across a street for a flashing crosswalk sign and I just....couldn't run. I couldn't do it. They were like "what's up? I thought you were this great runner!"

Surprised I lasted that long really.

Took a few months. I traveled a bit, but even 8min miles would destroy me. It wasn't even aerobic, just my legs wouldn't work, I couldn't push at all.

Looking back I never fully recovered. I switched to weightlifting and still occasionally do intervals but my days of high mileage are gone. I can push hard now but I really only run 1-2 times per week at most. Muscle memory is great though...I can show up to a local 800m track race and do 2:05 literally without running a step in the last month...not a step.. And the only aerobic exercise is high rep squatting, back extensions with 2x20kg plates behind my head, farmers walks, power cleans, etc.

Once you've put in your time (10+ years training hard) you can train very, very little and still be 90% of your best. And even 95% probably only requires half the volume that it took to get to 100%.

At first it was so hard but I don't miss it anymore to be honest. I enjoy lifting way more and the body it builds is much more useful and attractive.