What's wrong with me? Am I done? (LONG)

Triathlon Forum
1

I’m starting to have serious doubts about my fitness. Possibly my health too. I’m not sure.

The Interlochen Tri (great race BTW) is the latest in a series of personal worsts streching back all the way to last year’s Dexter-AA 1/2 marathon. I have noticed changes in my other sports too.

By personal worst i’m not talking about a few minutes here or there. I’m talking about 15 minutes to 1 hour slower than previous years, depending on the race length.

I’ll admit last year was not a good training year. I did run about 4-5 days a week, weightlifting too. But swimming and cycling was sporadic. it culminated at the Steelhead wich saw me finishing over 6:30 (1/2IM PB: 5:17) and being whisked to the hospital for bad dehydration.

That fall I moved and made a change. Since November I’ve been good about swimming and running regularly. I do about 150 miles a week on the bike give or take as well. Not as much weights, but oh well. But something is wrong.

This winter playing hockey, I noticed I was not the player I was the previous season. I’m a B league vet, and I was having some difficulties in C and D league games. My power and quickness weren’t there for me.

In gearing up for the spring, I added more intense running workouts. I did hills or was on the track at least once a week. I was also doing at least one hard ride and one long ride during the week as well.

This spring the DX-AA race saw me finishing in 1:57 (PB: 1:45). I had to stop numerous times to walk. and take in hydration. It was the hottest day up to that point, but everyone had to deal with those conditions same as I. Still, my worst time ever.

The AA tri wasn’t much better. After doing OK on the swim and bike, I quickly faded while running. I had to walk a few times (during a 5 mile run!)

The Interlochen Tri was more of the same. I had a good swim. Kinda disappointing bike, and then totally fell apart during the run. I walked most of it. Finished in 3:05 (Oly PB: 2:24). This is worse than my first Oly by about 15 minutes. Then, I had hardly been training enough at all.

As with the hockey, i’ve also noted a similar decline with soccer. I no longer have the speed I had a year ago. My ability to recover is not there anymore. I have to sub out alot more than I used to.

I have Steelhead coming up in a few weeks, and to be honest, I am dreading it. It’ll be my 4th time, but I’m scared of this one worse than I am my first 1/2IM.

I’m 31. Have I already gone over the cliff?

I’m starting to wonder about my health. Previous seasons have seen me finish at least one event with severe dehydration and heat exhaustion. I do what I can, but it’s in my nature to sweat tons. I do my best to limit my losses. But could last years incident at Steelhead have broken the camels back, so to speak? Did I finally damage something after repeatedly suffering from heat injuries?

Or could it be worse?

Has anyone had any experience with this sort of decline?

2

Sounds to me like you’re straight-up burned, bro. Take some time off. Do something different. Try learning a new skill, or pick up a non endurance based sport for a little while.

At 31, you’re hardly done. But it sounds like you need a break.

3

Don’t worry. All is not lost. you are not on a downhill slide. Hockey always suffers first. Your body changes shapes throughout your life. Endurance sports are NOT conduusive to good hockey. Your leg muscles are trying to redefine themselves for racing. Hockey does the opposite. This is also affecting your soccer play.

I played rugby for 8 years and hockey for 22 years before I found Triathlon. My legs have changed shape completely. The last time I laced up skates, I knew all of my power was gone. Don’t worry about it. If you want to play hockey the rest of your life, consider toning down the mileage on the bike and run. Same with soccer. Those are two fast-twitch power sports.

If your goals are more oriented towards Triathlon, consider a new hobby like rock climbing.

Jason

4

More details please…what is going in in your personal life? How much are you working? Are you feeling depressed too? Any major life changes, or even several small ones (besides moving)? Have you gained or lost any weight? Do your joints hurt? Any changes in diet?

5

REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST
REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST
REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST
REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST
REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST
REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST
REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST REST

Did I mention Rest?

6

I was thinking along the same lines, as well as chronic fatigue (it sometimes just shows up during high-level efforts).

7

One thing my 30’s have taught me is the importance of recovery. When I was in my 20’s, could train, party and race well. Now, I have to use my brain more. Periodization, training plan (short term, mid term & long term), nutrition, etc. All of it becomes increasingly important as we age.

HTH

Brett

8

Point taken about rest.

Sadly, with the way I was training last year, I was considering that rest. Maybe not. I was taking night classes most nights during the week, and consequently not training that much. Or doing much of anything in the evenings besides studying. I’m on hiatus until September.

Note: While I have been playing soccer on and off since I was 5, I got into hockey only 5 years ago. I’ve been doing tris and bike racing for more than 10.

Work is a drag, hence the night classes. Hours aren’t a prob.

Depression has been a companion for almost 10 years, probably more. Have medicated it in last 2 years. Off meds now. No probs so far. These race results are getting me down though.
(BTW: If you ever want some strange dreams you should try quitting SSRIs cold turkey. WOW!)

Diet’s been pretty const for awhile. I eat OK. Not great, but I minimize the junk.

I’ve been trying to lose the weight I put on last year (15 lbs extra), with very little sucess. It used to be that my excess baggage would be gone by july. Not the case this summer. It’s been very stubborn.

9

Dude, when you’re training sporadically, and beating yourself up about it, you aren’t taking a break from training. When you’re doing something else, and you’re resting, and you’re not thinking about training, THEN you can consider yourself taking a break from training.

Isaac Asimov called the trick or the ethos of resting the “eureka phenomenon” – you can look up the Archimedes reference if you want. The upshot is, that when this guy, a good scientist and a famous writer, felt his gears start to spin, he’d go watch a Marx Brothers movie. And he WOULD NOT think about the problem of physics or plot while he was in the movie theater. Then afterwards he would go back to work, and he usually got back to work with more energy.

I’d say, take a break, and REALLY take a break, and then start training again. If you’re an unrepentant type-A, then take up some crazy hard hobby or something for a year or six months or something, or landscape the shit out of your yard, or join a rock-climbing gym.

(By the way, I’d kill for your 1/2 PR, so while you rest, I’d say you can rest on some well-deserved laurels. But that’s just this pack-packer’s HO).

Cheers,

Andrew Moss

10

Hey Martytram

Your last post said it all 15lbs! Just that will slow you down by the times you stated. But go get a physical with some blood work no harm there! And as for not being able to lose the weight, well welcome to life after 30! I’m 47 now and you really have to work at it to get weight to come off. So try and not stress about it. I know it hard when you have PR’s you can’t get to right now, but 15 extra lbs will slow you down. Go see your doc get a clean bill of health and do long bike rides! I had a super year last year and not so super this year I know it sucks!

Ride hard and have fun!!!

Dan…

11

Yup. Been there. Sometimes you have to take time off, do different things and mentally and physically recharge.

There may be deep-seated physiological reasons for this. Scott Tinley and other top pros struggled with this. Additionally, remember that what we do is beastly hard, and no one can do it for long non-stop. No one.

It’s OK to take a season off.

12

There seems to be a common thread (HAHA! pun intended!) to the responses here.

You people seem to see something that’s right in front of me yet escapes my eyes. Thanks for the different perspectives.

Well, I have a commitment to do Steelhead and DWD. I’ll take stock of my present course then,

Thanks for the input, all.

13

Isn’t it obvious - go to a Dr. and find out? Maybe thyroid, maybe asthma (which doesn’t always manifest itself with shortness of breath or coughing) or maybe a reaction to the cold turkey jump off medication (what prompted that? Never medically advised). Is the smart thing to check first then rest, or rationalize or whatever?

(May be just the mom in me - last kid finally moved out and there is no one to tell - " button up your coat!" to now)

Feel better.

B

14

There are several possibilities and it is probably a little of each.

You might be sick so get checked out.

You’re loss of speed and explosive power may be due to changes in your training over time. Hockey and soccer demand very different conditioning than tris and long distance running so if you were training specifically for those sports then shifted to tri specific training, its not too suprising your sprinting performance is falling off.

You may have falling into the trap of over/“unsmart” training. A bad performance leads one to assume they need to up the training volume which leads to fatigue and another bad performance which leads to even more training until you end up so extremely fatigued that you are unable to reach a proper level of intensity in training which leads to even worse performances followed by even more training . . . . until your body takes over and stops the insanity by making you sick or you become too “unmotivated” to train or race any more.

It also seems you have an issue with heat. 15 pounds of extra weight will definitely change your performance in warm weather - that will really change your ability to keep yourself cool (don’t ask how I know this . . ). 15 pounds will also affect your acceleration on skates or the soccer field too.

15

I would not read too much into Interlochen times. The humidity was really bad. The winning time was about 15 minutes slower than last year and the run times were quite a bit slower (heat and humidity?) I do not know anyone who did not struggle there.

When I am feeling down and slow, I skip a couple of morning workouts and sleep in. I also like to go for fun and easy bike rides rather than long or fast rides. Get out your mountain or cross bike for a few days. Relax and have fun at Steelhead.

Gar Atchison

16

Your instincts are correct. The 15lbs is defintitely insulation I do not need. Also good reasons for my weaker accelerations.

I guess I’m trying to have my cake and eat it too. I love playing fast twitch sports like Hockey and soccer (some exphys experts might scoff at calling soccer fast twitch, but that’s another discussion), but it’s very diffucult to lose weight playing them. Hence endurance sports over the summer. Which I love too.

Since HS my overarching theme has always been to keep weight off. I need to keep active all year else I start resembling Jan Ullrich in his early season photos.

It has never really concerned me that my sporting interests might be mutually exclusive. I just accepted that they were and was happy to keep moving.

17

talk to a doc, a girl I know was really frustrated this year but found out that she had become borderline anemic and had a lovely parasite sucking up her energy. iron tablets and antibiotics later she’s stronger than ever…

18

There may be deep-seated physiological reasons for this. Scott Tinley and other top pros struggled with this.

Marathoner Alberto Salazar attributed his dramatic drop in speed and endurance to having numerous episodes of dehydration and heat exhaustion. It’s probably a good idea to get a medical workup.

19

I would try not to worry so much, it sounds like several factors are playing off of each other resulting in a cycle of fatigue and frustration. Go to your PCP and get checked out, if given a clean bill of health just step back for a couple of months and gradually resume training.

20

Anemia, Diabetes, thyroid dysfunction, malabsorption syndromes,

All possible reasons, all easily treated.

Get a blood panel

Good luck,

Pat