OVERTRAINING SYNDROME

Last week I dropped out of the first race that I have every entered. It was a 10 mile race staring at 7:45am in Battersea Park which I was treating as a tempo run. Through 5 miles I felt alright, not moving great, tight hamstrings but matching stride for stride with a good runner from Belgrave Harriers. A mile and a half later I just stopped… I had had enough…

Was it the early start, lack of breakfast and warm up time, heavy training load over the last few weeks, or was it the idea of running another 2 and a half laps around a park circuit that I have done a hundred times and suffered so much in the process.

Earlier in the week I stopped during another tempo run – I had had a very tough few days training and realised that I was working too hard for the pace so just jogged in the final few miles. Is this experience coming into play or am I getting mentally weaker?

Overtraining syndrome has been researched extensively in runners – increase in quantity, quality, stress not enough sleep are all to blame. It affects every runner in a different way and can play havoc to a training programme and race results.

Chronic fatigue is the general side effect of over training, the effect on the body are clear but to me it’s the mind that can be just as easily effected by this. Due to the nature of the Road to Beijing project I feel that I have been on the precipice of overtraining since I started running in January 2006.

Looking through my old training logs in the 18 week build up to the Paris Marathon it amazed me that I could handle the work load then. Some weeks I was running 2 track, 2 tempo, 1 hill session and a 25 mile long run. What’s interesting is that my minds motivation to reach the target for the Marathon blocked out the body’s fatigue.

One of my best results the Wokingham half marathon (1:15:23) came after a period of overtraining. On the Thursday evening down the track I ran 3 x 1 mile – 5:30, 5:42, 6:10 collapsing exhausted afterwards. This should not have been that tough a session but on the 3km jog back home I noted in my log that I cried due to being so tired.

What I have learnt from looking back through the old log is that you can get away with overtraining for a short period of time but over a sustained period it will come back and hit you hard.

A few days of easy running/rest should do it… I hope…