Faster. Took off from '93 to 95. I'm sure some of it was due to recovery, some of it due to learning my lesson and listening to my body and some of it I can't explain I'm sure. Training techniques were still highly primitive to what is available today in terms of knowledge, but I emerged from my hiatus a much stronger and faster athlete. I took off b/c of work constraints, but I was also a mess healthwise and full of injuries and pretty much had put racing on the back burner anyway.

Yes. I When I was doing bike racing in Europe as a junior and about to move up into the 'amateur' category (think cat 1/2 in the US) at age 19, I trained hard throughout the winter, raced on the track, and when we started out first group training rides I was really strong. That didn't last very long and the lack of recovery, the training stress, the high personal life stress and some other factors caused me to fall into a big hole. Essentially, at some point I could no longer ride a bike for more than a mile. My heart rate reserve had shrunk from about 155 beats to around 45.

Several months and doctors visits later I ended up at the Free University in Brussels with Prof. De Meirleir who told me I was so overtrained I was looking at a 3-4 year recovery. Since I just started college I said goodbye to my cycling career and focused on partying, drinking, smoking, getting fat and out of shape. I'd ride my bike occasionally but I could still feel it wasn't 'right' for a long time. I think about 3 years after I was diagnosed I started to feel better and picked up the training again little by little. At some point I started doing bike racing again (and did well considering the lack of financial means to support my sport) and later switched to triathlon.

I feel there wasn't any residual overtraining syndrome anymore after those first 3 years, and I got all my strength back. But I remain very cautious when I'm training now, I've seen the danger and I really focus on recovery now. If I start to struggle in training and think I need rest, I take rest. After my peak race every season (ironman) I'm always mentally and physically wiped out and take my time to recover. I don't try to maintain a steady level all year round - I have highs and lows. I think that's just how I work best and not a consequence of this serious overtraining, but it's ignoring that which caused me to get so overtrained.

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Don't forget to attack!

"Can anyone comment on their experiences of returning to training/completion after a recovery period of greater than 1 or 2 years. My specific question is whether or not you were able to return to the fitness/strength level that you were at prior to the onset of overtraining syndrome."

For a variety of reasons (mostly stupidity) I put myself in a hole so deep in 2007 where I went from racing Kona to not being able to run around the block for 20 mins with my son. Running seemed to hurt my bones almost. I took a complete break for 4 months doing zero activity at all and tried again with the same issues - couldn't turn a crank struggling on the smallest of hills, struggling to finish very very ez 20 to 30 min runs...by mid 2008 I was done. Did a ton of my own research and decided that a year or so out was the only way I was going to get through this. Full recovery to be able to do any consistant training physically ended up taking approximately 4 years....mentally I was never able to achieve the same level of desire I had back then....and i think more often than not if you look a pro's who seem to reach a peak for a few years (talking specifically ironman here), then seem to fall by the way side, the mental aspect of over training is greatly underestimated. Marky V went through very similar to myself at about the same time and would probably give you some good insite if you PM'd him.

Yeah, I have been exchanging PM's with Marky V. I know he is at 4 years and was hoping he may have been an outlier. That is one heck of a long time.

Today this came across on my facebook feed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23895706
It was shared by a multivitamin brand, so obviously this is in their interest and I'm not knowledge enough to interpret the study apart from the conclusion.
I would wait for someone on ST more knowledgeable than me to interpret this and to check if the conclusion is valid :)

unfortunately if you are in that deep of a hole it is a 3 to 4 year process and not much you can do to shorten that up - and as i said the bigger issue i had once i was physically recovered was the mental aspect. Good luck in your recovery...

Would you say that the mental aspect is being afraid to push yourself in training for fear of a relapse?

a combination of that along with a lack of desire and focus. Initially i was laser focused in getting back to that level however after 2 odd years the fire started going out a little - by the time i was good to go physically again, mentally i just coudn't find the focus i had before

That will undoubtedly be the case since you've been in a hole for a long time and every attempt to get better failed at first. So it is hard to stay positive and expect a different outcome. As soon as something doesn't feel good you may fear you're going back into the deep end, and it takes a while to get out of that uncertainty and understand where you are and how hard you can push yourself. The mental part sucks balls.

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Don't forget to attack!

Thanks for all the feedback guys.