help on heavy legs please!!!

So your fitness /workout times are improving but your legs feel like crap...

Maybe take a week off of strength training. When I was in my best shape I used to lift 3x a week but every 5 weeks we would chill on lifting weights.

As long as there are no injurious aches or pains you might just be on a good role of cumulative fatigue from consistent training.

That coach needs to be replaced ASAP. Doing hard and long hill reps in high volume requires substantial recovery afterwards - 3-4 easy days MINIMUM for high schoolers. Instead, he prescribed not just another, grueling workout the day after, but even strength training on the same day!! Sorry, but most HS runners would just quit the team at that time. They would feel terrible, their legs are hurting and fatigued, and they think running is not fun anymore.

This coach seems to be a masochist, wanting to make his HS kids hurt because he thinks he needs to prepare you for the pain and suffering you will have to endure in races. He not just doesn't have much clue about how good training looks like, he is also abusing his position and manages to scare young, potentially talented kids of running. Talking to coaches like this is like talking to a brick wall - he thinks he is doing the right thing and won't change.

Recommendation is to just do the minimum for this coach/team (hold back in workouts), run some nice times to qualify to D1 or whatever your talent level is and get in a decent college. Follow the "external coach" who seems to have a good philosophy focused on long-term improvement in athletes and not on burning them out and making them hurt and chronically fatigued.

GL with your career, keep us up-to-date in a year or so!

Juice Springsteen wrote:

So your fitness /workout times are improving but your legs feel like crap...

Maybe take a week off of strength training. When I was in my best shape I used to lift 3x a week but every 5 weeks we would chill on lifting weights.

As long as there are no injurious aches or pains you might just be on a good role of cumulative fatigue from consistent training.

Agree. Sometimes you just end up tired. My suggestion is to skip lifting for a bit, skip the "rolling out" forever because it's a waste of time, Skip the band work unless you have a known issue requiring rehab. Otherwise you should be good from lifting, depending on what you're doing.

Then just run 20-30 minutes a day very, very easy. You'll know that you're feeling better when the pace on the run drops a lot without you intending to do so. If you have trouble jogging, get one of your slow teammates to run with you, at her pace. She might be pleased to be able to help, and you might enjoy learning about running on a team.

Ferritin

Hey guys just wanted to update you all today. So last Friday I did a time trial just to see where I'm at and that day my legs felt sooo much better. After that time trial, I couldn't believe how good my legs felt so I did another 3 miles and still felt good. Today I just went on a 8 mile long run and my legs are back at it. Today was one of the best runs I've had in months. I was even going at a faster pace than usual but it felt like nothing and I was cruising. So I guess all I needed was just a wakeup call/reminder and the time trial helped me with that. :)

So, what do you think helped your legs start to feel better? Did you take a few days slow, etc?

fixed wrote:

So, what do you think helped your legs start to feel better? Did you take a few days slow, etc?

Honestly I didn't really do anything new. Just the usual of one day easy and the next day hard. I go easy on my easy days and hard on my hard days. So I really don't know what happened.

Get your iron checked.

trackislife12 wrote:

Get your iron checked.

A few months ago I did and had low iron. And since I have been taking iron supplements and upping my iron intake in everyday foods.