How to Tell if You’re Overtraining

Audio Transcript

Coach Dylan: Hey Runners Connect fans and friends. Welcome to another episode of Run to the Top Extra Kick podcast.

Today we have a great question from Ryan.

Ryan: I had a very off day. My pace was off, heart rate was elevated, and overall, I just had a sluggish day. What could be the reason for this?

Dylan: Ryan, that’s a fantastic question. This is certainly something that we all experience, at one point or another.

What you may be experiencing is what we consider overtraining. Now when I say overtraining, there’s no reason for you to get overly concerned at this moment.

You’re experiencing an acute bout of overtraining. It can be caused by many things, for example, an increase in your workload, your volume, the frequency of your runs, and your intensity.

You could also be overtraining in your life.

You could be working hard, or you could have had a really stressful day with a lot of anxiety. It could be caused by not getting enough sleep at night.

Just a few days of not getting enough sleep can make you feel pretty sluggish on runs and definitely have that heart rate elevated.

Maybe you have to take care of somebody; maybe you have children.

These are all great reasons of why we tend to feel a little bit more stressed out sometimes other than others.

What’s really going on is that we’re experiencing an increased stress response, which could be an increased training response.

This is usually not something to really be overly concerned about.

What you should focus on right now, is make sure that you’re getting enough sleep at night, eating well, hydrating well, and if you don’t keep a log, I would suggest start keeping a log on all of your runs and know how you felt that day.

That way, over a week’s time or a month or a training year, you can look back and reflect and see where you were, and maybe what caused something or maybe something that you could change in the future.

These are all great reasons why a journal would be great to keep during training period.

The more aware we are of our body and the better we understand our training plan, the better training we can have.

At the moment, I would just call this an acute response to your training or to your life. These are questions that you must keep asking yourself.

Some other factors that may relate to feeling this way, and these are a bit rarer, so keep in mind that it’s best not to jump to conclusions, but when things are happening a lot and over a lot of time, it could be chronic overtraining disorder and I’ve had so much experience with this.

I was a serious over trainer when I was in high school.

In my first two years of college, I drove myself into the ground many times and I had to take months off, at times, due to injury, overwhelming fatigue, running too much, and having elevated stress level when it comes to running.

It’s best to find something that you can de stress from, even if it’s acute or if it’s chronic.

You still need to find an outlet – a way that you can relax and recover from your runs and life stresses.

To get back on topic, a couple other causes that are a bit rarer occasion would be low iron.

While this is not extremely common in runners, it’s good to get checkups every six months to a year, to ensure that your iron levels, as well as your vitamin levels in your blood are healthy.

A lot of times people have low Vitamin D or B12 in their body.

These help with energy metabolism. They allow us to feel more awake, alive, energetic, and this relates to running as well.

Obviously with low iron, you won’t have enough red blood cells in your system.

If this is a reoccurring feeling and you’re feeling this for more than a week or two weeks at a time, maybe it’s a good time to go to the doctor and get your levels checked.

You need to focus on your nutrition and make sure that you’re getting all the vitamins and minerals and that you are eating healthy.

Focus on getting high energy foods.

Stay away from processed foods and foods that contain a lot of sugars and oils.

These are all going to affect our recovery and they increase our stress response in our bodies.

The less stress we can make our body and the healthier we can put stuff in our bodies, then the better we are going to recover and be prepared the next day or the next week.

While these are a few common reasons, maybe you’re asking what should I do now?

The first thing you should do is focus on recovery. Monitor your next few runs, and see how you’re feeling.

Write everything down.

If you’re improving, you can continue training back normally, but I would suggest taking at least a day off and maybe a couple days really easy, if it continues to be overwhelming fatigue.

You must ensure you’re getting enough sleep at night as well. Usually seven to nine hours is a good target range.

If you can try to get in bed and get this amount of sleep every night, I’m sure you will recover much more efficiently.

Always keep track of your hydration as well and make sure they are eating good vitamin rich foods.

One of my go to when I’m feeling down, is to increase my protein intake.

Research says that when you’re feeling more tired and you’re trying to recover, increasing your protein intake for a day or two can help influence recovery.

I think the most important thing that you can do, in this situation, is to try to relax and reassure yourself that you’re going to be okay, and keep your confidence levels high.

These type of days do come and go, especially when we’re training for heavy periods and longer distances.

I know for sure that when I was training for the marathon, I would have at least two days a week, where it was hard for me to get up out of bed.

However, it was always worth it to get the run in, even if I didn’t feel great because I knew that a day or two later, I was going to be back and feeling fresh again.

I think you should try to find that outlet; try to relax, take deep breaths, reassure yourself, and find somebody to talk to.

If you have a friend or a running buddy, somebody who can share these sorts of experiences with you, I think that’s a great outlet to really reaffirm yourself and to keep your confidence levels high.

I know that nearly every day of the week I’m running with somebody.

If I’m not running with somebody, I talk to somebody about my run just about every day. It’s a part of my life and I’m sure it’s a part of yours as well.

We always love to reflect and it’s good to vocalize these feelings because if you don’t, and you keep them inside, it’s going to keep your stress levels higher.

If we keep raising our stress levels, that’s going to affect our health negatively.

If you can, reach out to your own community, friends or family, and just talk to them about your run.

Ask them how their day is too because I’m sure they’ll appreciate you having interest in their lives as well.

Ryan, just stay in there, man. Things will come around and get better and it’s best to focus on the little things right now.

Make sure you’re eating well, hydrating, recovering and taking it easy for a couple days.

Just relax and find ways in your life that you can put yourself under that stress threshold that we all are carrying right now.

A lot of us are running along that red line and we spike and lose certain aspects of our life that are important to us.

Thanks again for your question Ryan. I think it’s very helpful to many of us.

For those of you who tuned in today and want to have your question answered by one of the runners connect coaches, head over to runnersconnect.net/daily and click the record button to send your question.

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