Officially overtrained, but not hanging up my tights yet
Overtraining is not a myth. There comes a time when runners put on too much mileage or don’t add enough recovery time (and techniques) into their schedule.
Overtraining, as a result, is a physical and psychological condition that makes going to the dentist look like a party.
As some of you know, I have been begun training for two half marathons this year, and I have run a good set of miles in the streets of Berlin. It is in this way that I have learned how little foot and car traffic exists in this city. The longest run I have done has been 8 miles. Up until then, I have felt like I have been floating on a cloud. Running this much has really centered me.
This week, however, the hard work I have been asking my body to do caught up with me. I think the five miler I did from the Wedding U-Bahn station in 14 degree weather made my system snap. When I started that run, I knew my body was going to put up a fight. Somehow, I got through it okay, and I did not lose a toe to frostbite. But afterward, things started falling apart. Now I’m fighting congestion, elevated heart rate (SCARY, SCARY, PUMP, PUMP! Isn’t running so FUN??), weird sleep patterns, aches and an overall sense of malaise.
Here’s what overtrained looks like. Yellow alert face, mouth and eyes pressed into the neat circles of the classic :0 emoticon.
I feel like crap, I’m sore, and yet, there is an urge inside, dressed up like an insidious little gnome, that wants me to run those nine miles on Sunday. Maybe that little gnome is what I look like in my CW-X gear, plodding along Mitte on a Sunday morning. Of course, my own visualization techniques make me think I look like Carl Lewis, but just don’t tell Carl Lewis. My little gnome self is saying, ”Come on Cesar, you can push it, you can do those nine miles even though you’re just steps away from an actual injury…”
I am not going to do it.
In blog life, I try to make sure that I don’t whine, and I want to be clear here: I am not complaining about being overtrained. In fact, it makes me realize how hard I am focusing on my goal. And as I get older, I realize that the way to reach many goals is by knowing when to rest the body and the brain in order to take the next step to get there.
Addressing overtraining can be accomplished by cutting back intensity and volume, or by taking time off. So, now that I know I won’t be running nine miles, I do plan to sleep long, lower my stress levels, rest my legs, and enjoy my time spent with loved ones in this great city of Berlin. You will catch me at the kino instead of the roads, and what great timing: the high will be 9 degrees Fahrenheit Sunday. If I wake up on that morning feeling like a champ, I may run a 3-miler. If I don’t run at al, it’s no problem, because the goals are in my sights.
If I scale back and rest like a pro, I will run like a pro.
