I’m doing Ironman Austria on July 1st as my first Ironman. For my weekend training sessions, my bike workouts are in the range of 120km to 140km with a race like effort. Run workouts for Sundays are about 20 to 25km. Weekday training sessions usually consists of an hour of swim, bike, run or strength training in the gym.
I work in an IT consulting firm and there are numerous deadlines and I often work late and bring my work home. I’ve been feeling under the sun recently and have been very lethargic. I dont really feel motivated to go for my workouts and just wanna rest and bum around. Is this a sign of burn out? I swim with a coach and he noticed that I’ve been very tired recently and told me to rest for a week. He told me to continue my workouts but make sure they are at an easy pace. My coach mentioned that with my current fitness, I can definitely complete my first Ironman. He told me to watch when I peak in my fitness.
Is this a sign of burn out?
What should I do right now with only 12 weeks away from my first Ironman?
No where near enough info. here on which to make an analysis. Maybe you peaked early? Take a look back at training logs to see if you weren’t leaving enough in the tank. Maybe you’ve got a cold? Maybe your weekly regimen is just too tough? Working late will hurt recovery.
12 weeks out? Take a mid-season break and DO NOT come back to triathlon until you really want to. Even with IM training, you should pretty much look forward to 90% of the workouts.
Ditch some of the daily workouts, only do a single long workout on the weekend, go longer and easier on the single weekday workout. You can get away with doing the long workout every other weekend.
With 12 weeks out, you can take four, five days off without impacting substantially your training, especially if it refuels the mental gas tank. Also, you should mini-periodize your training weeks: easy week - medium week - hard week.
Throw in some cross training to substitute some workouts. Hiking. Mountainbiking. Outdoor swimming.
Homie will assume that since your race is on July 1, you have been training non - stop since Jan 1 as a part of a New Years Resolution = 6 months.
I think it is a good idea for you to take an entire week off for complete rest. The week off means precisely that: Do Nothing. Allow your body time to ‘re-set’ itself during this time and come back stronger.
If you over-train you might possibly DNF, if you under-train the worst thing might be that you are slower than shit. But if you balance both things against one another correctly, you might have the best race of your life.
all of what above said
+
when you come back
-lessen the intensity. My ironman is 2weeks after yours and I’ve been training since October and I dont feel an inch of burn out.
My intensity is only 10% of my total hrs of work out. For example this week I have a 15hrs worth of training, only 1.5hrs of that is intensity (10mins z4 hr in, 5x6mins z4 etc etc)
-train with time! 25km run may take you 2hrs+ but a 2hr run is 2hrs long!!! Same with biking, ramp up your time instead of distance. What I do is I set a goal for the time given. Say for a 4hrs ride Ill try to reach 110km. If you bike 140km it may take you 5hrs on somedays (weather condition) but if your work out is a 4hr ride, your work out is 4hrs long!!!
-listen to your body! If pain, discomfort etc etc sets in its better to set back for a day than set back for days! One of the tri seminar I attended couple weeks ago about nutrition was if your thinking about negative thoughts, your nutrition is probably not bang on! So I guess this applies to your well being. If you dont have the energy maybe you need the rest! or you need to eat more!
All in all with the things I mentioned I guess the top 2 had a great effect in me. The hrs may sound short and not enough, but I come off the bike craving to do more and I look forward to my work out the next day.
This is what I found that helped me. I hope itll helps you!
i think that “burnout” and “overtrained” are often just excuses for finding out that swimming, biking, and running 12 - 20 hours a week on top of working 40 plus hours a week and trying to have some kind of social life is not always as fun as it sounds as it did at the time of signing up for the ironman, you either like it or you dont, not saying this is the case with you, but based on what i have read in many of these types of posts, thats what it seems like
.
i think that “burnout” and “overtrained” are often just excuses for finding out that swimming, biking, and running 12 - 20 hours a week on top of working 40 plus hours a week and trying to have some kind of social life is not always as fun as it sounds as it did at the time of signing up for the ironman, you either like it or you dont, not saying this is the case with you, but based on what i have read in many of these types of posts, thats what it seems like
Maybe for some, but I don’t think that’s the case for most (particularly at this place). Training for an IM last year, I was making myself sick on occasion and had to take days off work here and there. I was exhausted more often than not, irritable, etc. My body just wasn’t able to handle it. This year I’m only doing shorter races, but spending as much time if not more training. My body can handle it now, and I feel pretty good most of the time.
12 weeks out is not a bad time to be recognizing overtraining like this. You’ve got plenty of time to rest (just take the entire week off, no workouts, you won’t lose any fitness) and get back in to it for a well-timed peak. I peaked a month ahead of my IM and that just sucked.
As others have said, taking a few days of rest will be helpful. This far out from an IM, a few extra days off will not impact your race day performance. If you are over-reaching, then it will probably make your race better since you will be hitting the correct intensity in all your workouts instead of struggling through.
Also it’s worth keeping in mind that stress on your body is still stress. Whether it comes from training, work, family, etc. you still need to allow your body to recover and adapt to the stresses placed upon it regardless of the source.
I know this will seem like a crazy suggestion, but if you can put a limit on when you go to bed and make sure you get enough sleep.
regardless of work or whatever else. if you don’t give your body enough time to recover from prior workouts, you will get that burned out feeling.
I’m in IT as well, and for my first IM, I had to cut out those late nights. That was killing me. Good luck !!
I remember feeling this way last year. Back off a little for a week like others said but you also have to recognize that this might be a mental barrier. You need to fight through those barriers to make it through the barriers you’ll face on race day.
I would also like to add that a full week of rest = 7 days does not need to be a waste of time. It is a time when one can focus on other important things that are related to IM Training.
Such as a week of rest and really focusing on quality nutrition. Taking your bike in for a tune-up. Buy some new gear. Coordinating the travel/logistics to the IM race, planning out your remaining training and details of your C and B races. And spending more time reading Slowtwitch. Taking care of these things during the rest period allows for greater focus on the remaining 12 weeks of traning.
Well, I had a real easy week and I skipped my long bike session this weekend. I ran this morning and I was 4 mins faster for my usual 16 mile run. I believe this could be attributed to my fresher legs as I did not bike on Sat. I went for a message therapy session on Saturday to rejuvenate my body
After a week of easy training, I feel a little fresher now and look forward to the next stage of my training. It’s only 11 weeks of training more. You guys are right, I believe my lack of motivation for training for my first Ironman season could be as follows:
Lack of a mid season break
A mental barrier as I’ve never had such a long training season before. I used to train for about 12 weeks for half Ironman distances and I’ve been training since December.
Without knowing your responsibilities at work, I’d look into solutions to even out the work stress: delegation of responsibilities, more shorter duration workouts instead of 1 longer so you don’t feel like you’re sacrificing sleep to get get a workout in, shifting workout intensities to correlate to project plan (easier intensities during sprints or surges), bike to work, etc.