You, too, have the kind of drive that leads to over training syndrome. You don’t know when to back off either.
Sounds like you might be headed for a relapse or something more serious!
The rule of thumb is if it the infection is above the neck you can keep training, but if it is below the neck (respiratory, etc.) you need to stop training/racing and permit your body to fight the infection without interference from stressing the body with training/racing/recovery. This (training/racing/recovery) takes away (significantly) from the body’s ability to fight the infection (even if you are on antibiotics). The antibiotics are just an outside effort to help give the body a chance to get the upper hand in its effort to fight the infection.
Not backing off when you have an infection below the neck can lead to some pretty serious health consequences which can include permanently diminishing your athletic output and/or congestive heart failure.
Now you may feel (fine?) cause you got through your 6 hr bike and your 2.5 hr run okay (because you were on antibiotics) but you were riding the Triple Bypass and just having a “little trouble” keeping up when you were diagnosed. This is the same way those serious health consequences begin when you don’t back off when you are sick. You diminish your body’s ability to fight the infection and can enable the infection to gather enough strength (weaken the body’s response by training) to become resistant to the antibiotic. Then the infection gets the upper hand and getting something even stronger to lick the infection becomes that much harder besides the fact that the infection has the opportunity to grow stronger and impact your health more significantly (make you more seriously ill).
If things do go south however, you can get the opportunity to pick out a new heart (transplant) or a coffin instead of a new bike! Anyway, good luck getting well.
The blood lab test will be helpful.
My rule is to double the amount of time it takes for the symptoms to disappear. Symptom cessation is an indication that your systems are returning to normal. The second period is to allow the body to fully establish this “normal” condition.
Good luck.
All this just happened (at least the Dr. appt) on Monday. The az$%@#$%@#$% (I forget the name) was done yesterday. Dr. didn’t say anything about resting, but he did mention to keep a normal schedule (I suppose the Dr. isn’t aware of what a “normal” Ironman training schedule might be).
I’m going back on Tues and will ask…just interesting timing of the post. I just wondering how long this has been lingering on? Seriously, I was getting used to chucking green stuff, so I never really thought it was anything other than allergies and a long standing cold.
“It’s virtually impossible for an age-group athlete to suffer from overtraining syndrome. You might feel tired, fed up, lethargic, etc, but the bottom line is that the description that the OP gives is not of overtraining.”
I realized when I posted that the term “overtraining” has been used (abused?) to refer to a variety of conditions, and that what I’m going through is not what an elite or pro athlete experiences. I guess I resorted to the term because a) my overt symptoms do seem to line up pretty well with those described in articles on the topic, and b) I thought it would attract more attention than using an alternative like “non-functional overreaching”.
“If you’re goal is to be a recreational athlete, no problem there, just accept what your goals and level of commitment are.”
As far as what my goals are - at this point, I would just like to be able to train in a structured manner and make progress without experiencing these symptoms. If I need to make adjustments in diet or other “lifestyle” changes to achieve that, fine. If it turns out that I’m better suited to a shorter distance than IM, fine. But, if for whatever reason, it turns out that I have to accept the symptoms as a side effect of training - then I think right now I would rather give up training than live with the symptoms. It’s not worth feeling like crap for one week every month or two just so that I can continue to train. (It’s not just me who’s affected by the symptoms - it’s also family, friends, coworkers.)
“…it’s a simple problem to solve. Take a break. It can last 3 weeks, 3 months or 3 years.”
Yup, I pretty much knew the first part of the answer. It was the second part I was hoping to get some ideas on when I posted at the moment, I’m leaning towards at least a 3 week break and trying to ease back into training more slowly this time - perhaps sticking to swimming and cycling at first.
Hello to all,
I am from Croatia, and I am not so good in english.
I also experienced owertraining, and I am still in the hole.
All my test are good ( blood, endocrinology, hearth, lungs ) but I still have dizziness. They are smaller than before but they are still here, and that is scaring me. I took 3 mounts off hard workouts.
Redserotta, how long did you have dizzies and do you use some supplements to speed up the recovery process. Because I have same symptoms like you.
. It’s virtually impossible for an age-group athlete to suffer from overtraining syndrome.
The OP may or may not have overtraining, but it’s a myth that only “elite” athletes get overtraining.
Overtraining is, roughly speaking, caused when acute training load significantly exceeds chronic training load for a long period of time. It’s the difference between the two. It probably also correlates to total training load somewhat, as there’s an upper limit to the total stress a body can take, but I think it’s kind of a dangerous fallacy to poo-poo people who aren’t “elite” as just being “tired.” If someone’s hormone systems are all screwed up, it can be serious, and they need to deal with it properly.
at the moment, I’m leaning towards at least a 3 week break and trying to ease back into training more slowly this time - perhaps sticking to swimming and cycling at first.