Been following a marathon plan for over a month with no improvement, am I overtrained?

It's generally not a good sign if your paces are regressing.

Questions:

1) Were you a little too ambitious with selecting your initial training paces? If so, you can generally simply adjust your paces more in line with what your body can handle and continue with the plan. The workouts progressively get harder. If you can't handle them, nbd, just adjust.

2) Are any of your other metrics showing signs of overtraining (increased heart rate, severe fatigue, poor sleep, etc.)?

3) How's your nutrition? Are you getting everything you need in your diet?

Re overtraining: have you noticed having a harder time falling asleep? Feeling a drop in motivation, with running or otherwise? Any new stressors in your life?

Re getting slower: has the weather been getting more/less favorable during this time? Has your mileage increased since the start of the plan, or stayed constant? Have you done a “recovery week” of reduced training or tried giving yourself an extra recovery day before a workout?

I think I may have been overambitious with the paces slightly; for example when I run the threshold runs of 10 minutes with 2 minute rests, I'm huffing and puffing by the half way mark already; although I do have the ability to hold until the 10 minutes.

I don't measure my heart rate but it seems to be higher for the same pace than before which I take to be a bad sign.

I take 2-3 days between workouts but I'm thinking I need to take 3-4 days.

I'll likely take a down week this week to see how I feel and bounce back... It just sucks because I wanted to run the high mileage consistently

Marathondude1111 wrote:

I think I may have been overambitious with the paces slightly; for example when I run the threshold runs of 10 minutes with 2 minute rests, I'm huffing and puffing by the half way mark already; although I do have the ability to hold until the 10 minutes.

I don't measure my heart rate but it seems to be higher for the same pace than before which I take to be a bad sign.

I take 2-3 days between workouts but I'm thinking I need to take 3-4 days.

I'll likely take a down week this week to see how I feel and bounce back... It just sucks because I wanted to run the high mileage consistently

Sounds like you may have over estimated your fitness level for the Daniels workouts. Take a couple steps back and then build into the program. Dont run the workout times for what shape you want to be in, run them at your current fitness level.

It sounds like you are racing your workouts. You shouldn't have to hold on to finish a threshold run. I would consider significantly lowering the intensity of your workouts.

I'd say cut your mileage in half for 2-3 days and skip a workout and instead just run easy. See how you feel after that. I had to do the same thing last week as I wasn't recovering properly given the stress in my life. Anyway, I felt much better after that minor rest.

I think this could definitely be part of the problem - I usually hold on for dear life when I run threshold/interval repeats. I think part of it is also because I'm scared that I don't push myself hard enough so I end up going over the edge

I think i'll probably take a down week of 60 miles or so with no workouts then go immediately back to my training load with more modest paces.

But could running too fast be impeding recovery? I thought pushing yourself in workouts is a good thing?

Yes, running your workout sessions at 100% effort will impede your progress and recovery. If you are running your LT workouts at VO2 max pace, you won't improve you LT, and the workout will be so difficult you need 2-3 days of full rest to recover. But you are putting in high milage so you never fully recover between workouts.

Take a down week with no workouts or long runs, then restart workouts at a reduced intensity. You should always feel like you could do one more interval, mile, etc. when you are done with a workout. Save your 100% efforts for race day.

Marathondude1111 wrote:

I don't know how easy it is to overtrain but basically I've been running big mileage for about 15 weeks then jumped straight into a Daniels plan.

4 weeks in my paces are slowly regressing - my threshold pace is getting a bit worst but it may be because these workouts are really draining.

Thoughts? I haven't been injured/sick at all. Some nagging pains here and there but they went away for the most part since I started taking my easy days really slow about 2 weeks ago

Not everyone is designed to run a marathon. Or a 100m.

Even if you want to run one, it may not be for you. Should have started on the half marathons.