Boston Training Week 6: Confessions of the Overtrained

by Carissa

I have a problem.  I am six weeks into my training plan for Boston and I’m beat.  This week was a recovery week where my mileage dropped down.  In theory it would give my body a chance to recover before I ramp up for the next couple weeks of training.  However, I don’t feel recovered.  I came out of week five with an unhappy calf and foot.  I ran nice and slow this week hoping the aches and pains would go away.  They are better but my body might not be ready for the 50 mile training week that’s up next.  

Six weeks of training all checked off

In addition to my leg not being 100% my schedule is wearing on me.  Last spring I trained for Eugene Marathon using a schedule with the same amount of peak training miles.  It was challenging but doable.  I ran but I didn’t do any cross training.  I didn’t do core work.  I didn’t do weight training.  I know these things are important for running strong but I did not feel like I could squeeze them in.  

After the marathon I finally established the habit of strengthening my core. I added strength training twice a week.  I added swimming twice a week.  Six weeks ago I added a marathon training schedule from the book Advanced Marathoning.  I tried for several weeks to keep up with it all.  I added too much.

What do you do when the training schedule you’re using turns out to be too much?  I am used to choosing hard.  It’s my personality.  I’m convinced it’s part of what makes me successful as a runner.  It’s why I’ve seen three years of racing and one personal record after the other.  Something being hard isn’t an excuse to not do it.  I’m training for a marathon.  It’s supposed to be hard.  I’m supposed to be tired.  I expect all this and yet something wasn't right.

I’m so bullheaded that sometimes I get lost in the details and miss the big picture.  In a moment of clarity I realized a whole list of things I was missing.  I was so busy ticking off everything on my schedule that I missed the fact that my recovery days weren’t light enough to allow me to recover.  I wasn’t doing as much as other friends training for a marathon but I missed how uniquely different we all are. I was focused on running speed work strong and I missed that I was trying too hard.  My training was feeling like a burden instead of something that adds to my life in a positive way.  I knew something was wrong when I found myself wishing I had never signed up for the Boston Marathon.

No need to be training for a triathlon AND Boston at the same time!

Once I started focusing on the big picture I could address what to do about the details that weren’t helping me arrive at the big picture.  Could I use a different training plan?  Do I need to swim twice a week?  Do I need to do core work and strength training?  All of these aspects of my training are good but when combined they aren’t working for me.   I need to be in tune with what is giving me energy and what is putting me over the edge.    I must train smart with purpose and stay within a reasonable level of effort.  I need to run hard enough to improve but not so hard that I injure myself or overtrain.

Have you ever found yourself overtraining?  This is an actual condition.  It is counterproductive to your progress and can happen to us recreational athletes too.  Here is a Runner's World article on the subject.  I don't think I meet the criteria in the article, but it did give me pause to reconsider how the amount of training I'm doing is making me feel.

Those are my confessions.  I’m going to start fresh and try again. My plan will be to strip away all of the extra stuff and only add it if I feel like I have the energy to spare.  I will be tempted to keep checking off my boxes and doing it all.  But for the sake of enjoying this process,  I must keep my eye on the bigger picture.  You’ll help me do this won’t you Sole Sisters?