I was going to post this in the regular thread, but was afraid I'd get flamed for who knows what, so I will come to the nice womens for some help!
I think I may be officially overtrained, or officially broken down, or whatever you want to call it. I'm sitting here looking back over the past 3.5 years and am realizing I haven't really taken any real time off. When I first think about it though, I've never trained at a high volume, so I wouldn't think I'd have any issues.
Quick (or not so quick) history:
Early 2005: Houston/Austin marathons
Spring 2005: work sucked, barely worked out, could not run 3 miles in mid-May, swore I'd never lose that base again
Summer 05: began marathon training again, sprint tris through the summer
Dec 05: Sunmart 50k
Jan 06: Houston Marathon
May 06: Gulf Coast 1/2 Ironman
Summer 06: various sprints
Oct 06: Ironstar 1/2 Ironman
Dec 06: Sunmart 50k
Jan 07: Houston Marathon
Feb 07: Austin 1/2 Marathon
Apr 07: IMAZ
May-Sept 07: lots of shorter races
Oct 07: Chicago Marathon, Ironstar 1/2 Marathon
Dec 07: Sunmart 50k
Jan 08: Houston Marathon
Feb 08: Austin 1/2 Marathon
Apr 08: IMAZ
May 08: Gulf Coat 1/2 Ironman
Jun-Jul 08: sprint tris
Aug 08: Barb's Race 1/2 Ironman (I really didn't so much bike/swim train for this one...last minute excuse for wine country vacation)
Oct 08: St. George Marathon
Houston 08 was my "breakthrough" marathon, lowering my PR from 5:12 to 4:30. I PR'd in 95% of the races I did from Sept 07-Jul 08. I was training to do a 4:15 at St. George this fall and trained more for that marathon than any of my previous ones, but still with mileage averaging 35-40 miles a week, nothing huge. I also pretty much dropped all swimming and biking after Barb's race in August. St. George didn't go as well as I was hoping (4:28) and I never felt completely rested with my taper heading into the race.
It has now been a month since the race and I have run/walked 40 total miles since then. I've been having some awful heart rate days where it is running over 190 for what is supposed to be a very easy run. I hit 197 on an 8 mile run weekend before last where I averaged over 11:00 min/mile pace (last 3 miles were just under 10:00 pace). I think my resting HR has been running high, but I had not been actively measuring it before all of this, unfortunately.
I've had high HR issues since I started all of this, but it has been even more exaggerated in the past few months. I was diagnosed with asthma in August and am now on symbacort and some allergy meds. I don't think the meds are solely responsible for the increased HR though because my HR was high before going on the meds. (went to the cardiologist on the recommendation my asthma dr. and my ekg and stress test all came back normal even though the lady stopped my stress test when my hr was 196 saying that my max should be 193 (220-my age)...I wasn't too happy with her, and I was barely breaking a sweat at that point, but that is a different story).
I guess my overall question is what to do from here. I'm signed up to do the 50k again in December and the marathon in January. I can let the 50k go (after many tears...this is really really hard for me to accept at this point), but I really, really don't want to have to let the marathon go to. My bestfriend of 26 years is coming from CA to run her first marathon and we have been planning to run it together (if I can even keep up...she's proving to be quite the runner). After that, I'm signed up for CDA and FL next year. Obviously I need to figure out what is going on with my body now, not in 6 months when it is too late, but I just don't know what to do. Sit on my butt for a month and do absolutely nothing? Limit all my runs to 3-6 miles and try to stay below x heart rate? Drop running for a bit and go back to biking and swimming and add in some yoga, pilates, etc?
I have been "on" for so long now and had the best year ever from about Sept 07 through summer 08. I had a 42 minute marathon PR, 25 minute 1/2 PR, 4 minute 5k PR, 5 minute 10k pr, 50 minute IM pr, 15 minute HIM pr...well, you get the idea. But I feel like it is all gone now. I tried to run a 5k two weeks after the St. George marathon and literally ran 5 minutes slower than my PR and that was absolutely all I had that day (for comparison I ran a 1:57 half marathon two weeks after the Houston marathon in January...my pace for the half was faster than my pace for that awful 5k a few weeks ago).
Sorry this is so long, but I'm having a very hard time trying to figure out what I should do from here. "Rest" doesn't tell me enough. How much rest, how much activity, for how long, and how will I know that I might be out of the woods?
Thanks ahead of time for anyone who may have any insight!
_________________________________________
Kathleen
http://kcwoodhead.blogspot.com/
I think I may be officially overtrained, or officially broken down, or whatever you want to call it. I'm sitting here looking back over the past 3.5 years and am realizing I haven't really taken any real time off. When I first think about it though, I've never trained at a high volume, so I wouldn't think I'd have any issues.
Quick (or not so quick) history:
Early 2005: Houston/Austin marathons
Spring 2005: work sucked, barely worked out, could not run 3 miles in mid-May, swore I'd never lose that base again
Summer 05: began marathon training again, sprint tris through the summer
Dec 05: Sunmart 50k
Jan 06: Houston Marathon
May 06: Gulf Coast 1/2 Ironman
Summer 06: various sprints
Oct 06: Ironstar 1/2 Ironman
Dec 06: Sunmart 50k
Jan 07: Houston Marathon
Feb 07: Austin 1/2 Marathon
Apr 07: IMAZ
May-Sept 07: lots of shorter races
Oct 07: Chicago Marathon, Ironstar 1/2 Marathon
Dec 07: Sunmart 50k
Jan 08: Houston Marathon
Feb 08: Austin 1/2 Marathon
Apr 08: IMAZ
May 08: Gulf Coat 1/2 Ironman
Jun-Jul 08: sprint tris
Aug 08: Barb's Race 1/2 Ironman (I really didn't so much bike/swim train for this one...last minute excuse for wine country vacation)
Oct 08: St. George Marathon
Houston 08 was my "breakthrough" marathon, lowering my PR from 5:12 to 4:30. I PR'd in 95% of the races I did from Sept 07-Jul 08. I was training to do a 4:15 at St. George this fall and trained more for that marathon than any of my previous ones, but still with mileage averaging 35-40 miles a week, nothing huge. I also pretty much dropped all swimming and biking after Barb's race in August. St. George didn't go as well as I was hoping (4:28) and I never felt completely rested with my taper heading into the race.
It has now been a month since the race and I have run/walked 40 total miles since then. I've been having some awful heart rate days where it is running over 190 for what is supposed to be a very easy run. I hit 197 on an 8 mile run weekend before last where I averaged over 11:00 min/mile pace (last 3 miles were just under 10:00 pace). I think my resting HR has been running high, but I had not been actively measuring it before all of this, unfortunately.
I've had high HR issues since I started all of this, but it has been even more exaggerated in the past few months. I was diagnosed with asthma in August and am now on symbacort and some allergy meds. I don't think the meds are solely responsible for the increased HR though because my HR was high before going on the meds. (went to the cardiologist on the recommendation my asthma dr. and my ekg and stress test all came back normal even though the lady stopped my stress test when my hr was 196 saying that my max should be 193 (220-my age)...I wasn't too happy with her, and I was barely breaking a sweat at that point, but that is a different story).
I guess my overall question is what to do from here. I'm signed up to do the 50k again in December and the marathon in January. I can let the 50k go (after many tears...this is really really hard for me to accept at this point), but I really, really don't want to have to let the marathon go to. My bestfriend of 26 years is coming from CA to run her first marathon and we have been planning to run it together (if I can even keep up...she's proving to be quite the runner). After that, I'm signed up for CDA and FL next year. Obviously I need to figure out what is going on with my body now, not in 6 months when it is too late, but I just don't know what to do. Sit on my butt for a month and do absolutely nothing? Limit all my runs to 3-6 miles and try to stay below x heart rate? Drop running for a bit and go back to biking and swimming and add in some yoga, pilates, etc?
I have been "on" for so long now and had the best year ever from about Sept 07 through summer 08. I had a 42 minute marathon PR, 25 minute 1/2 PR, 4 minute 5k PR, 5 minute 10k pr, 50 minute IM pr, 15 minute HIM pr...well, you get the idea. But I feel like it is all gone now. I tried to run a 5k two weeks after the St. George marathon and literally ran 5 minutes slower than my PR and that was absolutely all I had that day (for comparison I ran a 1:57 half marathon two weeks after the Houston marathon in January...my pace for the half was faster than my pace for that awful 5k a few weeks ago).
Sorry this is so long, but I'm having a very hard time trying to figure out what I should do from here. "Rest" doesn't tell me enough. How much rest, how much activity, for how long, and how will I know that I might be out of the woods?
Thanks ahead of time for anyone who may have any insight!
_________________________________________
Kathleen
http://kcwoodhead.blogspot.com/