There have been a few posts in the last week or so about being exhausted - sometimes taking days off, sometimes training through.
My coach - for whom I have a lot of respect - says this: Ironman training is overtraining, for sure. When I follow her program 100% (which honestly, almost never happens), I’m pretty much walking dead. But it is improving my times.
Just wondered what other folks thought about this. I’ve never really trained for anything other than long distance. Do the spring/olympic folks have the same kind of fatigue? Is the “overtraining” approach too much? I figure as long as I don’t get sick or injured, I can live with the overtrained feeling for short durations.
Ironman training is overtraining, for sure. When I follow her program 100% (which honestly, almost never happens), I’m pretty much walking dead.<<
I’m finding just the opposite. I’ve almost doubled my average hours/week and I have tons more energy and wake up prior to the alarm every morning. I feel so amazing it’s a little disconcerting. I’ve also found that as my hours ramp up, my nutrition has gotten a lot better. I’m craving good foods and not a bunch of crap/processed food.
That is excellent! I have to say that in general, I feel better the more I exercise, as in if I get up and swim in the morning, I’m more inclined to eat a very healthy lunch and then be itching to get out the door for a bike in the afternoon. So I can relate. But - man, when I’m really cranking on this stuff, I get sooo tired. This spring, I’ve been trying to increase my sleep to 9 hours a night if I can swing it, and that has helped a ton. I’ve also decreased my social life considerably, which leaves more downtime and rejuvenation time I think. How much sleep/training are you averaging when you’re feeling great?
Nearly 17 hours training last week. To bed every night around 10:00, no later than 10:30 and up at 5:00 AM.
Social life? Generally tri-related, but dinner once a week with a “normal” (non-tri) person. What also has helped is it’s now not my crazed time of the year at work. Hopefully all these good habits will carry in to the fall/winter when I’m much busier at work.
I think that thing that you post points out, is that everyone is different. Everyone adapts to, absorbs, breaksdown , and recovers from training slightly differently. That’s why it is somewhat dangerous to take that one week snap-shot of someone’s training.
I trained/raced seriously for years, but I knew that my time in the sun was over when my son was born 6 years ago. There was no way that, I could keep up what I was doing AND be the parent that I wanted to be. That’s not to say that others can’t, but I knew that I was no get-up-at-4:30-in-the-morning type. Honestly, I am in total awe of these folks that can combine IM distance training(10+ hours w week), Parental and family responsibilities and a succesful career. My hat is off!
I thought Ironman was an excuse for overtraining. It justifies all the training if you are addicted to training. This year, I am only training for half Ironman and Olympic tri and I am down to the “healthy” 2 hours per day average (i.e. 14 per week) vs the “unhealthy” 3 hours per day average (>20 hrs per week). I feel more rested at all times, don’t have to cram workouts in and get more sleep as I don’t have to find an extra hour a day to train at the expense of sleep. Granted, 14 hours per week is a lot, but much easier than 20.
Last week actually ended up at 17 hours mainly cause of a longer 4.5 hour ride on the weekend (originally planned at 4 hours, but 30 min slower due to rain and wind). Either way, I have more energy for each workout and for life in general (family and work) than when I was training for Ironman.
In three weeks I’ll also have to add 4 hours of coaching my son’s soccer team on top of the tri training, so I’ll likely reduce my tri hours somewhat !