What am I doing wrong?

What exactly do you feel has gone wrong? Can you specify whether it's mental or physical? It sounds mental but you mentioned injury

Hard to tell anything from what you've written

cbenson4 wrote:

What exactly do you feel has gone wrong? Can you specify whether it's mental or physical? It sounds mental but you mentioned injury

Hard to tell anything from what you've written

I’ve had recurring Achilles problems since my first year of college. It tends to come and go a bit. Sometimes it’s more manageable than others. I think I’m dealing with a mix of mental and physical symptoms. Feeling pretty unmotivated to train and or race, most of my runs over the past 4 weeks have felt like crap, and I feel tired or sad a lot. I’m not sure if I burnt out/ burn out really easily or what’s going on. I don’t feel overtrained, I’m still running great workouts, but maybe I am? This seems to happen pretty often so I would like to identify a pattern

It sounds like you have been training quite consistently and put some serious thought into this. My first question would be what else is going on in your life? Often the non-running things pile up in ways that really, really affect running. For many of us running is a way to balance those other life stresses, and it helps. But if you are too stressed, then running will become overly stressed, too. If you have some big things happening, take the time to address them. It often isn't easy, but it needs to be done.

I'm not sure what kind of position you're in right now. Sounds like you're a senior in college? In XC season? But if possible, given how you feel (and whatever else you might have going on in life), I'd go for a hard reset. Take 7 to 10 days completely off. When you come back, just run easy. Without a watch. Look at the clock when you leave and then see what time it is when you get back so you can get a general idea of how much running you're doing. Most of these runs should be nice, light jogs that leave you feeling physically and mentally refreshed. If they don't, go easier next time. Or take the day off. But some of the runs might trend towards faster, and if that is the case, cool, go with it. But don't force it. After a month or two (maybe less) you'll probably feel ready to get back to structured training.

As for the achilles stuff, dial in your footwear choice and strength routines. Weak calves and hips can really destroy achilles for some people.

Yes, I am a college senior. I’ve had the best workouts of my life this year and I’m racing worse than I was two years ago and last year. I can barely make it through a normal run rn without wanting to stop, and have stopped most workouts midway though in the past week. We’re in conference time and my team is depending on me and I can’t even do a workout lol.

If you can afford a coach I advice you to hire one, but only one of the best. Who could it be? LoL

SUPERIOR COACH JS wrote:

If you can afford a coach I advice you to hire one, but only one of the best. Who could it be? LoL

Believe me, if that was an option at the moment I would take it...

Still not sure what portion of this is mental versus physical/training related.

Believe me.….it`s not mental! :)