Okay, I need some advice from some serious runners, so I figured I would give you guys a shot. I was really looking to have a good season this year, and my training had been going perfectly up until about 3 weeks ago. I got my summer mileage up to 110 miles and then slowly began decreasing the mileage. Well my last four weeks of mileage were 90, 83, 70, 65 and this week (when I hope to have a good race) I am going to hit 60. Well anyway, about 2 weeks ago my legs just started to feel like crap. It felt like somebody beat my quads up with a baseball bat. And I was not eating, sleeping, etc. any different and I was doing way less mileage than I was before. So, I had a big race on Aug. 4th in Minneapolis and felt like crap and ran a 15:41 (I was hoping for sub-15). Finished way back. Then this last weekend I ran a local 4 mile race and finished second in 20:56 and felt horrible. I also started taking the Thursday before my Saturday race off, and it was my first off day in nearly 5 months. I really want to run fast this year and was wondering if anyone has been through this before and maybe could give some helpful advice. I trained harder and was doing workouts faster than I ever had and it all just fell apart. And please don't slam me for my times or my training. I try my best and work full time and do most of this on my own. Thanks for anything.
Any Advice?
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Without knowing all the details, this appears to be a text-book case of overtraining. Constant muscle soreness, Insomnia, Fatigue etc. are usually signs that you have overtrained and that your body needs some rest. I would suggest taking a few days off and perhaps getting your iron levels checked. BTW, has it been a hot summer in your part of the world? This may also be a factor.
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Good advice Hilly! hydration is a great factor also
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If you haven't done so recently, get your iron/ferritin levels checked. Anemia can really mess you up...
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I have a question for you DougC. If my iron/ferritin levels are low, does that mean that my season is over? Is this a problem that you can rectify quickly, or does it require significant down time and thus all of my hard training will be wasted?
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You have money in the bank that you can spend when you are
fresh. Ask a doctor to run a blood test on everything.
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How quickly you can recover from low iron levels may depend on the cause - for example, is it a lack of iron in the diet, or perhaps your diet is ok but your body is inefficient at absorbing iron?
First things first, get yourself checked out and then talk with your doctor about the treatment options. I had great success with a liquid supplement called Floradix (can be found in most health food stores). This stuff tastes like crap and made me sick to the stomach for the first few days, but it did a great job of getting my iron levels back up to par.
Hope this helps in some way.
Hilly
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Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV.
It depends when your season is... If you find that your ferritin levels are low, by taking 65mg of elemental iron twice a day you could be back to normal within 2 months... maybe sooner if your anemia isn't that serious. Don't take the iron without having your blood work checked first. Taking iron when you don't need it can be really bad for you and make you very sick. Hopefully kemibe or someone else who knows more about this will contribute to the thread.
DougC
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I agree with Doug Cross.
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